Cuckoo's Nest Blog #1

In the first section of  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, many characters were introduced to the reader. Many of the characters can be easily placed into the character categories, while others cannot yet be classified.
First, the reader can come to the conclusion that Nurse Ratched is the villain in the story. Kesey writes, "You saw what she can do to us... But the way she asks them... If you don't answer she just smiles and makes a note in her little book and then she-- oh, hell!" (p. 68). At this part of the story, the patients at the mental facility are discussing the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, and what she does to the patients. They can see that she has a sneaky way of doing what she wants with the patients and they obviously don't like what she does. If the main group of people who the audience is attached to are opposed to one person who seems like their motives are against them, then that person is most likely the villain.
Also, I would classify the character of McMurphy as an antihero. McMurphy enters the mental facility in a very odd way, being very intrusive, defiant, and rude. His actions show that he is not necessarily a character that has the best morals or a personality that the readers should agree with, but this is not the case. McMurphy is planning to "break" the head nurse, who is the assumed villain in the story. Since he is going against the villain for the benefit of the people of the facility who she is abusing, we tend to agree with his character. This makes McMurphy an antihero.
Finally, the character of Chief, or Broom, can not clearly be categorized as hero, antihero, or villain. There is a good possibility that he could end up being a hero, since he is the narrator of the story. The readers tend to naturally agree with the narrator, no matter how much we know about them. Even though this is true, we know very little information about his character, his motives, and his personality to draw any conclusions. His character very well may be only an observer of the other more important characters and not play a big role in the story.