One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Blog #2

It seems that currently, in the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, the latter is winning. After the initial refusal of Nurse Ratched to let the patients watch the World Series, he talks with the others angrily about wanting to "bust out of [the ward]" (p. 103) and goes on to discuss possible ways of escape with the others (who doubt that he could make it). Additionally, he asks them who would vote in favor of watching the Series and "about half the Acutes nod yes, a lot more than would really vote." Later, at one of the therapy meetings, McMurphy brings up the topic again, saying, "'I'd just kind of like to see which of these birds has any guts and which doesn't'" (p.117). When all twenty of the Acutes put their hands up, McMurphy is convinced that he has won, but Ratched points out the fact that twenty out of forty is not majority. McMurphy persuades Bromden to raise his hand as well, breaking the tie, but Ratched refuses, saying that the voting was closed. When the World Series comes on, McMurphy turns it on, and Ratched turns it off from her control room, but McMurphy pretends it is still on. Soon, "Cheswick goes and gets him a chair, and then Billy Bibbit goes, and then Scanlon and then Fredrickson and Sefelt, and then we all put down our mops and brooms and scouring rags and we all go pull us chairs up...and we're all sitting there lined up in front of that blanked-out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could see the baseball game clear as day, and she's ranting and screaming behind us." In this, it seems that McMurphy has won his bet and his ongoing competition with Ratched; he caused her to lose her composure completely, despite the doubts of the others.

At this point in the story, the Chief's reliability as a narrator is swayed both ways. It is obvious that the "fog" that he frequently feels caught in is not literal, even if he perceives it as being so; this leads to the idea that he is not entirely to be trusted as a narrator due to his condition mentally. However, he also demonstrates that he is extremely observant in his descriptions, particularly of McMurphy. He frequently sees his intentions when others don't; for example, Bromden says that "[McMurphy]'s making sure none of the staff sees him bothered by anything; he knows that there's no better way in the world to aggravate somebody who's trying to make it hard for you than by acting like you're not bothered." As a whole, Bromden seems reliable enough as a narrator, for even when he feels that the fog is closing in on him, he reports the dialogue of other characters and other events.