Chief Bromden In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's

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How does one distinguish reliability in an institution full of Since the very adolescent stages in his life, beginning around the age of ten, Bromden had begun to experience to experience minor hallucinations. He imagined that a man’s head was a “red rubber ball” (Kesey 179), which is a very mild hallucination compared to the ones he experienced later in life. These hallucinations are seen multiple times through out the novel, making it clear that Bromden might not be the most reliable narrator, especially because they started to appear at a young age. Also occurring in the time before entering the ward, Bromden was traumatized by the sight of his father, Chief Tee Ah Millatoona, losing the battle to alcoholism. Every time Chief witnessed his father drinking, he did not see his father “suck out of it, it sucked out of him” (Kesey 189). This made him lose faith not only in the power of his father, but himself as well. Given that Randle Patrick McMurphy, a fellow patient, helped Chief bring himself back to his tall and powerful self, it is clear why he would be biased towards McMurphy. Chief’s time on the ward had become so traumatic to him; he believed that the ward was “a factory for the…show more content…
In most cases, someone who tries to cope with a painful experience manages with it differently than Bromden did. After facing over 200 electro-shock treatments, witnessing his father’s alcoholism, and becoming a skeptic of the ward and its goals, Bromden describes himself as if he had improved from all of these experiences. As the novel progresses, Bromden becomes stronger and taller to the point where ESTs did not affect him. This allows the reader to detect that Bomden is, in fact, an unreliable narrator. Why would one believe someone who has been ill from childhood and faced trauma

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