One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest discussion

At several points in the film the narrator Bromden refers to fog being released in the dormitory of the asylum. At other times Bromden says the fog has dissipated or absent altogether.

Is the fog real or is Bromden hallucinating?

Bromden also refers to hidden wires and electronics used to program and control the inmates. Are they real or imagined?

Bromden is a classic unreliable narrator. Why would the author have Bromden's mind so impaired as to interfere with the clarity of his narration?

To me it adds to the story's realism. Early in the novel the fog shows Bromden's limited sense of inner vision and personal potential. The lifting of the fog shows Bromden's healing, his spiritual awakening and sense of greater possibility in life.

As the fog lifts, Bromden's references to fear and to the hidden electronics diminish. This is Kesey's way of revealing that Bromden is becoming more mentally stable, that he is being healed of his neuroses by virtue of exposure to McMurphy.

Bigness is another indication of Bromden's healing path. Midway in the novel he feels small and unable to lift the heavy control panel in the tub room. He talks about his father being reduced from big to small.

In the end Bromden says to the lobotomized McMurphy, who has been made into one of "vegetables," that he feels "big as a mountain." There's no fog,no controlling electronics and he feels big enough and strong enough to lift the control panel and toss it through the window to freedom.

I do believe you've nailed it, Monty. Or at least come to the same thoughts that I had, "great minds" and all that . . . ;-)

Can hardly wait to hear your thoughts on Rules of 48!

Those are classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia (along with auditory hallucinations), and they will indeed cease if the person recovers.

IIRC Kesey was in the skull ranch himself for somethingorother (probably dope, knowing him) so, being a typical writer and observant of others in order to "build characters", he would have been familiar with all that...

Kesey worked in a mental hospital prior to writing the book, but at that point in his life I don't think he was ever a patient at a "skullranch," as you so eloquently put it. Possibly later in life he spent some time somewhere, I dunno. But not prior to writing the book. The wild and crazy Kesey everyone knows is post OFOTCN.

It's interesting to look closely at Bromden's memories and piece together where a lot of the psychosis and hallucinations come from in the recesses of his mind. The "fog," for example grows out of early experiences in a textile mill where he worked as a younger man and, more importantly, his tour of duty in Europe in WWII when they would fog over the landing strip where he was stationed to protect it from German bombing runs.

I should go grab the book and quote instead of pulling things out of my rear, but if I remember right the memories of the textile mill are comforting while those of the war are terrifying, but in both cases the "fog" provided a safety and security and comfort that he pulls back into as protection from the big overwhelming world as a whole, and its no less scary microcosm of the ward.

Petergiaquinta wrote: "The wild and crazy Kesey everyone knows is post OFOTCN."

Kesey was wild and crazy before, he just got worse. While attending the Stegner Creative Writing Program at Standford (Larry McMurtry was a classmate) he drove the teacher nuts. Stegner wanted to can him for being so disruptive and almost did, from what I read. I assume the school knew he was taking LSD in an experiment funded by the CIA and made allowances.

Always wondered whether McMurphy was a take-off on McMurtry's name.


"Skullranch" -- nice.


"...the "fog" provided a safety and security and comfort that he pulls back into as protection from the big overwhelming world as a whole, and its no less scary microcosm of the ward."

For me it was at first distracting, then I got used to it and it became and effective metaphor for his mental condition.

My first read of the book was very frustrating and I skipped around quite a bit, but during this last rereading I have grown very fond of it. It is now among my top ten favorites.

Along with Hemingway and Salinger and Vonnegut, Kesey fits neatly in as a war veteran. Can't wait to read more Tim O'brien and John Wells.



Fogging was widely used by both sides in WWII. The Germans protected their mega-battleship "Tirpiz" (sister to the "Bismark") with fog machines in the fjords of Norway. Until time ran out.

McMurphy would've loved the term, "skullranch." ;-)

Kesey is likely irritated — from the afterlife, where I am sure he is doing something far more interesting than either playing the same chords and chanting "hallelujah" eternally or doing the backstroke in a volcanized hot tub — that he didn't use it, lol.

Monty J wrote: "Kesey was wild and crazy before...Kesey fits neatly in as a war veteran."

Yeah, "wild and crazy" is a relative condition, I suppose. He was a wrestler; those are the wildest, craziest people there are.

I just meant he hadn't become the leader of the Merry Pranksters; he wasn't this major counter-culture figure yet, the Kesey of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He was a student, an athlete, the son of agricultural folks from Colorado...

But no veteran. Kesey managed to be born at the right time to miss out going to war. McMurphy and Bromden are vets of two different wars, WWII and Korea. (Bromden is older than McMurphy, which seems to go against the way I feel when I'm reading the book.) And significantly, the Big Nurse and some of her cronies are as well.

Petergiaquinta wrote: "Yeah, "wild and crazy" is a relative condition, I suppose. He was a wrestler; those are the wildest, craziest people there are...."

Some, but I found the wildest, craziest personas belonged to the more introspective, sensitive, high creative-intelligence guys (and women).

Which would fit Kesey.

*damn, I've had a weird life . . .*

Renee wrote: "McMurphy would've loved the term, "skullranch." ;-)

Kesey is likely irritated — from the afterlife, where I am sure he is doing something far more interesting than either playing the same chords and chanting "hallelujah" eternally or doing the backstroke in a volcanized hot tub — that he didn't use it, lol.

well, if **I** had anything to say about it, he'd be forced to smoke "Guadelupe Ragweed" continuously without ever being able to get "High", while having to listen to the same Jerry Garcia guitar riff looped for eternity, as punishment for encouraging Tom Wolfe and inflicting the Grating Dreadful on us

And I thought he was an *inmate* at the skull ranch... But maybe not. They might have thought whatever he had, could be contagious...

All them doped up 60's authors are just too full of themselves, is the problem. They're all trying to get through the looking glass, and you can't get there by eating Dope, no matter what your bearded potgutted Professor tells you

Again, I think you're confusing the post-OFOTCN Kesey with the pre-.

He writes two great books (and Sometimes a Great Notion might even be better than Cuckoo's). Then he gets involved with everything you're talking about, although frankly you don't seem to know much about it and are just pulling this out your behind here. At that point, it becomes tough to write another good book. You're right, though, being a Merry Prankster drug-addled icon of the counter-culture movement sure didn't help Kesey as an author. It's unfortunate, but it's who he became. He wrote one more good book than Salinger and Fitzgerald, though.

Kesey wasn't getting it from his Stanford profs, the CIA was his pusher.

Succinct: http://www.pcs.org/blog/item/ken-kese...

I knew about the LSD; I was not aware of the ditran. Nasty stuff.

Interesting comments from Kesey himself:

http://youtu.be/X_8rlyGWLkg

Petergiaquinta wrote: "Sometimes a Great Notion might even be better than Cuckoo..."

SAGN is much better in writing style, more readable, cleaner, less herky-jerky, but Cuckoo has a stronger message, IMHO.

Of course one must take into consideration that Cuckoo's unreliable narrator, Chief Bromden, was delusional, which probably masked Kesey's own hallucinatory state from participating in LSD experiments while writing it.

I felt Bromden's trips were a huge distraction, but I guess Kesey needed that delusional curtain to hide behind.

We need Bromden delusional and hiding in the fog, though, so we can see McMurphy's progressive impact on his consciousness as he becomes slowly liberated from the control of the Big Nurse and the forces of the Combine. And some of Bromden's delusions are the best parts of the book.

Petergiaquinta wrote: "We need Bromden delusional and hiding in the fog, though, so we can see McMurphy's progressive impact on his consciousness as he becomes slowly liberated from the control of the Big Nurse and the forces of the Combine. And some of Bromden's delusions are the best parts of the book."

Yes, that part was very effective, but I wonder if there is a better, equally (or more) effective but less confusing way to achieve the same result. Obviously it worked for a lot of people, given the book's market success; so I'm a whisper in the wind.

I felt the book dragged in several places while Bromden droned on in some tangential foggy reverie, like the one about the high school football team visiting a cotton gin.

I get the feeling that Kesey wanted to demonstrate what it was like to go on a drug trip, wanted to "educate" the reader. I didn't find that useful or interesting, felt it was didactic, even cheap.

McMurphy's life both mimics and foreshadows Kesey's own missionary stance on behalf of LSD. Kesey seemed to think it could save the world and preached resistance against government control (Bromden's Combine.)

Kesey burned out on drugs and died young, like McMurphy, wasting his life trying to have fun and "save" people. Died on his lysergic cross. Signs of paranoia, a symptom of drug addiction, runs through the core of the book and in Kesey's Youtube comments.

Steve Jobs was able to use LSD to enhance his life, but for 99.9% of the world, LSD is highly dangerous and should be strictly regulated because of its unpredictability. Jobs died young of pancreatic cancer. He tried to beat it without chemo. Was that a sign of drug induced overconfidence?

For every Jobs, Lennon and Dylan there are thousands, perhaps millions of lives ruined by such drugs while mafia cash registers ring and heads roll and orphans are created in the streets of Juarez.

It angers me to no end how the media seems to glorify the synthetic happiness of such figures without dwelling on the horrors of people like Phillip S. Hoffman and Robin Williams. Ask any parent of a kid killed or maimed by a hopped-up driver how they feel about drugs.

Having said that, there's such a thing as regulatory overkill. How long does it take for the FDA to approve MDMA (Ecstasy) for treatment of depression? Any bets the makers of Prozac, Effexor, Paxil and Welbutrin are lobbying against it?

(My apologies. I'll step off my soap box now.)

Petergiaquinta wrote: "We need Bromden delusional and hiding in the fog, though, so we can see McMurphy's progressive impact on his consciousness as he becomes slowly liberated from the control of the Big Nurse and the f..."

Gotta go with Peter on this. I think you hit it dead-center.

I'm with you on the LSD speech; I've seen people change species over a period of time from doing too much acid, but I don't agree with you that this is what Kesey is doing here. This isn't LSD he's mimicking in Cuckoo's Nest; it's paranoid schizophrenia, although certainly his experience as a test subject may have influenced his style. In fact, if anything, OFOTCN is an anti-drug novel. Drugs are a part of the Combine's control here. Bromden crushes one and it's full of mini-transistors.

There is no glorification of drugs in Cuckoo's Nest. If that is associated with Kesey, it's because of what Kesey becomes later as leader of the Merry Pranksters.

In these passages (the stream of consciousness/"druggy" portions of the novel) the book is looking at the way Bromden's mind has been shattered by mental illness and at the way certain types of drugs can be used as agents of control.

As far as I can recall there's no LSD in the novel; McMurphy only promotes alcohol as a drug. (And fornication, if that can be considered a drug.) If anything, drugs (pharmaceuticals) are shown in a negative light here.

Petergiaquinta wrote: "There is no glorification of drugs. If that is associated with Kesey, it's because of what Kesey becomes later. The book itself in these passages is looking at the way Bromden's mind has been shattered by mental illness and the way a certain type of drug can be used as an agent of control."

I didn't mean Kesey was proselytizing in Cuckoo, only that the writing was strongly influenced by his then current use of LSD as a synthetic resource for bringing Bromden to life, which I think was very effective.

I think Kesey tapped this well again in Sometimes a Great Notion, e.g., the scene where Leeland fantasizes about his mother in a guilded cage, unforgettable.

(Hmmm, I never realized how the mother theme is present in both books.)

Chemically enhanced writing has been around for centuries. Kesey just took a high-tech leap forward.

I was just thinking about Sometimes a Great Notion and wondering to myself if there were any similar "druggy" passages like in Cuckoo's Nest. I can't remember the passage you are referring to...do you have a page number?

Overall, though, isn't Great Notion (a couple of years later) even less "druggy" than Cuckoo's Nest as a whole? So even as Kesey is moving more toward that phase in his personal life, he's focusing more on a straight narrative about working class folk in his artistic life?

I dunno, though...point me in the right direction. Leland's been to college. That's where all these bad things happen!

Petergiaquinta wrote: "I can't remember the passage you are referring to...do you have a page number?"

Can't readily put a finger on the book, but it happens early, before Leeland heads west. Its a dream-like scene where he's reflecting on his mother's suicide. He envisions a guilded car on a toy train going around the room climbing until the tracks stop in mid-air, on the fifteenth floor or some such. (This wasn't in the film as I recall.)


"Overall, though, isn't Great Notion (a couple of years later) even less "druggy" than Cuckoo's Nest as a whole?"

Yes, and it was much easier to read because of it, though it dragged in places. Lots of characters with tangential issues. Henry and Hank were iconic though.

It felt like Kesey was trying to give us a cross-section of a lumbering community. Which he accomplished. But it slowed the pace considerably. I need more patience.

"So even as Kesey is moving more toward that phase in his personal life, he's focusing more on a straight narrative about working class folk in his artistic life?"

I think so. But somewhere along the line he apparently began tapping the well too often.

A strong movement was afoot in those days, led by Timothy Leary and a few others, and I'm sure the temptation to push boundaries was felt by Kesey. Eventually the Feds cracked down, even though it was the CIA who spawned the entire movement.

Kesey abused his health, got diabetes, then a stroke, then died from complications after tumor surgery.

The mind, especially one on drugs, can write checks the body can't cash.

Not to abnegate any well-deserved Kesey-bashing, since I don't really like *any* of those pretentious doped-up 60's nitwits (and particularly Tom Robbins), BUT... Kesey's teenage son got killed in a bus accident and Kesey got to sit there in the hospital and watch him die, and *that* can turn *anybody* into peanut butter.

Duane wrote: "Kesey's teenage son got killed in a bus accident and Kesey got to sit there in the hospital and watch him die, and *that* can turn *anybody* into peanut butter."

I suspect that was a big factor in Kesey's ramp-up with dope. I witnessed a ghastly lingering death of a loved one by cancer. It was years before I could talk about it or go near the photographs I had put away. I know someone whose son was killed in a car accident at age 18 and she was never the same afterward.

I am with you about Tom Robbins. In an NPR interview he sounded pretty narcissistic and arrogant.

With you also about doped-up writing and art in general. (It's called "dope" for a reason.) Interpreting life is hard enough without warping the senses. I'm not denying that useful and interesting results can come of it, but the mind is too delicate and critical an organ to put at risk.

I don't even trust processed food, why would I trust something some stranger cooked up in their garage or that puts money in the pockets of thugs who don't care how many orphans they create in Juarez.