One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Metaphors 1 key example

Bromden, whose life has been torn apart by technology and industrialization, is paranoid about hidden devices that allow Nurse Ratched and others to surveil and control the patients on the ward. He has spent his 10 years on the ward pretending to be deaf and trying to fade into the background so that no one will notice him and so that the hospital will use few of these devices on him. When Bromden finds himself raising his hand in favor of changing the television schedule, he realizes that he is drawing attention to himself. At first, he cannot imagine that he would do so of his own volition. He falls back on his paranoia and tells the reader that McMurphy is controlling his hand with hidden wires. While the wires might be real for Bromden, the reader can understand them as a metaphor for control. What Bromden is really getting at is the idea that McMurphy has replaced Nurse Ratched as the person controlling Bromden's behaviors and choices.

Immediately, though, Bromden admits that, "That's not the truth. I lifted it myself." In the most literal sense, Bromden is accepting the reality that the hidden wires are a delusion. However, he does not fully back down from the idea that the Nurse has secret means of controlling people. Rather, in this moment, he simply admits that he, and not McMurphy, is in control of his hand. This admission is important because it demonstrates that Bromden sees McMurphy not as an interloper who has challenged Nurse Ratched for control of all the patients on the ward, but instead as someone who challenges the very idea that the patients do not have the capacity to make their own choices. McMurphy gives Bromden the courage to raise his own hand for the first time in a decade.