The few sections of the novel dedicated to Bromden's history form a sub-plot about the way the "fog" slowly seeped into his life and took over his visual and mental clarity. The fog plot seems to begin on pages 36 and 37. Bromden talks about visiting the cotton mill with his high school football team and meeting a girl that worked there. As he talks to her about football, he mentions, "I noticed how her face looked blurred, like there was a mist between me and her. It was the cotton fluff sifting in the air." He says she desperately grabbed him, and her face suddenly came into focus. He mentions, "I saw she was terrified of something." He quickly loses his plain vision to the cotton fluff as she admits she wants to leave the mill and start a new life.
Bromden later identifies his experience in World War II as a turning point in his struggle with the fog. He talks about the fog of war and how he used it to feel safe and protected, but alone at the same. On page 125 Bromden says, "you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself." He doesn't say whether he lost himself at that moment, but it is clear that the fog overwhelmed him at some point. Bromden has not talked about his return from the war, so most likely his story is not over. He has yet to adress when and how he succumbed to the fog and entered the mental institution, and whether he is completely lost or currently in a struggle between mental clarity and fogginess.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I really like this summary of Bromden's past. I think it describes his issues with the fog excellently, and it clearly relates it to, as Bromden says himself, a safe comfort zone. I find it interesting that he has had the problem for so long even before the war. That length of time makes me feel as though it would take something very impactful to rid him of this behavior.
ReplyDelete