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<title> The development of Chief Bromden </title>
I think Chief Bromden in Ken Kesey's novel One flew over the cuckoo's nest is a fascinating character because he makes such a big progress throughout the text, hand he lets us witness it by sharing his thoughts with us. In the beginning I thought he seemed really crazy, but as I read more of the book I started to realise that he is very reasonable, that there is an explanation to why he is acting and thinking as he does, most of the time anyway. My aim for this essay is to analyse Chief Bromden, at least parts of his character, his development, and to see how the author conveys him to us. 

Since Chief Bromden is the narrator of the story we get a first-hand view of his thoughts, and they are not completely normal, I would say. He is in fact crazy, this shows in the way he sees horrible visions and thinks they are true. One example of this occurs when he lies awake one night and sees all the machines and robots in the dorm, and then, as to defend himself, asks: "But if they don't exist, how can a man see them?" 1 (p. 82). He is so sure they are true. I think he gets even more confused and alienated from the surrounding world, by playing deaf and dumb. But why does he act this way?

As Chief Bromden himself tells us on the night before the fishing-trip, it was not he who started acting deaf and dumb, it was people around him who started treating him this way. Ever since the people came who wanted to buy his father's land, through grade school and the army, and now at the mental asylum, he has been ignored. It could be seen as an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, if a person is believed and treated as to be in a certain way, sooner or later he will start acting like expected. McMurphy is different, he sees the Indian right from the start and is never fooled by his deaf-and-dumb act. He gets the other patients to see him too, and finally the Chief can drop his act. "...and nobody seemed to think a thing about me all of a sudden talking with people- a guy who'd been considered deaf and dumb as far back as they'd known him, talking, listening, just like anybody." (p.243) 

Why has he continued to act deaf and dumb? I think that just as he hides in the fog, he can hide behind his act and it lets him observe both the Combine and other people. He is good at observing and analysing others, but this at the same time hinders him from being a full member of their group. It becomes clear on the boat for example: "I watched, part of them, laughing with them - and somehow not with them." (p.212).

Chief Bromden has a complicated view on the Combine, he changes between thinking that you can't beat them and that perhaps McMurphy can. He is scared that they will bust McMurphy just as they did his father, as he tells him on their nightly chat, but at the same time he sees that McMurphy is different since they haven't broke him yet. Towards the end of the book Chief Bromden has realised that he himself also can put up a fight against the Combine. He realises this in the middle of the party, and proves it by telling McMurphy that "...somebody should stay here a few weeks after you're gone to see that things don't start sliding back" (p. 257), meaning himself. He now considers himself strong enough to be a guardian against the Combine.

The process that McMurphy has started, which result in Chief Bromden feeling strong again is painful. At first the Indian wants to stay in the safe, thick fog, and he complains to himself: "That's that McMurphy. He's far away. He's still trying to pull people out of the fog. Why don't he leave me be?" (p.123). But then he realises that it is he himself that has put his hand up in the voting, and that he actually wants to leave his safe place. He starts to see and appreciate the environs. On the way home from the fishing-trip he notices that he is getting so as he can see some good in the life around him. And after his last electroshock-treatment he promises himself never to hide away in the fog again, this he tells the reader himself.

By the time of the electro-shocks McMurphy has managed to get Chief Bromden to quit hiding when he gets scared. That he is scared is one of the first things we learn about the Chief, plus the fact that he is big. One of the black boys comments this on the very first page: "Big enough to eat apples off my head an' he mine me like a baby" (p.9) as he tells the others. Harding too points this out to us: "...a six-foot-eight sweeping machine, scared of its own shadow" (p.65). But in spite of his size Chief Bromden doesn't see himself as big or strong, and he tells McMurphy this on the night he starts talking: "I used to be big, but not no more. You're twice the size of me." (p.186). After just a little while though McMurphy has changed the Chief's image of himself, and he fills out his body again. The Indian says about his first meeting with McMurphy "I remember the fingers were thick and strong closing over mine, and my hand commenced to feel peculiar and went to swelling up out there on my stick of an arm, like he was transmitting his own blood into it." (p. 27). And in a way that is just what happened. In the end McMurphy gives up his last breath, and Chief Bromden can escape, much thanks to McMurphy's sacrifice for the others. 

A lot can be said about the development in Chief Bromden's character. Due to lack of space I will settle with my observations so far. In the end he has come a long way from the little scared, deaf-and-dumb-acting chronic he was when we first met him. He is now capable of dealing with his problems and is ready to try life on the outside. 
1 All quotations from One flew over the cuckoo's nest, Ken Kesey, Signet publishing
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