How much do we really know about the personality and the rest of Nurse Ratched? (to answer this, think of her only as a character and not as a symbol)?
We may think we know all we need to know about Nurse Ratched to draw our conclusions about her, but in reality we don't. As you will find in the fourth question we have to trust Bromden based on process of elimination. Yes she is mean and nasty but there is also the chance that Bromden is exaggerating her shortcomings and potentially overlooking some things she may do well. For example, Bromden casts her as not caring about the patients outcomes at all and that she is irrational with her decision making, but because he is biased this may not be true in truth she could be very concerned about how her patients turn out it is just she doesn't have the most delicate touch when dealing with the patients. Yet, like in the answer to number four, because we have no second opinions we may never know the whole truth about Ratched, if Bromden is inaccurate.
What does having Chief as the narrator do for the plot, tone, and theme of OFOTCN?
Having Chief Bromden as the narrator, much like F. Scott Fitzgerald's choice in TGG, is an interesting one by Kesey because Bromden is not the protagonist. Similarly, Bromden is a patient in a mental hospital, making his appointment to be the narrator even more curious. Because Bromden is a patient at the ward he also has a severe bias against not only Nurse Ratched but the ward in general. -- Bromden's craziness twists the plot in very strange ways. Throughout the book it is fairly easy to tell what is actually happening and what is made up in Bromden's mind. The tone of the story is also affected greatly by Bromden's narration. The tone he creates is bipolar in a sense. One page it is glowing when the subject is McMurphy and the next it is violent and malicious because Ratched and her actions are what is on Bromden's mind. The only thing not affected on a major scale is the theme. I figure that no matter who the narrator was, provided it wasn't Nurse Ratched, the message would have been relatively universal.
Do you think society views the ward as being helpful or debilitating to the patients?
If I were in the world that this took place in and I was just the average person in society, just going through the motions, then I would probably not notice the mental hospital much. And I most likely wouldn't have any relations with any of the patients. Also, I don't know if I would be able to recognize the differences between some of the acutes before and after their time at the ward because it seems to me that in reading the book they either go in as acutes and become chronics, or they go in and come out with little change in personality and certainly no obvious improvements in their conditions. So, if I ever noticed or studied what was going in and coming out of the hospital I would have to believe that it is more debilitating than helpful.
Can we trust Chief as a narrator? -- is he totally crazy? does he make Ratched seem worse than she actually might be?
Because there is no other alternative we have to see Chief as a reliable narrator. Tying back to the first question, because we know little about what Nurse Ratched is like other than the way Chief describes what she does we have to think that she really is as bad as she appears to be. The entire story is also affected by Chief's craziness. While I don't believe he is a complete lunatic, I would wholeheartedly support that he is mildly crazy. Based on some of the contents in the story that very obviously don't exist, this is an easy conclusion to come to. But again, because we have no other way of knowing, we must trust Chief.
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