In tonight’s
readings , I’m writing about : The Fog
In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The character Chief Bromden was getting out of the fog. What does that
mean? When it comes to the fog, I have many feelings of how this fog can be a portrayed.
It’s a huge mind bender!! Here are
three ways that I’ll explain the fog through: relating the Fog to a book called
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, connecting it to myself and how it
connects to the world.
Do
we really remember every single minute of the day what happens or what we did
every single minute of the day? NO! We remember what is really important or what’s
exciting to us. The Fog can be represented as a memory loss in One Flew over
the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” in the WHOLE book it
shows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern going back scene by scene. This book by the
way is a play within a play within a play. For example, One point Guildenstern and
Rosencrantz are playing tennis talking in the morning to the next scene all of
the sudden they are in the castle talking to Hamlet out of nowhere. The fog can represent that the mental hospital
is such a structured schedule that everything goes to plan; the same stuff
happens day by day, nothing new. The patients can get out of the fog by someone
or something exciting or something out of the extraordinary happens OR someone
new comes into the picture like McMurphy.
The fog can mean also a shield
or a sanctuary to the chief, protection or feel safe inside the fog. For example,
I like being in my room because it keeps me safe from what the reality is out
there. It’s a shield from what is outside like crime, hooligans, bad weather
and etc! I find my room is a place to be when I’m having stressful times about
school, work, friends and family. It keeps me protected and feel confined in a
comfort zone. It’s hard to explain my happy place. It’s a place where I can
think without being judged or a place where I can have peaceful times when I
really need it. Chief Bromdon maybe finds the fog a happy place for him because
the mental hospital isn’t a nice place to be when everyone is going crazy.
Maybe when Ratched is taking control and the black boys are coming to get you,
Chief goes in his Fog mode so he can be away from that reality and not have to
worry or see the bad things that are happening in the Hospital.
Medicine can change what
everyone can be such as personality and emotion. Medicines can do extraordinary things! It can
knock people out and make them high. Tranquilizers can take someone that’s absolutely
crazy and get them into a calm state; do those people have control when they
take those meds? No they feel free and have no worries about what’s around them.
It can be like being drunk... except you have black outs. You don’t remember
what happens because you are so out of reality that you don't realize what's happening or don't acknowledge anything around you .
Everyone has a different opinion
to The Fog! I only wish I can figure out what exactly this fog is to Chief
Bromden .
Neat Blog Michelle!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say the fog is a safe place for Cheif Bromden. I think its a way for him to escape the world and for him to forget the traumatic things that have happened to him.
He seems to me like an insecure individual that would rather watch and analyze things from the sidelines rather than be apart of things. I think the fog helps him do this, he doesn't want to be seen, only wants to listen.
I never even thought of the fog being a representation of routine and schedule. It would maike sense in some ways. The people of the mental asylum are use to one thing, stuck in the mundane, the typical. As soon as the new patient comes in things change up, the fog begins to lift. Cool thought!
The points you bring up about medicine scare me, it freaks me out we have the power to keep people sedated and in check, just by giving them a certain drug. I think in real life we have to be more careful about how we administer this drugs, and be sure the positives outway the negatives.
I'm digging the layout of your blog, the background is cool.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CLEARING UP WHAT THE FOG MEANS (no pun intended). I thought your post makes what we are reading so much easier to understand and thus, being able to relate to it easier.
I agree with both you and Austin that the fog is like a security blanket to Chief Bromden, as well as your point that it could represent that nothing new happens in the ward, creating a fog. I feel, however that it doesnt stay permentely defogged once McMurphy gets to the ward, because Chief Bromden’s fog continiously gets worse the longer McMurphy stays there. Perhaps the fog never truly disappears, it is just McMurphy stirring it up once in a while? Or maybe he is causing the fog himself?
Either way, i still enjoied how relatable your blog is. The way you have put the fog, which personally is one of the harder symbols in the novel, and made it much easier to understand was great! Good Job! :)
I like how you made the fog relative to our conscious level of awareness. For example, when some people drive, who have been driving for years, they do it at an almost subconscious level. So could the fog simply be just him tuning the world out? Could the simple fact that we have established that the fog is a safe place for Chief, could it be because he is ‘deaf and dumb’ that when he tunes the world out he then gets consumed in his thoughts and not what is going on. When the nurse turns the fog machines off and everyone is coming out of the fog could that be a resemblance to he is coming to his conscious mind and is now more aware of what is happening around him. So with that being said, I agree with your point and example on your room being a safe zone.
ReplyDeleteMedicine… you did an interesting elaboration on this topic. I agree with you but want to make it more relative to the book. When we look at them lining up and getting their medicines and being told to just take them – they can’t even ask and know what they are. That’s the part that scares me; think about being in that situation. You’re in a, for lack of a better word, hostile environment. And you are being given drugs – as you put it – that could be mind altering for better or for worse; yet you don’t know what you’re getting. That is the part that would truly scare me, but these patients are dominated and are forced more or less to take their medications.
Excellently done!
While reading the first part of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I hardly paid any close attention to the fog and what it could mean. It slipped right through me. After talking about it in class the other day with our different groups, it did occur to me that the fog does have some deep, logical meaning to it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the fog could definitely be a form of protection and a safety net for Chief Bromden. It's noted that Chief Bromden portrays Ken Kesey, so perhaps when he experiences the fog, there's something that actually happened to Ken Kesey that he has let slip from his mind. Like you said, people tend to remember exciting moments - maybe the fog is covering something that Ken Kesey doesn't want the reader to have to know about, or something that he simply doesn't remember.
I've also considered the fog being a type of medicine. That maybe Chief Bromden is getting injected with drugs to knock him unconscious, and seeing fog is just how he felt while being put out. When I was put out to get my wisdom teeth removed, I at first had no control over my muscles, and then the room started spinning and things just got blury and then went black. However, I know for some of my family who have been sedated, they have explained how they felt which is completely different to show I felt.
I personally find it really interesting how the fog could have so many different meanings and be symbolic for so many different tthings.
I am able to agree with your opinion about the fog when you relate it to being Chief’s sanctuary or his safe place, I’ve never read the book that you relate the fog too so I’m sort of lost in that but it sounds like a very confusing book. I find that Chief likes to avoid anything and almost anything that makes him feel slightly uncomfortable. The fog I think is more of a personal safe haven for Chief instead of an entrapment that the other patients are stuck in because of constant routine throughout the days. Chief during the time the black boys are trying to shave him I think that he hallucinates most of the events that happen to him during the whole process including the fog machine that he says they turn on. This could be that they gave him a medicine and he was entering a new state of consciousness, being the fog that he sees. Also seeing as how he was out cold for about an hour and a half I think that it could be very likely that the fog brings him into a new sort of reality which helps him escape the harsh environment of the mental ward that he lives in. Also the time in the closet he is brought back to his memories with his father and hunting a bird that was being tracked by a dog but could not find him because of the fog which again I find relates it to be a safe haven also for the bird, in conclusion I mainly agree with your point of the fog representing to be a safe haven and a form of memories that he finds when being in the fog.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head, for chief bordem and what the fog means to him. How his memories fade in out through the book and also with how the medicine affects one mind. For instance when chief bordem has his nightmare is a prime example of the fog that is lifted when he doesn’t take is his little red pills. Also another good point how the repetitive schedule puts the patients on auto pilot and that even the littlest disappearance can jar them out of auto pilot and reengage the world and the reality that there in. I also like how you connect your room in the real world; too the mind and it save spot way from the harsh reality that they’re being faced with. The comfort zone as you call it is a good way to sum up the mental ill there disconnection to the world retreating to their safe spot away from nurse ratchet and the way the world has treated them.
ReplyDeleteNow for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead i haven’t read the book so I’m taking your word on it. But i like how you connect how the storey is a memory and that it jumps over the place like the chief does.
Michelle, - great, clear format. I knew exactly what type of analytical writing each paragraph was discussing. Excellent insight on the fog - rather than it being a coping mechanism to avoid something bad, it is something good brought on an interruption to the daily routine :)
ReplyDeleteGreat comments and feedback overall from the rest of you :)
Peter - interesting connection to being deaf and dumb. That takes the discussion to a whole new level, because the reader assumes Cheif is deaf and dumb on purpose - you make the suggestion that he does not have control over this. That in fact, the coping mechanism he has created has now taken control over him... interesting... needs some more pondering :)
Nicole - great analysis. Perhaps Kesey experienced things in the hospital that were "too awful to tell... that could be the truth even if they didn't happen". This again requires more analysis and reflection on our parts - what did he see? How was he able to block it out? He says in interviews that the patients were misunderstood, so are his blocked out memories things done by the government???
Dylan - interesting analysis of the dog and bird - we will come back to this in more detail soon :) We see these symbols several times throughout the book. I'm impressed that you picked up on this symbolism so early :)