Safe back in the fog

On page 123 we notice how chief retreats back into the fog for safety. Chief has come to the realization that the fog enables safety. He explains how McMurphy will never be able to understand the fog and the patients' desire to be safe. This passage truely shows that the fog is the metaphorical hallucination that reflects the continuous motif of Hiding and Invisibility. Chief is unable to see anything that night and because he is blind to things around him. Those around him, as well as him, accept the fog for safety. Chief then seems to spitefully say, "He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we'd be easy to get at." resenting the fact that he tries to push towards a defiance of Nurse Ratched.

On pages 124-125 Chief goes on a huge rant explaining how back when he was in the army they would fog the airfields when he was in Europe. He uses this as a metaphor similar to the metaphor of the bird hiding in the tree. Chief explains why they used the fog machines in Europe in the army; "We had a whole platoon used to operate fog machines around airfields overseas. Whenever intelligence figured there might be a bombing attack, or if the generals had some secret they wanted to pull-- out of sight, hid so good that even the pies on the base couldnt see what went on-- they fogged the field." Chief uses this as a metaphor for his fog hallucinations that he experiences on the ward. Whenever he feels threatened or nervous or stressed he will have this fog hallucination to try to cover it up and to escape and avoid the threat. He will also do it so that people on the ward, usually big nurse cant see what he is doing. I think it was interesting that Chief reveals the meaning behind his fog hallucinations in this way. He also has the delusion that the ward bought a fog machine from the Army Surplus and installed it in the vents which is obviously not true.

Fear of Nurse Ratched

During the scene where there all in group therapy and McMurphy is urging all the patients to raise there hands in favor of watching world series. When Chief says "Nobody says a thing. There all sunk back out of sight in little pockets of fog. I can barely see them" (114). This comes to show that the patients are trying to act invisible, and were afraid of what Nurse Ratched was going to do with them if they were going to agree with McMurphy. When chief says "there all sunk back out of sight of Nurse Ratched." There fear of Nurse Ratched hides there true feelings of what they desire about the television viewing. There hidden feelings are that they want to side with McMuphy but are too afraid of Nurse Ratched.

Chiefs Death Dream-FROM CONNELL

"Old Rawler. Cut both nuts off and bled to death, sitting right on the can in the latrine, half a dozen people in there with him didnt know it till he fell off the floor, dead. What makes people so impatient is what i cant figure, all the guy had to do was wait" (124). Chief is saying there was no reason for Rawler to kill himself, the ward will eventually kill you. Chief is hiding from his true personality because in the passage before he was thinking about being outdoors, in the nature the picture presented to him. He won't admit the fact that he wants to get out of the ward before he dies.

All Together Now

On page 128, during a particularly strange meeting in which Billy Bibbit's stutter is being discussed, Chief says, "Then the talking fades out altogether; I never knew that to happen before. Maybe Billy's hid himself in the fog too. Maybe all the guys finally and forever crowded back into the fog," (128). Chief has always been able to be extremely observant because of his feigning "deafness", and now, with so many unusual things going on in the ward, he uses his ability to note the behavior of the other patients. Just like he is, the patients are nervous while they anticipate the wrath of Nurse Ratched. They all sense something may happen between McMurphy and Ratched this day, so they take special precautions to "hide" themselves. Usually, the men would be accusing Bibbit of things in order to keep attention on him, but no one is saying anything at all. Chief explains this a little later by saying, "I can't do nothing for you, Billy. You got to understand that as soon as a man goes to help somebody, he leaves himself wide open," (131). No one will stand up for Billy because they don't want to chance that the attention will turn to them. As of now, Nurse Ratched's rage is targeted at McMurphy, and the patients would like to keep it that way. So they hide. The enclose themselves in Chief's fog and wait for something to happen.

On page 123, Chief says, "Nobody complains about all the fog. I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. That's what McMurphy can't understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we'd be easy to get at." I think this shows that while Chief, as well as the other patients, like McMurphy, they're are scared of him. Chief in particular becomes worried that McMurphy will "drag" him out of the fog. There are two aspect of this idea: He is worried that McMurphy will psychologically not allow him to hide behind the fog anymore. Chief likes the fog because it makes him not have to acknowledge what his life is actually like. I think the second reason why Chief in particular is somewhat afriad of McMurphy is that McMurphy is the only one who know's Chief isn't deaf. He could be worried that McMurphy would reveal this fact and the exposure would, one again, drag him out of the fog. Chief is able to resort back to the fog because people think he's deaf and dumb when in reality he's anything but. Exposing his secret would make him entirely vulnerable to not only McMurphy but the staff and other patients.

Just as McMurphy seems to be making significant progress, Bromden starts to remember that the ward is powerful and so is Ratched. McMurphy tries to pull the patients out of the fog by letting them have opinions and personality (fun i.e.; carnival, laughing) but Bromden remembers that no one can beat the Nurse or the combine. Once Bromden starts to think about the power the ward and Racthed have over him the fog comes back. “The more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in”(97, your 102ish). Right when Bromden is on the brink of thinking that he might have a tiny bit of freedom, the haze of fog that blinds him and covers up his character comes again. I think he is scared of what freedom will bring. He constantly talks about the fog being safe. For instance, “And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it and can let go, and be safe again”(97). Bromden can “let go” meaning t\let the ward think for him. He is just a little piece of metal in their machine and controls his every thought and action. He feels safe in his position in life because he knows what to expect and doesn’t have to think for himself. However, freedom scares him because he’ll have to make decisions and have his own thoughts.

Taking the red pill?

I think the motif of hiding is shown directly when Chief Bromden decides not to take the red pill. As an experienced member of the ward, Chief knows the effects of this red pill as he puts it, "...you don't just go to sleep; you're paralyzed with sleep, and all night long you can't wake, no matter what goes on around you." (82) While choosing not to take the pill, Chief is alone among the rest of the ward patients who are paralyzed by the pill. As the staff make their rounds to the patients, Chief hides his alertnes and makes sure he doesn't wake up to them "performing all kinds of horrible crimes" as they do to the patients around them.

I want to acknowledge Bromden's dream because I think it is extremely telling. Although it is clearly a nightmare in combination with his hallucinations and paranoia, if we can sift through the craziness, it tells the reader alot about his own feelings and the combine. Bromden is showing slight sign of emerging out of the fog by not taking his medicine for the first time in years. Also, the entire dream he relates the ward and everything in it to machinery---the hospital is a mechanical slaughterhouse. Throughout the dream he talks about the fog protecting him from being seen and he says, "I hope [McMurphy] knows enough to hide in the fog" (75...your 70ish). Bromden clearly likes McMurphy and wants him to be safe. What he has not put together yet is that McMurphy is not afraid of the ward or the people. But the most important part of the dream is when he suddenly feels exposed and vulnerable. While the reason behind his fears seems to be castration anxiety, he feels McMurphy pulling him and the other patients out of the fog where they will be "easy to get at". he feels vulnerable to the staff and due to his hallucinations, he feels vulnerable to the machine and the combine. In the dream he thinks the ward is a slaughterhouse. While the slaughterhouse murders humans, the ward murders humanity.

In response to Francesca's "Fog" post, I completely agree. The fog is used to cover up the patients character. For instance, when McMurphy is singing in the bathroom people are absolutely shocked! "Singing! Everybody's thunderstruck. They haven't heard such a thing in years, not on this ward"(78). (probably your page 73ish). Bromden then goes on to say that the black boys treat McMurphy differently because he is not fearful of them. This goes into the power of laughter etc. But getting back to how it relates to teh fog and invisibility, McMurphy is slowly pulling the patients out of the fog. He getting them to have opinions and vote in meetings. Thus, he is figuritively, and literally pulling the patients out of the fog that the ward has covered them with.

Hiding behind the Broom

It is also shown when Chief hides himself from other people, particularly McMurphy when he says " And I leaned over and go to mopping with my back to him so he won't see me grin. I feel good, seeing McMurphy get that black boy's goat like not many men could" (91). I feel that this expresses how Chief feels about McMurphy and that he is afraid to show him that he likes McMurphy and that he's happy with him. In this passage he is physically hiding behind his broom but metaphorically he is hiding his true feelings for McMurphy.

FOG

On page 75 there is a quote that describes the environment of the ward and in this quote the "fog" is used to represent there hidden pasts, personalities and feelings. This is shown when chief says "it's lost in the fog, like everything else." The fog is what covers everything up. The nurses in this ward just talk down to them and don't recognize that they are still human beings that have character. The "fog" is covering there hidden self.

Hiding through Hallucinations

Maybe Chief uses his hallucinations as something to hide behind. on page 86 and 87 Chief says, "Right and left there are other things happening just as bad - crazy, horrible things too goofy and outlandish to cry about and too much true to laugh about - but the fog is getting thick enough I don't have to watch." In a way, he is using the mental hallucinations as a crutch to hide from the terrible reality of the mental ward. By living in a "fog" or fantasy world, he doesn't have to acknowledge the atrocities he witnesses every day.

Shock Treatments = Invisibility?

On page 67 when Harding is explaining Electro Shock Therapy, he makes an example of the Chief's experience. Harding says, "The Chief recieved more than two hundred shock treatments... There's your Vanishing American, a six-foot-eight sweeping machine, scared of its own shadow. That, my friend, is what we can be threatened with." This made me wonder: maybe Nurse Ratched uses methods such as Electro Shock Therapy to make the patients more invisible than they already are. Maybe the institution as a whole is to keep the the patients and their problems "invisible" to the outside world. By forcing the men to endure this kind of traumatic treatment, Nurse Ratched is asserting her power and making the patients feel inferior. It's almost as if their confidence has gone into hiding, which also relates to Harding's rabbit theory. "The rabbit becomes frightened and hides when the wolf is about," (62). The wolf represents the Nurse, and her methods of "treatment" for the patients scare them in to keeping quiet and submissive, almost completely invisible.

The bird hiding in scrub cedar

Chief describes a flashback of him hunting with his father and their pointer dog that they borrowed. The pointer dog starts running around in circles under the tree trying to sniff out the bid. He says, "the bird safe as long as he keeps still. He's holding out pretty good, but the dog keeps sniffing and circling, louder and closer. Then the bird breaks, feathers springing, jumps out of the cedar into the birdshot from Papa's gun." Chief is using the bird as a metaphor for himself and the pointer dog represents the black boys that Big Nurse tells to get Chief and shave him. Chief hides like the bird was hiding and the black boys are "smelling" and "hunting" for him while he is hiding in the mop closet.

Chief's Escape from Shaving

Chief displays the reoccurring motif of hiding and invisibility as he quickly evades the black boys and shaving. This motif essentially represents him throughout the entire book. I think his "act" of seeming deaf and dumb cloaks him with invisibility and enables him to analyze those around him and escape from the horrors he sees throughout the ward. "Before anybody can turn to look for me I duck back in the mop closet, jerk the door shut after me, hold my breath... When you got something under your belt you're stronger and more wide awake, and the bastards who work for the Combine aren't so apt to slip one of their machines in on you in place of an electric shaver." On page 6 we see that he escapes from the black boys preparing to give him a shave. The rest of the paragraph explains how he would much rather shave in the early morning and not have to worry about shadows where the machines would emerge. Chief hides from both the black boys and the shadows in order to escape from the machines.

Hiding and Invisiblity Post #1

Fog clouds our vision. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest I think that fog represents the lack of vision the characters possess. Whether it be medically induced or out of hallucinations, Bromden uses the fog to protect himself. Thus far, Bromden uses fog to cloud others people's vision so they cannot see him. However, he thinks that the fog is staff induced.The fog usually occurs when Bromden is afraid. For instance, the first time we see the fog is on page 7 (my page 7...probably your page 8/9) when they force Bromden into the shaving room. He clearly does not want to go and is fearful. He then states, "They start the fog machine again and it's snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk, so thick I might even be able to hide in it if they didn't have a hold on me...They hold me down while she jams wicker bag and all into my mouth and shoves it down with a mop handle" (7). The above lines are pretty forceful and seem painful for Bromden. Bromden uses the hallucination of the fog as a safe place when he is scared. Part of his disorder is to want to seclude himself from society, and he uses the fog as an agent to do so. Additionally, the last line in the same paragraph says, "It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen"(7). Although Bromden uses the fog for himself, I think he might use the fog as a metaphor for the impaired vision of people in the ward. The staff and even the patients are told what is true and cannot debate (ex: Mr. Taber). He says that they are told what the truth is even if it didn't happen. Every ones vision in the ward is foggy.