Thursday, October 30, 2008
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.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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.
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