Seeing is Believing

When our class began reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, we all felt skeptical of Bromden's credibility as an author due to his very descriptive, yet unusual, perceptions of reality.  He tended to see things which did not truly exist, like a ball and chain on the end of someone's hand, or green slime covering the walls.  We came to a conclusion that Bromden had more tangible interpretations of reality than the average person and this reminded me of the disease, synethesia.  This is a disease of the mind where numbers and letters are percieved to have colors assigned to them, or even certain days and months evoke personalities of their own.  Over 60 types of this disease exist, yet only a fraction of that has been studied.

This state is usually a result of a stroke, seziure, or psychadelic drugs.  This leads me to believe that maybe Bromden's visions were a result of one of the drugs given to him by the nurses.

Then again, I know I personally have a color for each state in America:  Colorado is yellow; Ohio is green; Kentucky is red.  Also, I know I have discussed with other people the color of subjects in school.  I have heard multiple times "Science is so green" and "Math is definitely red."  So, where is the line drawn for these tangible perceptions of reality as an "insane" view of the truth?

The Namesake Meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Have you ever wondered what would happen to characters if they met characters from other books you have read?  I have, since our class began reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, wondered how Gogol Ganguli would react to the characters in the ward.


He would be admitted due to his obsession with his name...


His mother has begun to call him "Him," because he does not anwer to anything else.  Of course, Ashima Ganguli has connections with the Big Nurse because the Big Nurse has met her through the latter's selfless yet self-run organization called "Reach Out to the Different People Program."  Ashima shamefully, tearfully puts her son's mental health in the hands of Miss Ratched.  She slyly smiles, knowing full well that the ward will recieve more funding for tending to someone from India.  Oh, and of course, it will be therapeutic for Gogol.


During Gogol's first therapy session, the Big Nurse and the doctor intently listen for the first three seconds of Gogol describing the internal conflict he has with his name.  On the fourth second,  McMurphy interrupts asking, "Do any of us birds have some real problems that are more interesting than this fool's name?"  Gogol tries to explain how he is having relationship problems with one of the nurses on the ward that he has known for a day while Nurse Ratched icily stares at McMurphy, knowing that if Ashima is not satisfied with her son's time in the ward, her funding will be taken away.  He does not catch this look and continues to berate Gogol for his petty so-called "problems."  Then, Bromden, stoically residing in a dark corner of the room, stands up and chooses his words with care.  He leads Gogol to the door and whispers:


"You do not belong here.  You are too weak.  Leave before it is too late."


This straightforward attitude is something that Gogol has never seen and it scares him away, for he was too fragile to live on the ward anyway.  McMurphy and Bromden still use him as the butt of their jokes, yet continue to wish their lives were as simple as his.

The Dark Side of the Ward

As I furiously attempted to finish my English reading in our family computer room the other night, I found it extremely annoying that my dad insisted on playing his music louder than either of us needed.  Then again, we always joke that I am like his parent, always asking him to turn his music down; he might just be deaf.  Before I decided to passive-aggressively stomp away, I took a moment and removed my mental block from his music.  He was listening to Pink Floyd's album, Dark Side of the Moon, which covers multiple themes such as life, death, and, most of all, madness.

"Breathe," a very slow moving song, states "Only if you ride the tide,...you race toward an early grave."  This parallels the endless monotony of life the patients feel day after day on the ward.  They feel that they have no purpose, and do not want a purpose because they feel that it will ultimately lead to their death.

The song "Speak to Me" features multiple chilling screams and the "Brain Damage" is said to be spoken from the point of view of a crazy person.  It deals with lobotomies as well.  At one point, they sing, "The lunatic is in my head/ You raise the blade, you make the change,/ You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane," taking on the persona of a patient of a lobotomy.  They also assert, "There's someone in my head but it's not me," displaying the change of a person after a lobotomy treatment.

Lastly, in the song Eclipse, they state, "There is no dark side of the moon really./Matter of fact it's all dark."  This parallels the sense of hopelessness that all the patients have, not only in the ward, but also in their entire life.

I have just begun to draw the parallels between these two works, and I challenge you all to find more.

Blind Faith

In our discussion today, I was surprised at how much we focused on the debate of the sanity of the narrator.  I thought that would be a small factor, and as I read, I focused much more on his reactions to the world around him and how these reactions reflected the character of his environment; I was wrong to think the narrator's insanity would not matter.  I found, during our discussion today, how much I blindly follow what is told to me, no matter the source.  I find myself easily swayed by any opinion, even when others in class have a debate.  As they go back and forth, I agree with the opinion one side, and then agree to the exact opposite opinion of the same argument the next minute.  This is a serious weakness of mine and it clearly shows as I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  Obviously this guy has serious issues, I mean, he sees people turn into bunnies!  However, it is so difficult for me to not follow his views; I hate the Big Nurse, feel that the entire institution is "out to get" all the patients, and feel that there is a plan to assimilate all of them on the Inside into the Outside.  As I see it from a rational and reasoned with point of view, Chief Bromden has no credibility, but inside the book, I want to believe every word he says (I rationalize this with "his warped views are artistic and metaphorical ways of looking at life").  So the real question is, although he may be "insane," how credible is Chief Bromden?

Forever Reading, Forever AP English

Earlier this week, my brother tagged me in a "note" on Facebook that led me to a conclusion about AP English.  His note was called "23 out of 100 BBC books," and sent it to me and a few other people regarding us as "all you other book nerds out there."  Apparently, the BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed on the page and they had you bold the ones you finished and italicize the ones you started but never got around to finishing.  Thankfully, I had read more than six (if I'm going to be considered a "book nerd," I might as well practice it) but there were a lot more that I wanted to read than ones I had read.  This made me have one of those feelings that many of us have that there is so much to do and no where near enough time to do it.  And, I thought, I'm going to have to annotate every single one of these, which will take even longer.  Then, I realized, in less than seven months, I will never have to annotate again, but I wanted to.  I wanted to get the most out of every single book.  I wanted to understand each symbol and literary device and the effect of each device.  I feared that I would lose the ability to do this, or that maybe I needed all the people in my English class to help me along as I read.  Now that I think about it, I do not think this will happen.  If I keep up my status as a "book nerd," I will never lose my ability that I have learned from AP English.

Is It Who We Truly Are?

A week or two ago, I found myself flipping through the channels and came across the show Gilmore Girls.  Now, I have never seen this show before, except for in passing, which made it more surprising to me that I heard Gogol's name within the first five seconds of deciding whether or not to change the channel.  Upon hearing this, I decided to endure my first (almost) full episode of this show.  Rory (or Loreli, I'm not really sure), the protagonist of the show, was asked what books she was in to.  She answered "I'm really getting into the Russians, particularly Nikolai Gogol and his story, The Overcoat."  Not only did I find this coincidental, but I also found her actions to be like Gogol Ganguli in this episode; when asked what she was doing the exact time she received her Harvard application, she replied that she had been reading Gogol's stories, when actually she had been watching a ridiculous children's television show.  It made me realize the facade that Gogol was trying to portray when he changed his name. Who is he really?  I know Rory seemed like a smart girl who should attend Harvard, but she was not the person reading Gogol when she received her Harvard application.  In parallel to this, although an outgoing, American person may be part of who Gogol is, he is never fully and truly the person he attempts to convey.