Questions and Answers of Chief Bromden

Starting 8th grade football, being one of the older kids, felt awesome. I knew I had advantage over most of the kids on the team. My job being one of the older one’s was to teach the younger ones their place. It was the first day of practice I was really excited to be playing the sports again. I was confident that I would be the running back because I played that position

First off, the hospitals are no longer referred to as insane asylums, they are referred to as mental hospitals, rehab, and so on. The daily schedule in hospitals today is very similar to the hospitals in the 1920’s. The day starts with a wake up call then seven o’clock breakfast is served (O’Brien). Both then and now hospitals had outburst in patients. A patient may screem when not agree with the doctors, grabbing others attention, or a patient might react rationally.

Hospitals are meant to help some people heal physically and others mentally. In the novel One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey published in 1962, readers are introduced to a mental hospital that has goals that do not align with helping people. Within the hospital, characters with varied personalities and opinions are intermixed with three main characters playing specific roles with supporting characters close by. With the characters’ motivations, themes develop such as the emasculation of the men in the hospital by an oppressive nurse. Symbols, such as laughter and the “combine”, are also pertinent to themes as the readers watch the men transitioning from being oppressed to being able to stand up for themselves causing change in hospital policy.

Entering the medium security hospital would seem like a total surrender of freedom; all sharp objects were taken away, phone calls were limited, and leaving the

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is about the power structure of a mental ward from the perspective of a patient, Bromden. The story takes place during the 1950's in Oregon. Many of the patients on the ward are not necessarily insane however do not fit in with pre established societal norms and have chosen a life away from these norms. The men who are voluntary have given in to the staff and follow them like sheep, however, the men who are committed need controlling according to society so they were sent to the ward. The head nurse, Nurse Rached, of the ward keeps control using her staff that has been picked out over years of meticulous selection. The staff under Rached's orders keep control of the patients

they once did in their everyday lives. Also, the patient would have to be of sound mind and free

For Chief’s hallucinations he sees the people in the ward as machines that have mechanical abilities and technologies that are so advanced. For example, instead of him seeing medication he would see bolts and wires as well as for blood he sees rust. “...she’s got that bag full of a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties today-wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard glitter, tiny pills that gleam like porcelain, needles, forceps, watchmakers pliers, rolls of copper wire.” (Kesey 10). There would be no need for these mechanical things unless Chief intercepts the people as machines. The ward has the nurse carry medication, but in Chief’s eyes they are viewed as wires and tools meaning the people are being mechanized. “I expect to be sick, but there’s no blood or innards falling out like I was looking to see-just a shower of rustand ashes, and now and again a piece of wire or glass.” (Kesey 81). During the hallucination, Chief sees the body of a chronic cut open and instead of blood and guts coming out he sees wires and rust spill out. This represents the people as machines instead of

In the beginning of Part III, Bromden has been reflecting on his past when he remembers a scarring experience that affected him for the rest of his life:

Chief Bromden decides to elude others and troubles by pretending to be “deaf and dumb.” Since the black assistant nurses believe that he isn’t intelligent enough to understand their conversations, they converse about confidential topics.This permits Bromden to gain insight on what is truly happening in the hospital, or learning about the Big Nurse's’ plans in advance. I predict that he will learn valuable information in the future since the staff believes him to be so incompetent. In a way, the Chief is an actor playing the part of an ignorant patient, and instead of being paid for his acting, his recompense is avoiding trouble and hearing secrets. A literary device used multiple times in the quote is repetition; for example, the words humming,

To illustrate the mental institute, the narrator describes remembering “the trapdoor… and find the girl tied to a bed (Ellison 74).” Many medical facilities have a seclusion room where they isolate patients who are violent or self-destructive, with medical restraints, according to Gale Springer from the American Nurse Today. The girl tied to the bed symbolizes the use of medical restraints and “her clothing torn to rags (Ellison 74),” suggest that the girl was doing harm upon herself or to others. One may think the narrator’s comment on “everything was fixed (Ellison 75),” was about the constant visits to the “bingo hall” looking the same. In the perspective of a mental institute, an

Schizophrenia is a unique disease in its pathophysiology. For their early lives, patients appear healthy. However, symptoms begin to appear during adolescence or early adulthood and may be triggered by changes in the brain during puberty. The first signs of the illness include anxiety, depression, changes in friends, sleep problems, irritability, dropping grades, and having trouble concentrating (Picchioni and Murray, 2007; National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)). Delusions and hallucinations typically begin between the ages of 16 and 30 (NIMH).

Unfortunately, many people find themselves as victims of bygone eras. People who have experienced traumatic events often exhibit symptoms of mental damaged, long after the catalyst is removed.Therefore, many of the victims find solace in differing coping mechanisms. Others drink themselves to oblivion, some gamble their fortunes away and a select few lose a desire to communicate.

Per the DSM-5 a diagnosis of schizophrenia requires the presence of the following symptoms: delusions of thoughts, prominent and lasting hallucinations, incoherent or marked loosening associations, catatonic behavior, and flat or grossly inappropriate affect (APA, 2013). If using the DSM-5 classification these characteristics must be present on a continuous basis for at least six months prior to diagnosis.

(Szasz,1982, p.4, p.29) In 1900, the term schizophrenia, now used worldwide, was used to describe the condition that one out of every hundred people had. This statistic remains the same today. Through research and years of study, the world has a better understanding of schizophrenia, its forms, characteristics, symptoms, types, possible causes, and treatments, if any. ( Pierce, 1990. p.263 )

Do you like gong to the hospital? Unless you're addicted to painkillers, probably not. No one enjoys being poked and prodded, even if the person poking you has good intentions. This rule makes it extremely difficult to view patient care with objectivity, especially since we almost exclusively see care through our loved ones or ourselves. However, watching the film Awakenings allowed me to do exactly that since I was neither attached to the sanatorium's doctors or patients. The opinion I came to, at least on patient care displayed in the film, was that the treatment provided seemed to be medically and ethically sound.