Chief Bromden Character Analysis

545 Words3 Pages

The main characters of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest have very distinct and different traits that in return make the novel the classic that it is today. One of the main characters is Chief Bromden. He is basically narrator of the book. Chief Bromden is the son of the chief of the Columbia Indians and his wife is a white woman. He has suffered from paranoia and hallucinations, has endured many electroshock treatments, and has been in the hospital for ten years, the longest patient to ever be in the hospital. “I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened this is too awful to be the truth!.. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it, But it is the truth even if it did not happen” (Kesey 89). This quote explains that Chief Bromden has a sense of not seeing things from an everyday perspective. Bromden sees modern society as a huge, oppressive conglomeration that he calls the Combine and the …show more content…

He has a body that is heavily scarred and tattooed and was sentenced to six months at a prison work farm, and when he was diagnosed as a psychopath and transferred to the hospital to serve his sentence there. “You know, that's the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn’t anybody laughing. I haven’t heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. A man go around lettin’ a woman whup him up and down till he can’t laugh any more, and he loses one of the biggest edges he’s got on his side. First thing you know he’ll begin to think she’s tougher than he is…” (Kesey 75). McMurphy acts as an unlikely Christ figure in the novel. He has a dominant force challenging the establishment and the ultimate savior of the victimized

Open Document