Do you agree?

Relating part two of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest to the world, I relate this to my book I’m reading now. I’m reading the book called Girl Interrupted in this book the girl gets put into an asylum and she sees many patients who have done crazy things to be put in there like one girl poured gasoline over her body and lit herself on fire to try and kill herself. Another part in this book she hears people screaming. The reason I relate this to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is because I feel that when I’m reading this that McMurphay is like the girl who burned herself. They are both “crazy”! I also feel that when I’m reading One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest I can envision things happening and see the characters, the patients walking around, and all the horrible things happening!  Both themes of the two books are Mental Illnesses.

I feel that even though the book is Mental Illness that there are obviously other themes in the book like hidden messages that create different themes. For an example when he sees the Fog. He uses the Fog in my own opinion; to go to his “happy place”. Creating the theme of peace and happiness etc. Although he says that the Fog disappears that “someone turned the fog off”.  How is he supposed to go to his happy place when he is ready to burst or is feeling scared?  In the second part I feel that the tables start to turn with the Big Nurse and patients. This creating the theme of rebelling, do you agree?

To relate this to myself and my life would be like me being McMurphy and my Stepmom being Big Nurse.  You don’t really get much of a choice in anything, and you must do what she says or you get some sort of punishment. The only difference is I don’t live in an asylum and I do not get Electro shock therapy.  My punishments are doing chores and being grounded, and my groundings are rough I would say!  In my house when your grounded all you get to do is stay in your room and read and do educational things, no TV, no phone, no friends. I cannot even draw if I wanted. So if you think about it it’s kind of like being in an institution sort of! You do not get much of a choice and if you rebel your punishment gets worse and longer.  Personally I like that times have changed and you’re not allowed to hit your children cause I feel that there would be more crazy people in this world.

Insane in the membrane

Chief Bromden as we know went to the institution willingly he was not forced. Do you think he is actually insane or sane? I believe that in the institution the nurses/ doctors give drugs that are not really needed. In the novel and in the past when you didn’t accept taking the drug you were punished. You were given electro shock therapy or another sort of punishment. Now who is the one determining that you need these drugs or that you’re crazy? I believe that the drugs are really what enhance the patient to really become “insane” some drugs make you hallucinate and give you terrible after effects.  For example: Chief Bromden “see’s” fog.  Is that fog actually there or is he hallucinating because of the drugs.

                To relate to this novel to my life I will tell you about this time when I was 15! I was rushed to the hospital because they thought my appendix was about to burst. They had put me on morphine and that wasn’t helping the pain, so they gave me oxy’s to help. Because of the drugs I was on I was hallucinating, I could not walk straight because it looked like the floor was waves.  I told my stepmom that my bed was a boat and I sang nursery rhymes to her with the wrong words, but the same beat.  My point to this story is that if I was not in the hospital and on these drugs and I had told random people that the floor in the hospital was moving like waves and my bed was a boat, people wouldn’t take me serious or would say I was crazy.  Giving people drugs can help with pain yes, but it’s going to enhance certain patient’s problems. That’s my opinion of that situation.

                On another topic I think that helping the patients should not be the same schedule every day, they should have something different like normal people. Yeah you may have certain routines but you never have a day the exact same as a day in your past.  Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting something different? Well doing that isn’t going to help the patients.

                Connecting to the world: I can connect the novel to the movie shutter island. In the movie the main character believes he isn’t insane and he is there for a reason on a mission, and in the novel Chief Bromden goes to the institution for no reason, and by the time the main character from Shutter Island leaves he is crazy. I predict that Chief Bromden will be in the same situation when he or if he leaves this hospital.