Lit Log Prompt #1 As a reader, having Bromden as a narrator sometimes makes me sometimes think of how I have perceived moments in my past and how my mental state or personal agenda affected how I could retell situations or in this case narrate.

For Bromden, the fog serves as the thing that affects his perception the most, it is something that only he is affected by, but it is something that he truly believes in because his mind is so deluded by it, for a small period of reading I almost believed it may have been real. After all, Bromden is our only source of narration, we soon find out that Bromden is not all there. After all, certain things start not to make sense when he’s explaining them and how no one else experiences the fog, and even further beyond that, we start to understand where this fog comes from. It stems from his trauma during the war of the fog machines that would be used to cover the battlefield during battle, there would be bombings and you would often have to listen for sounds in order to know where you were going, Bromden was clearly damaged from this but in a way where he would use it as a safety ploy when he gets put in a stressful situation he often resorts to it and is consumed by it, it isn’t until McMurphy pulls him out of it that he himself realizes or perhaps acknowledges that he was blinding himself by allowing the fog to consume him because after this he started to speak for himself, a slight feeling I have is that the fog is also something of a metaphor for the big nurses influence or the fear he has of her, even when he’s pulled out of its effects by McMurphy he still wants to rely on it desperately, going as far to say that maybe it wasn’t the best idea allowing him to take him away from it, feeling safer when under its influence.

For Me, I obviously won’t say I’m as traumatized as Bromden or that I’m even traumatized in the first place, however, I can see similarities in how I handle stressful situations to his “fog”, I know myself to be someone who in stressful situations that if I feel like I can’t handle it I just try to remove myself from it at all costs, obviously I can’t make fog appear or imagine it but I say in a similar way I can understand how his perception has become affected because of his past, I feel like he mentally whether consciously or subconsciously, uses or used the fog to hide both his stress while simultaneously stopping himself from being who he wants to be.

My artwork i depicts the dayroom from the story “ one flew over the cuckoo’s” nest by ken Kesey and serves as a visual representation for most of the intricate dynamics the characters present in the story through the i use of symbolism and other visual elements such as color, i texture, and style to convey the diversity along with the connection i they all share with the fog and its effect on their mental as well as the broader perspective on life the book offers.

(link to picture) ———> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g5k9AVycvwIxK0U-57AahXpFaLwvy1q_19Axlmq9pcA/edit?usp=sharing

There are 4 main pieces in this depiction with each one digging deeper into the fundamentals of the psych ward. The first is McMurphy i standing with i an empty emotionless i stare by himself with a hammer and bandaids in hand, a shadow in the shape of a cross and faint wings behind him. The cross represents the parallel between mcmurphy and Jesus the book creates with him coming into the ward, creating a following and eventually sacrificing himself for them on the electric table i which is in the shape of a cross. The wings come from his death and him becoming “the one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest”, the hammer and bandaids represent him fixing the “couch” which brings us to the next i piece which is the sofa from i the dayroom. The sofa is something i that all the patients of the ward share and have in common making it a sort of intersection of similarity for all the patients leading me on to recreate it as all of the psych patients as one. The sofa is worn down and covered in rips and tears from side to i side and is covered in bandaids with empty white eyes going across its back. The 3rd piece. To the right of the sofa is the big nurse holding scissors, and a bubble blower with a dense, dark, foggy shadow beneath her. The last piece is behind the sofa and is of patients of the ward stuck inside their own little bubble world. As these four pieces intertwine a form of visual storytelling emerges inviting viewers to contemplate the meaning of the layered dynamics the psych ward and book have to offer.

Reflection i: After completing this artwork there are a handful of things I would change mostly about Mcmurphy. The main one is using the jesus as the parallel for him, while it does align with his story and the character a much better candidate would be “the sun god nika” or “freedom fighter nika” As you may expect nika is a freedom fighter and shares a bit of similarities with mcmurphy such as even as going as far as to almost directly quote him with the line “when you lose your laugh you lose your footing” Another aspect i would change is instead of bubbles holding in the patients in the background I would instead create a light gray haze effect around them to represent the fog with varying intensity.

Quarantine left us all trapped in our homes and, seeing as there wasn’t much else to do, I spent a large majority of my time consuming all sorts of music, movies, Youtube videos, and TV shows. They became my escape from reality. Even though I was physically in my room, this media took me anywhere, across the country, across the ocean, or even to a whole other world. Bromden is trapped within the confines of the Ward, but he is able to mentally escape to his childhood memories where he was happy. This seems to be a coping mechanism for him, he often retreats to these memories in moments where he is feeling afraid or is experiencing pain. In the very beginning of the novel, Bromden is hiding in the mop closet to avoid getting his face shaved by the black boys, something he is very afraid of. He describes his fear and then thinks, “I try to think back and remember things about the village and the big Columbia River, think about ah one time Papa and I were hunting birds… like always when I try to place my thoughts in the past and hide there, the fear close at hand seeps in through the memory.” (6) He then goes further into this memory of hunting with his father and their dog, before he is caught. Readers can see how his fear coincides with these memories coming up, how he “hides” within the comfort of them. This becomes a pattern throughout the novel, even when he gets his final electroshock treatment, he once again thinks of his childhood in the village, of the people he was once surrounded with. While reading, I found it difficult to relate myself to this book, but this was a point I was able to connect with my own experiences. Escapism is definitely a bad habit of mine, whether it is procrastinating doing my homework or avoiding processing my emotions. Something I have noticed is I spent a lot of my day trying to evade silence, as silence invites my own thoughts. I find it more comforting to drown them out with a movie or music. Like Bromden, I do not want to feel those deep emotions, like fear or sadness, so it is easier to just escape and avoid them.

Something Bromden learns by the end, and something I am currently working on understanding, is that those deep emotions are a necessary part of life. You have to have hard moments to enjoy the good ones. By the end of the novel, his memories are still where he goes after his final electroshock treatment, but he is also able to break free from what was holding him at the Ward. That is why he can finally escape. He wakes up from the treatment and thinks, “it’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No… never again…” (248) He rubs his eyes and clears his head. He gets up, walks to the window and realizes, I “knew this time I had them beat.” (249) This symbolizes the turning point for Bromden, where he realized he couldn’t let fear control his life anymore. He finally forced himself out of the fog, which had been another source of escape for him throughout the book. He realized he didn’t need the fog anymore and he could stand up for himself. This leads to his eventual escape from the Ward, the very thing that was controlling and confining him. Although I have been out of quarantine for over two years, I still find myself using movies and TV shows as a way to avoid my problems. Facing things head on is scary, but it’s exactly what is needed to overcome them. This idea is something I have known for a while, but have been lacking at putting into practice. Bromden’s bravery to escape his fear, the fog, and the Ward as a whole showed me that avoidance only leads to more harm done. It doesn’t mean the problems will simply vanish, it likely means they will grow bigger and more unmanageable.

My artwork takes place during the staff meeting at the ward. The staff are all giving their opinions on how to deal with McMurphy’s actions with the TV incident. Most of the doctors and nurses decided that they should move Murphy to the “disturbed” group. One staff member, Alvin, did not agree. He was met with instant backlash from his colleagues. “Here he comes, all two hundred and ten red-headed psychopathic irishman poids of him, right across the interviewing table at you.” (135) They provide the hypothetical scenario I have chosen to depict in the artwork to attempt to scare him into changing his views.

The significance of this scene is its impact on the rest of the staff members, especially Alvin. He says “I’m afraid i’ll have to withdraw my suggestion… if only for my own protection” (135) This scenario he poses is completely theoretical. McMurphy physically had not attacked anyone in the ward. He hasn’t punched any staff in the ward. Yet this theoretical scenario is believed to be true and destined to happen to everyone in the meeting. It preys on people’s natural thoughts of self preservation. This is something people do in real life. They provide scenarios that aren’t real and haven’t happened yet which changes people’s actions and opinions. This is a manipulation technique, and as it is helpful to be aware of theoretical scenarios that could come to pass, people should live in the moment .

I wanted my artwork to portray that it is all a theoretical scenario. One way I’ve seen this achieved is through comic books and thought bubbles. This drove me to go with the animated comic book style. The cloud around the image is supposed to represent the thought bubble, the way the whole scene is inside the peoples heads. To add onto the economic book style I added the “POW” for a more dramatic punching effect. To keep the image as accurate to the book as possible I gave McMurphy a large build and curly hair.

“I wouldn’t do it on my own, Just by the way the nurse is taring at me with her mouth empty of words i can see i’m in for trouble, but I cant stop it. Mcmurphys got hidden wires hooked to itm lifting it slow just to get me out of the fog and into the open where i’m fair game, Hes doint itm wires..” In this scene the reader can see how well Kesey used imagery well with their description of how Bromdon felt, I feel like it puts is in his mind for a second. Though not totally clear, we can tell that Bromdon had raised his hand on his own, but he claims to be under the influence of McMurphy. He says that he pulled him out of the smoke out into the open so it’s fair game which could be a reference to his time in service. After the smoke hides you and keeps you safe, you are out in the open where it’s fair game of life and death. This could be what Kesey Meant. My drawing captures that moment mentally of McMurphy pulling Bromdon out of the smoke with wires attached. Although it isn’t what is happening, I have a theory that Bromdon has Psychosis and is hallucinating their whole life he has. If that theory is true then this hallucination could be connected to the way he sees the staff such as Big Nurse and how she changes shape and morphs into monsters, as well as the smoke that we now know is a trauma response safety thing he has gained from serving. As we read on in the book we are hit with the question of’ if McMurphy even has a mental illness or is he just a conman?’ As the reader sees this, this could raise suspicion of whether what he did in this scene benefited Bromdon or not in general. We can connect with Bromdon because were seeing from his view but we also can connect Bromdon to the handmaid’s tale where we didn’t have a reliable narrator thanks to past traumas. If that’s the case here then what if this mental hospital isn’t the place that Bromdon works but where he is admitted? And the fog is just a hallucinogenic side effect from his medicine due to his psychosis? In addition, if McMurphy is a Conman, then what is his goal, and why does this scene seem to be good for Bromdon but somehow make things worse for him? Past this scene, we see how Big Nurse eyes him down because she wonders how he heard McMurphy and then refers to himself as a “fool Indian” to seem less intriguing than the issue starter, Bromdon. What does this scene of freedom for Bromdon Mean? Is the main question that is the idea behind this drawing

The narrator in this book makes it hard for the reader to believe or understand what he describes, but his perspective of things also made me realize how common it is for people to see the world in completely different ways, which can be hard for others to understand. In Bromden’s case it makes him look delusional and unstable, but I also see why he has such a unique take in life. Bromden’s perception of things and how the world functions is way more complicated than how the average person sees the world, but in his delusions of machinery, I noticed how similar it is to how other people see the world. The machinery aspect is very specific to Bromden because it’s connected to his past and the sort of things he was surrounded by, which is why it makes sense that he sees the world with connections to machines and mechanisms. Being in a ward separated from the world and separated from everything Bromden knew before, I can very easily understand how you start trying to make connections to things you already know and understand, which for Bromden it is machines. One example of this is when he’s describing the Big Nurse, which very frequently includes connections to machines. At the beginning of the book, Bromden describes her as a “tractor” when she’s talking angrily to the black boys. He says, “she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists,..she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside…”(28). Further into the book he then describes her voice as an “electric saw ripping through pine.”(125). He knows how these machines and sounds make him feel, and it makes sense he uses past feelings or memories he knows and recognizes to describe other things, like the big Nurse. It also helps the reader get a closer look into his feelings towards the Big Nurse, which all seem to be negative. He also sees the whole ward as this machine filled with wires and other electrical things. Sometimes his descriptions of machines are a lot more vivid and dramatic, like in page 76 when he was talking about the hospital at night, which we then found out was a dream. “Not a sound across the hospital - except for a dull, padded rumbling somewhere deep in the guts of the building, a sound that I never noticed before-a lot like the sound you hear when you’re standing late at night on top of a big hydroelectric dam.” (76). He sees the ward as this machine that is organized and controlled, which at first I thought made him an unreliable narrator, but he uses these references to express how he feels about things.

Bromden’s perception of the world and his surroundings is very specific to his character, but I still see a connection between how he chooses to view the world and how me and the people I know choose to see the world. I have a couple friends who do wrestling and even outside of a wrestling environment, they’re always talking about wrestling and making references to wrestling even if no one understands them, which reminds me a little of how Bromden talks about machines. I also noticed something similar with my dad. He loves to mountain bike and when we’re walking around in any setting he talks about how a specific spot could be good for a jump, how he imagines himself biking while we’re walking. People are always making connections to things they do or like to do. Bromden’s on a different level because he uses these connections to machines as one of the only ways he expresses his emotions and feelings towards things, but regardless, I think his machine references are normal because that’s who he really is. He sees the world through his own, unique lens as well as everyone else. People, who have found their passions or a strong connection to something, see the world in their own way. I don’t think my perception of the world is so specific to one thing. I don’t find myself using references to a very specific thing I like and I think that’s because I haven’t found something I’m too passionate about like some of the people I know.

It was during the football season when I and the coach disagreed on a certain play during the game. I wanted to modify up the play because the offense had a fresh set up that appeared different to me. The coach had called a timeout and told us which plays to run. However, I had provided some comments because I stated that my play would work for this specific team.

Prior to this time, none of the plays she had called had worked. I sucked it up and just did what I was told, informing the rest of the team, and we ran the unsuccessful play, and the team scored a touchdown. I left the field frustrated, but confident that we could perform better. it is, until I heard the instructor say, “If y’all had spread out more, that wouldn’t have happened.”

She had blamed what had happened on us, and I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “I told you sh*t wasn’t going to work, but I still did as I was told!” I should have just followed my instincts.” At that moment, I realized I’d made a mistake. I apologized for the way I addressed her, but I wasn’t sorry for what I said since I was correct. The coaches then had a discussion regarding me, indicating that what I did was disrespectful, but that I wasn’t wrong and that my delivery was just off.But she told one of the head coaches that he had created a monster in her image of me.

McMurphy in the book wanted to watch the baseball World Series game on television and would not accept no for an answer. He went around the ward asking other patients for their thoughts on this, but he didn’t have much influence because they were all afraid of big nurse. Until the last vote, when he inevitably won the majority. Later, the big nurse stated they couldn’t watch it and had to do their chores instead. McMurphy was enraged, “he’s coming across the day room at us.” He becomes bigger and bigger, and his face turns bright red. He reaches into the fog to drag Ruckly to the surface-“

They faced the big nurse one by one, sitting in front of a blank screen and ignoring her yells. “You realize you’ve made a commitment. You are… the staff… under my leadership. Harding shuts off the buffer, leaves it in the hallway, and goes to collect him. A seat near McMurphy.” McMurphy was a threat to her power, therefore she intended to send him to another ward. His mere presence threatens her “perfect” system.

The difference between the two circumstances is that I and McMurphy had been told to do something, but we did the opposite and believed it was the correct thing to do. I approached the coach because I was tired of obtaining the same results. McMurphy confronted the big nurse because he was fed up with the way she treated patients there. As a result, I believe our situations differ in that aspect, but they are identical in terms of taking control of the issue. And bringing people together to strive for a similar objective, whether it was winning the game in my instance or watching the World Series in his.

I believe that the most they were feeling was probably humiliation, which is why they behaved in that manner; they were embarrassed by the fact that they were challenged in front of others and didn’t know how to respond. So they responded in the only way they knew how: by yelling. This experience really affected me in the sense that I now check my tone before speaking to someone. Because what I’m trying to say to someone is definitely not bad, but it’s just the way it comes out. So, after learning from her and how I communicated to her, I made the necessary changes.

What I think that McMurphy had learned was the fact that he can stand up for what he wants as he had already been doing. But he had also inspired others to do the same… they were scared to go up against a big nurse originally but had learned that if they stick together they’ll be ok. That’s why they think he is such a threat because he threatens to unravel everything that they built. He is bringing people out of the fog and they threaten to move him to keep him quiet but that only just makes the situation worse.

Pages 120-123

The last day of the World Series. Imma bring up a vote again. I swear these rules will be the death of me.

“So remember that vote we had a day or so back — about the TV time? Well, today’s Friday and I thought I might just bring it up again, just to see if anybody else has picked up a little guts.”

The Big Nurse speaks to the group with a monotone voice and a smile on her face, as she always does. “Mr. McMurphy, the purpose of this meeting is therapy, group therapy, and I’m not certain these petty grievances —” Group therapy? More like group torture.

“Yeah, yeah, the hell with that, we’ve heard it before. Me and some of the rest of the guys decided —”

The damn nurse interrupts me, her voice a tad bit more annoyed.

“One moment, Mr. McMurphy, let me pose a question to the group: do any of you feel that Mr. McMurphy is perhaps imposing his personal desires on some of you too much? I’ve been thinking you might be happier if he were moved to a different ward.”

Damn. I’ve been here for less than a week and they already want to get rid of me? Is it so wrong to speak my fucking mind here?

Then I hear, “Let him vote, why dontcha? Why ya want to ship him to Disturbed just for bringing up a vote? What’s so wrong with changing time?”

Finally, someone has some sense.

There is nothing wrong with starting a vote.

What is so wrong with changing the fucking time?

Wait, what is Disturbed?

“Why, Mr. Scanlon, as I recall, you refused to eat for three days until we allowed you to turn the set on at six instead of six-thirty.” The Nurse responds. Ah, the time has been changed before, so it can be done again.

I tap out for a minute. The Big Nurse and the Scanlon guy are talking, but who the hell knows what they’re talking about?

At last, I hear, “A vote is now before the group. Will a show of hands be adequate, Mr. McMurphy, or are you going to insist on a secret ballot?” What a pain in the ass. I don’t want no fucking secret ballot.

“I want to see the hands. I want to see the hands that don’t go up too.” C’mon people, wake up.

“Everyone in favor of changing the television time to the afternoon, raise his hand.” As soon as the Nurse finishes her sentence, I shoot my hand up, and watch the rest of the Acutes raise theirs. The room is tense. Everyone, the patients and the staff, are stunned. The nurse is carefully watching everyone, counting the votes.

“I count only twenty, Mr. McMurphy.” She says, her face calm, but I sense smugness.

“Twenty? Well, why not? Twenty is all of us there—” I stop. There aren’t twenty of us. There’s forty of us. It’s a fucking tie!

“Now hold on just a goddamned minute, lady—” I say, as calmly as possible, my fists opening and closing.

I don’t remember what happens next. My heart is pounding in my ears and my face and neck are hot with fury.

I stand up.

“Wait! Wait a minute, let me talk to those old guys.”

I hear the nurse say something, but at this point, her voice sounds like the soft squeak of a mouse. I walk towards some random ass Chronic and ask him, “What about you buddy? You want to watch the World Series? Baseball? Baseball games? Just raise that hand up there—” Man interrupts me, saying, “Ffffffffuck da wife.”

Asking him is useless. Asking all of these Chronics is fucking useless. Why can’t they see that we just need one more vote to give us the upper hand? Wait. I missed someone.

“Chief, you’re our last bet.”

I hear the creak of the chairs as the nurses and doctors stand up, but I’m watching Chief, feeling all the eyes on me and him as everyone pauses in anticipation.

Finally, after a beat, his hand slowly lifts up. Chief did it. He fucking did it.

“Twenty-one! The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one! And by god if that ain’t majority I’ll eat my hat!” I’m shaking with excitement. I hear someone else say, “Yippee.”

“The meeting was closed.” The nurse says, her smile still there. But everyone can tell she’s about to explode with fury.

STYLISTIC CHOICES:

I chose to narrate McMurphy because he is arrogant, manipulative, and rebellious. Unlike the current narrator, Bromden, who is more of a bystander and gets all of his information objectively, but McMurphy is in the center of the events happening in the ward. He notices the oppression and decides to do something about it. Written from McMurphy’s perspective, what he was thinking and saying would be a lot more colorful and interesting for the reader. In this narrative, I tried to imitate his emotions and behaviors as best as I could by incorporating dialogue from the book and using that as a springboard for the narrative.

Throughout the story, the author Ken Kessy, through Bromden’s extraordinary detailed narrative descriptions, emphasizes the communicative power of the character McMurphy. For instance, the identity of McMurphy’s speech is presented and analyzed under absolute and aggressive values. By doing so, it’s clear that with the way he’s communicating, he’s able to describe his ideas so fundamentally that his ideology is portrayed clearly for anyone that wishes to understand and follow him. Saying something bizarre in the beginning, almost comically, then changing the dynamic swiftly into a moment of explanation, guiding the reader to view him positively. This way of expressing himself expands further from McMurphy himself, and onto the political leaders of today.

First, it is important to identify the sections of the story that emphasize this type of communication by McMurphy. One such section, a memorable one at that, occurs during McMurphy and Harding’s feud between their views of the Big Nurse, happening after the group therapy ‘pecking party.’ (51) on Chapter 5 where McMurphy would describe the Big Nurse as a ‘ball-cutter.’ (53) This was an incredibly odd response, puzzling both the readers and Harding. It seemed to be irrelevant to the argument at hand, but then McMurphy would go on to explain it: “…people who try to make you weak… And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin’ you where it hurts the worst.” (54) This explanation transitions that irrelevancy to relevance, allowing the readers, me included, to view the original bizarre statement as a comical solution to Harding’s inability to express how he really felt about the Big Nurse. And, considering that this is a ward with a majority, if not primarily, men, it makes his message that much clearer to the people of the ward.

Furthermore, by Chapter 6, as McMurphy’s character becomes more known to the narrator Bromden, Bromden would then characterize McMurphy to a ‘bull’ when it comes to his unwillingness to succumb to the Big Nurses measures of control, especially with the idea of fog: “(They haven’t really fogged the place full force all day today, not since McMurphy came in. I bet he’d yell like a bull if they fogged it.)” (69) This bull-like way of confronting problems, never falling back on his words, makes characters like Cheswick fall head over heels for him. Following his every idea whether it be to use the space of the therapeutic discussion area for a different purpose or to add baseball to the TV channel. And, it’s not only Cheswick, his clear following would be clear during the voting results of whether or not the ward should add baseball to the TV channel.

During Chapter 15, McMurphy was able to bring over twenty votes out of forty patients to plead his case of baseball. And, apparently, there happened to be a rule stating that to change a ward policy, you need a majority vote. Since, it wasn’t necessarily a majority, but a half and half, it would be Bromden who would go on to shift the scale in McMurphy’s favor. At first, Bromden was convinced that McMurphy made him raise his hand for a vote forcefully, but soon, he would push aside that thought, claiming the following: “No. That’s not the truth. I lifted it myself.” (123) With all that being said, even though McMurphy expresses his thoughts in a, at first glance, seemingly provocative and negative way, he is still able to bring so many people together, and to his side, much like our politicians today.

A primary example of such a politician is Donald Trump, our 45th president. Our 45th president has an extensive list of quotes that are outrageous, but it’s also true to mention that these quotes may have raised awareness for the individuals included in such outrageous claims. For instance, when it comes to instances of racism, he said the following on a telephone interview with Fox and Friends: “…I am the least racist,…” [1] Sure, he may be the least racist, racist person. Since when it comes to racism nowadays, those who hide their intentions through a false mask. Those who hide their racism through innocence and act as if they are not what they are, are in fact more racist. In addition to that, when it comes to the issue of the border, and trying to ‘build a wall,’ it provided awareness for people who were illegal immigrants. I managed to hear a lot of stories during the event of such a controversial message. So, when it comes to Trump’s relation with McMurphy, they’re both very strict in their messages, talking with absolute and aggressive terms. One more agreeable than the other, of course, but they are able to garner support through such provocative language.

However, there is a reason all of this works so well. People use such provocative language to set a trap. It’s to get a reaction they know you’ll have, and then they take you on a journey to tell you that the reaction you had was wrong, and you should have a different reaction. That’s how I felt as I read the whole book. I originally thought that McMurphy would come out as an enormously unagreeable character who had nothing but evil in his every action, but that was not true. And, it was also true that I fell in the trap of thinking that, so that once that was not true, my immediate reaction was to view him positively. So, in that regard, by reading this book, although it may be a bit overthinking on my part, I’ve learned to be more aware of those intentions, especially when it comes to putting my hands into future political atmosphere’s as I come of age.

[1] - Gass, Nick. “The 15 Most Offensive Things That Have Come out of Trump’s Mouth.” POLITICO, POLITICO, 9 Dec. 2015, www.politico.eu/article/15-most-offensive-things-trump-campaign-feminism-migration-racism/.

Let me tell you a story about my first con. Yessir, it was a real doozy. It all started in high school when I played the game “King of Mao.” Whoo-me when I tell ya this was one for the books. I even put money on the line, “If you win, you can have my lunch money, but if I win, I get your lunch money.” It was a deal! Chi’chingg, the sound of money in my head. I knew I was going to win this game. I handed them all six cards; there were four of us. I was the dealer of the game, of course, so that meant that I made the rules as we went along. These bozos had no idea that I was about to con them. The rest of the deck was put in the middle of the table, and one card was put face up on the table. I started. The first card that was on the table was 8 of hearts, so I slapped my damn 8 of hearts right on top. Next was Bobbie’s turn; he fiddled with his cards. Come’on, damnn, he taking forever; this must mean his ass don’t have anything. He has the worst goddamn poker face. He yells goddamit, I pull a card from the stack on the table and hand it to him. You’re not supposed to speak during the game. I say to myself, I got one fool so far! Then Max was next. I let him place his 8 of diamonds, and I didn’t give him an extra card; I decided to let him slide this time. Now it’s time for Daniel to go, and he puts down a raggedy 3 of diamonds. I could tell he was excited that he had a card. So I decided to ruin that excitement by waiting until he put down his card. I looked at him with an expression that suggested that he forgot to say something, and he didn’t say it, so I gave him an extra card. He thought he was off the hook because he had a card! You thought wrong, buddy. “Hey, why are you giving me this?” he says. Because you didn’t say have a good day to me. What, since when was that a rule, he said? But I didn’t answer him, and he’s a fool, I said in the back of my head with a smirk on my face. Now it’s my turn again, and I slammed down my 5 of diamonds. Then, there’s a pause in the game. We are all waiting for Bobbie to go, so I give him another card; the hell with that; he tak’in all day like we got that type of time. “I’m not taking that card,” he said; ohh, you sure as hell will. You took too damn long to go when it was your turn. “Okay, I see how this game will play out,” Bobbie says. Thirty minutes had passed, and only one card was left on the table from the extra card pile. Now it’s Daniel’s turn. As he goes to put down his card, my hand is up, holding that last card on the table. With a devious smile on my face, I gave him the last card. He didn’t even question why he just accepted the fact that he just lost. I told them to count their cards, and Max had the most, so I told him that he lost the game. Time for ya to pay up, Booyah. I took all his money. The true con always wins, and that’s just the way it is. Well, well, well, this was my first con, and when I tell ya, it felt Goddamn good, it felt Godddamn good!

Artist Statement: When choosing to write from the point of view of McMurphy, I wanted to show all his Greed, manipulative ways, and competitiveness. These attributes stuck out to me and intrigued me to explore more closely. Throughout the book, he speaks very passionately, uses a lot of profanity, thinks that everything is a competition and needs a vote, is cocky, playful, and wants to win at everything. What better way to show all of his traits than him being a mastered con man? This also further adds a significant part of the book: characterization and how different characters appear to the readers. His specific talking style and background appeal to readers and help create a dynamic tone to his story. The specific moment from the book I wanted to build on was on page 72 when McMurphy states, “The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he’s getting it.” Furthermore, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to explore his character further and find ways to extend that outside the book. Being a dynamic character includes many aspects of culture and language, which I wanted to utilize in writing this scene.