Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Chief Bromden

McMurphy might think that he's beating the system by acting out and defying Nurse Ratched all the time, but Chief Bromden has a lot more experience in dealing with her kind.

How so? Well, he fakes being a deaf mute in order to fly under Ratched's radar and to be left alone. Yes, this doesn't give him his freedom. But he thinks it's the best he's going to do with such a huge system trying to keep him down. In a passionate speech, he tells McMurphy that the world is going to break him (McMurphy) down over time. They won't kill him outright, but they'll "work on him" in Chief's words. The truth, though, is that Chief is too scared to act the way McMurphy does because his own father was once a proud man who was destroyed by the forces of social conformity.

It's not until the end of the movie that Chief finally gains the courage to act like McMurphy and seek his freedom for once and for all. But by this time, it's too late for him to escape the hospital with McMurphy because McMurphy has been lobotomized. They've wiped out his rebellious spirit forever, and rather than let them win, Chief kills McMurphy and uses a water fountain to escape from the hospital. In the end, Chief achieves the freedom that McMurphy never could.