What is the fog in Cuckoo's Nest?

The Fog Machine
Fog is a phenomenon that clouds our vision of the world. In this novel, fogs symbolize a lack of insight and an escape from reality. When Bromden
Bromden
He is the son of Chief Tee Ah Millatoona, which means The Pine That Stands Tallest on the Mountain, and a white woman, Mary Louise Bromden, the dominant force in the couple. Chief Bromden bears his mother's last name; his father's acceptance of her name symbolizes her dominance over him.
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starts to slip away from reality, because of his medication or out of fear, he hallucinates fog drifting into the ward.
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What is the fog for chief?

In the book, then fog represents an escape from reality. Chief usually sees the fog either due to his medication, out of fear, or when he is trying to escape what is truly happening around him. It is Chief's safeplace. He can hide here and ignore reality.
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What is the significance of McMurphy and the fog?

This fog is symbolic of the waste that our mechanized society has created, and how it pollutes our ability to live naturally. Bromden literally feels as though he cannot see until the antithesis of mechanized control arrives to the ward: McMurphy, a man who looks to his instincts and natural desires for action.
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Why does the fog make the chief feel safe?

The fog causes Chief to feel safe simply because it acts as an escape mechanism from the reality of the ward. When Chief slips into the fog, he is able to escape Nurse Ratched's torment and powerful rule and find solace due to the safety that the fog brings .
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What do you suppose the fog is is it real Why does the chief need it?

Answers 1. The fog is a metaphor for Bromden's lack of mental clarity, thickening whenever he becomes less stable, receding as he gains confidence. It is not a literal fog. Many patients have been lost in the fog in their desire to remove themselves from reality.
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Hidden Meaning in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – Earthling Cinema



What is the combine in Cuckoo's Nest?

The Combine is the invention of Chief's paranoia; a large mechanized matrix that enforces its control over humankind by making it conform to rigid standards of behavior.
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What does Nurse Ratched symbolize?

A former army nurse, Nurse Ratched represents the oppressive mechanization, dehumanization, and emasculation of modern society—in Bromden's words, the Combine. Her nickname is “Big Nurse,” which sounds like Big Brother, the name used in George Orwell's novel 1984 to refer to an oppressive and all-knowing authority.
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What does Bromden see in the fog?

When Bromden starts to slip away from reality, because of his medication or out of fear, he hallucinates fog drifting into the ward. He imagines that there are hidden fog machines in the vents and that they are controlled by the staff.
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What mental illness does Chief Bromden have?

Chief Bromden presented a long-standing history characterized by the complex features of Schizophrenia.
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What does the chief see Ratched transform into?

What does Nurse Ratched transform into? When the nurse got angry with the black boys, Chief see her transform into some monstrous shape, "big as a tractor", "arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five six times"(Kensey 11).
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What does the fog symbolize?

Fog illustrates obscurity, indistinction; in the Bible, it is an image preceding great revelations. It is the "GRAY zone" between reality and unreality, and uncertainty about the future and beyond. According to Browning it can represent approaching death.
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What do birds symbolize in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, birds symbolize freedom, hope, and fear.
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What do cigarettes symbolize in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

In contrast to keys, cigarettes represent freedom. The men use cigarettes as chips in blackjack, each cigarette representing a dime—their only money to spend as they wish. Cigarettes provide the men with a makeshift currency, giving them power to place bets, take risks, and feel like men instead of children.
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What does fog look like?

Fog is a cloud that touches the ground. Fog can be thin or thick, meaning people have difficulty seeing through it. In some conditions, fog can be so thick that it makes passing cars.
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Is Ellis actually nailed to the wall?

Ellis. A patient who was once an Acute. Ellis's excessive electroshock therapy transformed him into a Chronic. In the daytime, he is nailed to the wall.
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What happens to Sefelt?

In the lunch room, the patient Sefelt has an epileptic seizure because he has refused to take his medication. The medication, Dilantin, prevents seizures, but he saves it to give to Frederickson, another epileptic patient.
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What was wrong with Billy bibbit?

Billy Stutters

Billy Bibbit's psychological problems manifest themselves as a stutter. Billy reveals in group therapy that he flunked out of college because he had to quit ROTC.
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What mental illness does McMurphy have?

Each film takes up specific gendered mental illnesses – Susanna is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, seven times more likely in women than men, and McMurphy with Anti-Social Personality Disorder, three times more likely in men than women.
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What does Bromden mean when he uses the word big?

What does Bromden mean when he uses the word "big"? (5 min) Bromden uses the word to refer not to physical size, but to courage and power.
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How does Bromden correlate his fog with his experiences in WWII?

We learn from Bromden that the images of fog that he generates originate from his days in the army during WWII. Machines similar to the one that is supposedly kept in the ward had been used while Chief was in Europe to produce a fog over Allied airfields so that German bombers would have trouble seeing their targets.
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What does Chief Bromden symbolize?

Chief Bromden, a tall American-Indian mute is the central character that symbolizes the change throughout the text and also throughout society. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest uses this character that is subject to change as the narrator event though his perceptions cannot be fully trusted.
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What does McMurphy symbolize?

McMurphy represents sexuality, freedom, and self-determination—characteristics that clash with the oppressed ward, which is controlled by Nurse Ratched. Through Chief Bromden's narration, the novel establishes that McMurphy is not, in fact, crazy, but rather that he is trying to manipulate the system to his advantage.
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What is Nurse Ratched's one weakness?

When McMurphy attacks her and tears her shirt open in front of the men, he reveals her weakness—she's a woman after all. Big breasts don't lie.
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Is Nurse Ratched a psychopath?

In the book and the film of “One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, Nurse Ratched was not a psychopath, she was an unbelievably mean, sadistic person. The original Nurse Ratched's actions during the story show us that something terrible must have happened in her past to make her this way.
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What was Nurse Ratched's first name?

And the actress playing the ultimate authority figure, Nurse Ratched, was Louise Fletcher. Now, almost half a century later, Nurse Ratched has been given a first name - spoiler alert, it's Mildred - and a backstory.
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