Chief Bromden In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Throughout the novel the readers gain ample information regarding Chief Bromden’s past that offered them insight into his present. Although this information was surrounded by psychotic monologues and random thoughts, the author still did a great job with granting readers access into the mind and past of Bromden. For example, Kesey reveals the reasoning behind Bromden’s “deaf and dumb” facade. Bromden explained that when he was a young child a group of naive, eastern, white people came to his home wanting to talk to his father about purchasing their land to turn into a dam. They said several ignorant and politically incorrect things about the Indian people right in front of him and acted as if he was not even there. They insult Bromden by …show more content…
According to Kesey, it is not the patients on the ward that are insane, but rather the flawed asylums themselves that are insane. The patients have to live under unfathomable conditions and are forced to participate in cruel and unfair ‘therapeutic’ activities. Kesey makes it clear to the reader that most of the patients don’t suffer from actual psychotic ailments. For example, Harding was put in the ward for his sexual orientation. McMurphy is in the ward because he got bored of the work farm. There are; however, a select group of patients that actually belong in the ward, but they are treated poorly and do not receive the appropriate therapy, treatment, and care that they are entitled to. All of the authority figures on the ward pay more attention to shaming and reprimanding the patients than trying to help them get better. They claim that the people on the ward are there “because of [their] proven inability to adjust to society,” but they do not attempt to transform the men into functional members of society like they are supposed to (Kesey 129). After spending a brief period of time on the ward, McMurphy notices, “[the patients] ain't crazy that way…[they’re] not any crazier than the average asshole on the street” (Kesey 63). The men themselves are surprisingly responsible and self aware and deserve far better treatment than what they are
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