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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Part One
Explanation and Analysis—Surveillance and Paranoia:
It is often difficult to locate the line between Bromden's paranoia and his real, valid concern about surveillance. One example of this motif occurs in Part One, when Bromden worries that Nurse Ratched is listening to the men discuss their vote about changing the television time:
Against the wall of the tub room I get a feeling like a spy; the mop handle in my hands is made of metal instead of wood (metal’s a better conductor) and it’s hollow; there’s plenty of room inside it to hide a miniature microphone. If the Big Nurse is hearing this, she’ll really get Cheswick.
Bromden is always worried about hidden technology that Nurse Ratched is using to spy on the men. In this case, he thinks about how the broom handle he is using might conceal a microphone. At first, this fear seems to the reader like an obvious paranoid delusion. No one needs to spy on the men. They are discussing their television time, not planning covert military operations.
And yet, Bromden is not wrong that the men are under heavy surveillance. There is always a staff member on the ward who can report back to Nurse Ratched about what the men are doing. She has a great deal of control over them and actively works against them banding together to overthrow her. It is not as far a leap as it may seem at first for Bromden to wonder if she is planting secret microphones around the ward.
Kesey wrote the novel at a time when surveillance technology was getting more advanced. Many people were worried about the government's use of this technology against everyday citizens. The U.S. government really did wiretap many activist organizations and used the secretly gathered information to suppress dissent. Chief Bromden is clearly paranoid, but his paranoia is not without reason. After all, the U.S. government has used and abused him and his people time and time again. Like Nurse Ratched, the government deserves a healthy amount of suspicion. This passage and others like it throughout the book raise the question of just how unreasonable it is to look for surveillance technology around every corner. Maybe we should all be a little more paranoid, the novel suggests.
Related Themes:
Part Three
Explanation and Analysis—Flashbacks:
As Bromden's fog clears over the course of the novel, he begins to have flashbacks to his childhood and the events that led to his difficulties with mental health. One example of this motif occurs in Part Three, when he thinks about when he first started letting others believe he was deaf:
Lying there in bed, I tried to think back when I first noticed it. I think it was once when we were still living in the village on the Columbia. It was summer....
... and I’m about ten years old and I’m out in front of the shack sprinkling salt on salmon for the racks behind the house, when I see a car turn off the highway and come lumbering across the ruts through the sage, towing a load of red dust behind it as solid as a string of boxcars.
The ellipses at the end of one paragraph and the beginning of the next help denote for the reader that the narration is skipping backward in time and to a different place. However, Bromden continues to use present tense verbs. In his mind, he really is back on the Columbia River at 10 years old, watching a car stir up the dust in the sage. Bromden goes on to describe the conversation the people in the car had right in front of him. They discussed their plan to dam up the river, the source of the salmon Bromden was salting at the time. They ultimately decided not to inform Bromden's father of their plan at that time, even though they knew it would entirely disrupt his life: they did not want to give him the chance to disrupt their dam project. In the flashback, Bromden hears the entire conversation and says nothing. He understands himself to be part of the background for these adults; they don't think of him as another person who understands them and might respond. In fact, they hardly notice him at all.
By filling in Bromden's past through flashbacks, Kesey highlights the impact of memory and trauma on his narrator's life in the present. He also highlights Bromden's complex humanity. Bromden is not only an adult man living on a psychiatric ward. He is also a 10-year-old boy listening to blasé conversations about the destruction of his home. He is also a soldier in World War II. He is also a boy somewhat older witnessing his father's grief and anger drive him deep into alcoholism. The flashbacks help make Bromden's "craziness" make complete sense, so that the reader begins to see him not as someone to be cordoned off from society, but rather as someone society has forced into exile.
Related Themes:
