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Significance Of Fog In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Shortly after Randle McMurphy “whipped” Nurse Ratched in group therapy in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the narrator, Chief Bromden, acquiesced the truth that it was only a temporary victory, with the heavy, recurring fog returning quickly, now feeling “as hopeless and dead as [Chief] felt happy a minute ago”, noting “the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in. And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it ad can let go, and be safe again” (Kesey 113).
In Kesey’s novel, the fog serves a multitude of purposes, chiefly Bromden’s psychological state and the suppression his individuality and willpower by the hospital throughout the novel. Clearly, in the beginning of the novel, the hospital …show more content…

In the first part of the novel, the fog frequently made an appearance, although it appeared less frequently as McMurphy chipped away at Nurse Ratched’s mechanical facade. As McMurphy rattles the Big Nurse more and more, the fog appears less and less, perhaps a stimulation of independent thinking within Bromden. In his eyes, though, McMurphy “keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we’d be easy to get at” (Kesey 128), but then later realizes after shock therapy that he won’t “slip off and hide in [the fog]” (Kesey 287), finally recognizing his own identity and his clearer state of mind while casting off the fog for …show more content…

Like such a government, she constantly lies to and manipulates both her staff and her patients, such as when Bromden sees her “blow up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor” in rage at her aids, but then has to “change back before she’s caught in the shape of her hideous true self” (Kesey 5) before the patients see her in order to preserve her total power, as dictators don't want to lose power either. Furthermore, near the end of the novel, McMurphy even shouts out “Hooee, those Chinese Commies could have learned a few things from you, lady” (Kesey 281) as she has him dragged away for shock treatment, indicating what the reader and the patients all knew: Ratched was a cruel, controlling, and vindictive

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