How Does Chief Bromden Change Throughout The Novel

Narrator; half Indian, half-dozen'3 patient who has been on the ward the longest. Pretends to be deafened and dumb for the majority of his commitment. Hallucinates a thick fog that begins to wane with McMurphy's arrival. He also begins to call back more about his past, in which his Native American family was forced to sell their land to brand way for a hydroelectric dam. He escapes the ward at the novel's end afterwards suffocating a lobotomized McMurphy.

Chief Bromden Quotes in Ane Flew Over the Cuckoo'southward Nest

The One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest quotes below are all either spoken by Chief Bromden or refer to Chief Bromden. For each quote, y'all tin also come across the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this i:

Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine's production, the Chronics. Non in the hospital, these, to become fixed, merely just to continue them from walking around the streets giving the product a bad name. Chronics are in for good, the staff concedes. Chronics are divided into Walkers like me, tin can still get around if yous keep them fed, and Wheelers and Vegetables. What the Chronics are—or nearly of the states—are machines with flaws within that can't exist repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in over so many years of the guy running head-on into solid things that by the time the hospital plant him he was bleeding rust in some vacant lot.

Page Number and Citation: 14-15

Explanation and Analysis:

There's something strange about a place where the men won't permit themselves loose and laugh, something foreign about the way they all knuckle nether to that smiling flour-faced old mother there with the too-carmine lipstick and the also-big boobs. And he thinks he'll only expect a while to see what the story is in this new place earlier he makes whatsoever kind of play. That's a skilful rule for a smart gambler: expect the game over awhile before y'all draw yourself a mitt.

Page Number and Citation: 43

Caption and Assay:

You're making sense, old man, a sense of your own. Yous're not crazy the way they call up.

Page Number and Citation: 117

Caption and Analysis:

If somebody'd of come in and took a look, men watching a blank Television, a fifty-year –old woman hollering and squealing at the dorsum of their heads nearly discipline and order and recriminations, they'd of idea the whole bunch was crazy as loons.

Folio Number and Citation: 126

Caption and Analysis:

They're trying to human action like they still got their eyes on nil merely that blank Television set in front of us, only anyone can see they're all sneaking looks at the Big Nurse backside her glass in that location, just the same as I am. For the first time she's on the other side of the glass and getting a gustation of how it feels to be watched when you wish more anything else to exist able to pull a green shade betwixt your face up and all the eyes that you can't get away from.

Page Number and Citation: 129

Explanation and Assay:

In that location was times that week when I'd hear that total-throttled laugh, lookout man [McMurphy] scratching his belly and stretching and yawning and leaning back to wink at whoever he was joking with, everything coming to him but as natural as drawing breath, and I'd quit worrying about the Big Nurse and the Combine backside her. I'd retrieve he was potent enough being his own self that he would never back down the way she was hoping he would. I'd think, maybe he truly is something extraordinary. He'south what he is, that'southward it. Perchance that makes him stiff enough, existence what he is. The Combine hasn't got to him in all these years; what makes the nurse call up she'south gonna exist able to exercise it in a few weeks? He's not gonna let them twist him and industry him.

Page Number and Citation: 139-140

Explanation and Analysis:

In the group meetings there were gripes coming up that had been buried then long the thing being griped about had already changed. Now that McMurphy was effectually to dorsum them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had e'er happened on the ward they didn't like.

Folio Number and Citation: 144

Explanation and Analysis:

EST isn't always used for punitive measures, as our nurse uses information technology, and it isn't pure sadism on the staff's part, either. A number of supposed Irrecoverables were brought back into contact with shock, only as a number were helped with lobotomy and leucotomy. Shock treatment has some advantages; it's cheap, quick, entirely painless. It simply induces a seizure.

Page Number and Citation: 162

Explanation and Assay:

McMurphy doesn't know it, but he's onto what I realized a long time dorsum, that it's not just the Big Nurse by herself, just it's the whole Combine, the nation-wide Combine that's the actually big force, and the nurse is just a loftier-ranking official for them.

Folio Number and Citation: 164

Explanation and Analysis:

They could sense the alter that nigh of u.s.a. were only suspecting; these weren't the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse that they'd watched take their insults on the dock this morn. They didn't exactly apologize to the girl for the things they'd said, but when they ask to run across a fish she'd caught they were just every bit polite as pie. And when McMurphy and the captain came back out of the bait shop we all shared a beer together before nosotros drove away.

Page Number and Commendation: 218

Caption and Assay:

[Nurse Ratched] knew that people, being like they are, sooner or later are going to draw back a means from somebody who seems to exist giving a little more than ordinary, form Santa Clauses and missionaries and men donating funds to worthy causes, and begin to wonder: what'southward in it for them? Smile out of the side of their mouths when the young lawyer, say, brings a sack of pecans to the kids in his district schoolhouse—just before nominations for state senate, the sly devil—and say to one another, He's nobody'southward fool.

Folio Number and Commendation: 225

Explanation and Analysis:

I withal had my own notions—how McMurphy was a giant come out of the heaven to save u.s. from the Combine that was networking the land with copper wire and crystal, how he was likewise big to exist bothered with something every bit measly as money—but even I came halfway to thinking similar the others. What happened was this: He'd helped carry the tables into the tub room before one of the grouping meetings and was looking at me standing beside the command console.

Folio Number and Citation: 231

Explanation and Analysis:

I tried to talk to [McMurphy] into playing along with [Nurse Ratched] so'south to get out of the treatments, but he just laughed and told me Hell, all they was doin' was chargin' his battery for him, free for nothing.

Folio Number and Citation: 250

Explanation and Analysis:

She tried to get her ward dorsum into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy's presence still tromping upwards and downwardly the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings and singing in the latrines. She couldn't dominion with her old power any more, not by writing things on pieces of paper. She was losing her patients 1 afterward the other. After Harding signed out and was picked upwardly by his married woman, and George transferred to a dissimilar ward, but 3 of u.s. were left out of the group that had been on the line-fishing crew, myself and Martini and Scanlon.

Folio Number and Citation: 277

Caption and Analysis:

I was only certain of i thing: [McMurphy] wouldn't have left something similar that sit down at that place in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Large Nurse could use it as an example of what tin can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.

Page Number and Citation: 278

Caption and Assay:

The big, hard body had a tough grip on life. It fought a long fourth dimension against having it taken abroad, flailing and thrashing around so much I finally had to prevarication full length on top of it and scissor the kicking legs with mine while I mashed the pillow into the face. I lay there on pinnacle of the body for what seemed days. Until the thrashing stopped. Until it was still a while and had shuddered one time and was even so again. Then I rolled off. I lifted the pillow, and in the moonlight I saw the expression hadn't inverse from the blank, dead-finish look the least bit, even nether suffocation. I took my thumbs and pushed the lids downward and held them till they stayed. So I lay back on my bed.

Page Number and Citation: 278

Explanation and Analysis:

I been away a long time.

Folio Number and Commendation: 281

Explanation and Analysis:

Master Bromden Character Timeline in 1 Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The timeline below shows where the character Master Bromden appears in One Flew Over the Cuckoo'southward Nest. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

The book begins with the narrator, Master Bromden, waking up early within the psychiatric ward in Oregon where he has spent the past... (full context)

Nurse Ratched, besides known as the "Big Nurse", enters the ward. Bromden knows information technology's her by the manner the key turns, and cold air follows her inside.... (full context)

Nurse Ratched composes herself. Bromden describes her face as existence precisely made, like a doll, with everything seemingly working except... (full context)

Nurse Ratched proposes that to become a skillful start to Monday the aides should shave Bromden. He apace hides in a mop closet. He tries to think dorsum to where he... (total context)

Bromden promises that the story he is about to tell will fire him like a canis familiaris... (full context)

Bromden wakes in the dayroom as the fog is beginning to clear. He knows he wasn't... (full context)

...one already at the courthouse. The patients can only hear his loud vocalization, which reminds Bromden of his male parent's once booming vox. McMurphy laughs, for no identifiable reason, and Bromden realizes... (total context)

McMurphy scans the room, which Bromden then describes. It's filled with Acutes (curables) and Chronics (vegetables). A logbook is kept by... (full context)

...over. Baton says he supposes it's Dale Harding, the president of the Patient's Council who Bromden notes has effeminate expert looks suited for the silver screen. McMurphy and Harding substitution joking... (full context)

...McMurphy goes effectually the room and shakes all of the Chronics' easily, to everyone's surprise. Bromden is the last 1, and he feels that McMurphy tin tell he'south not deaf and... (full context)

Bromden relates how strictly Nurse Ratched runs her ward. He believes that she's office of a... (total context)

Bromden believes that the psych ward is a factory for the Combine. It'southward purpose is to... (full context)

...democratically where votes are taken by the patients to decide on problems that need solving. Bromden says he's heard these rules a million times. The doctor compares it to a pocket-sized... (full context)

...men are sent past Nurse Ratched for electrotherapy if they don't behave. Harding points to Bromden sweeping in a corner and says that Bromden is now merely a cleaning machine later... (full context)

Bromden believes that Nurse Ratched has the ability to gear up the clock at any speed to... (full context)

...down merely Harding says that'due south the kind of behavior that will get him shock treatment. Bromden, every bit if in a trance, watches McMurphy while he plays blackjack with the patients—winning tremendously,... (full context)

McMurphy is given a bed adjacent to Bromden, and as they are preparing for slumber he talks to Bromden. Bromden doesn't take his... (full context)

That night Bromden suffers from a nightmare/hallucination where the hospital is a slaughterhouse and Old Blastic is attached... (total context)

...confronting policy to requite information technology to him this early, he brushes his teeth with soap. Bromden tries to hide his smile every bit he mops in the same identify he did the... (full context)

...adds pennies to the game to raise the stakes so it'south more than of a run a risk. Bromden notes that McMurphy is making a very witting effort not to lose his temper with... (full context)

Bromden recalls the one-time hospital where at that place was no tv, swimming pools or craven served twice... (full context)

The group meeting begins and Bromden feels the fog starting to thicken in the room, which he believes Nurse Ratched turned... (full context)

McMurphy proposes some other vote about watching the Earth Series, and Bromden watches as all xx Acutes enhance their hands. Nurse Ratched responds that the proposal is... (full context)

...at them for breaking the rules. McMurphy wins his bet about making Ratched lose control. Bromden says anyone looking in would think the whole room was filled with lunatics. (full context)

...aides are watching Nurse Ratched later her outburst while she sits in the nurse's station. Bromden notes that the fog has disappeared. He remembers he'due south supposed to clean the staff room... (full context)

...as he can over the next week. McMurphy hardly cleans the toilets at all, and Bromden notes at that place really wasn't that much cleaning going on by the patients anywhere that week.... (total context)

Bromden feels comforted by McMurphy's ease, and feels every bit though the Combine doesn't have the power... (total context)

...is playing a long con against Nurse Ratched, and that's why he didn't speak up—just Bromden heard him speaking with the lifeguard and knows the truth. Bromden thinks that McMurphy is... (total context)

...and asks if Nurse Ratched is just going to permit him suffer out of spite. Bromden notes that Nurse Ratched knows, like everyone else on the ward knows, that Sefelt refuses... (full context)

...back to the ward across the grounds, McMurphy lags behind the others, smoking a cigarette. Bromden drops dorsum to walk with him, wanting to tell him non to worry. McMurphy asks... (total context)

Nurse Ratched ends the discussion. McMurphy shrugs and stretches every bit he stands up. Bromden says he can see it'southward too late to stop McMurphy from whatever he's going to... (full context)

Bromden wants to sign up but he doesn't have the money and as well doesn't desire to... (full context)

Soon subsequently, Geever, a night adjutant, wakes Bromden and McMurphy as he scrapes off gum from under Bromden's bed. As Bromden pretends to... (total context)

...hateful things that everyone else had said about them, causing an uproar. McMurphy wonders if Bromden is doing the same thing, but Bromden says he's too "piffling" to do something similar... (total context)

McMurphy responds that Bromden is physically huge, but Bromden says he inherited his size from his father, a Main,... (full context)

Bromden feels a sudden warmth towards McMurphy where he wants to touch him just considering he's... (full context)

Before Bromden tin act, McMurphy says Bromden should come up on the line-fishing trip. Bromden says he's bankrupt.... (full context)

...just watches and laughs. The patients await foolish trying to reel in their fish, and Bromden cuts his thumb. McMurphy tin can't stop laughing, and Bromden realizes it's because he knows that... (full context)

...motorcar to look at the halibut he defenseless. But McMurphy stays behind, saying he's tired. Bromden notes that on the fashion back to the ward they had taken a detour at... (full context)

Bromden says he never felt suspicious almost McMurphy until an consequence with the control panel. McMurphy... (full context)

...putrid salve. McMurphy loses his temper and gets into a fistfight with the aides, and Bromden joins in on the fight. At the fight's cease, all of the patients are congratulating... (full context)

Bromden and McMurphy are assigned beds adjacent to each other, but Bromden isn't tied down. He... (total context)

...that "those Chinese Commies could accept learned a few things from you lot, lady." McMurphy and Bromden are sent to the Shock Shop. McMurphy doesn't seem afraid, then Bromden resolves not to... (total context)

...the cross-shaped table without help, and asks if he'll receive a gratuitous "crown of thorns." Bromden watches McMurphy receive handling, and out of instinct tries to escape and struggles confronting the... (full context)

...erstwhile spark in him would return, Nurse Ratched would come up and lodge another round. Bromden tries to talk McMurphy into playing along then they'll stop the treatments, just McMurphy jokes... (full context)

...nearly set to go, just he wants to practise it with all the red record. Bromden says he doesn't know where he wants to go even so. Harding promises McMurphy that the... (full context)

...morn staff gets to the ward. Turkle falls asleep, though, and the aides discover anybody. Bromden says that what happens next was inevitable, whether McMurphy had escaped or not. Fifty-fifty if... (full context)

...Charles Cheswick. She accuses McMurphy of playing God. She heads back to the nurse's station. Bromden watches McMurphy and says he knows that at that place is nada that could have stopped him... (total context)

...George Sorenson transferred. After a few weeks, just 3 of the fishing coiffure were left: Bromden, Martini, and Scanlon (full context)

...reading "Lobotomy." The men don't believe that it'southward him at first; he'due south a consummate vegetable. Bromden was sure that McMurphy would never have his name attached to a torso stored similar... (full context)

Post-obit Scanlon's advice that he should run, Bromden lifts the command console and throws it through the window. He can hear aides running... (full context)