One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

However both have the aspect of true power, and with that their potential for freedom is greater. Chief Bromden uses the power of silence to his advantage. Everyone on the ward thinks that he is deaf and dumb, however, their perception on the Cheif is wrong, because of what happenes in the novel’s end. Chief Bromden is a very large man who unfortunetly thinks of himself as being miniscule. His silece provides positive effects; he is able to hear everything that goes on in the meetings where the doctors and nurses discuss the future of the patients.

The doctors and nurses don’t think that Chief Bromden can hear what they are saying, so therefor they don’t hesitate to say anything in front of him. “They don’t bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I’m nearby because they think I’m deaf and dumb”(10). This is very beneficial because Chief Bromden knows what takes place in the ward, and knows what it takes to survive. Although he appears powerless, he actually has a lot of power because of all the knowledge he’s gained through observation and listening in on conversations.

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Chief states that the world is like a great big machine, Combine, and everybody is just part of that machine. The parts that are broken are sent to this hospital to be "fixed" again – to be wired back into this machine. He doesn’t want to be part of it, and hides in the fog. He resists it and part of the resistance is pretending to be deaf and speechless. He describes the Big Nurse in machine, “she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load.... her gestures are] precise, automatic [and] her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made. " (p. 5). Eventually, Chief shows that he can speak and hear perfectly. He tries to protect McMurphy by explaining how the system works based on what he has observed. He tells McMurphy that the nurse will go to prevent McMurphy from gaining power. But, McMurphy is too confident. Chief tries to protect McMurphy again when he gets into a fight with the black boys. And he tries to protect McMurphy again when they go to the disturbed ward and are subjected to electroshock therapy; the only ways of keeping the asylum patients controlled.

When McMurphy finally returns to the ward as a vegetable, Chief frees him from the physical pain of his body and sofocates him with a pillow. Because of McMurphy, Chief finally has the true power and courage to break free from the hospital through a window after breaking it the way McMurphy trained him to do so. Ironically, the Cheif's insanity allowed him to attain a power beyond his limits; a power that gave him freedom and allowed him to escape the crazy world in the hospital.