Second Cuckoo's Nest Blog

At this point I believe that McMurphy is wining in his feud with Big Nurse, if only for the moment. The one thing that has been the strength of the Nurse throughout her days at the ward is the ability to so intimidate people that her actions are never questioned and dissent of her methods is never voiced by those around her. I see McMurphy as having the current upper hand because he is turning this tried tactic of the nurse on its head; the defiance that he shows towards the Nurse gives strength to those around him and now many people are letting their opinions be known and going against the Nurse's rigid schedules. McMurphy has the power of the people behind him. I believe that the introduction of McMurphy into the ward has had dramatic healing properties for Chief; so long has he been under the Nurses spell that he sees himself as being physically shrunk by his time in the ward. The energy and rebellion that courses through McMurphy's veins has enriched the Chief, making him closer to the giant of a man that he was before coming to the hospital. However, I do think that the way events are transpiring confuses the Chief; he wants to root for McMurphy because he views him as a hero, a knight come to the rescue of the ward's patients, but he has never seen the Nurse beaten and he cannot commit fully to following McMurphy because of his anticipation of McMurphy's eventual loss. I personally am rooting for McMurphy, he is a rebellious spirit that is also trying to help out others afflicted similarly to himself.

First Cuckoo's Nest Blog

I would say the Nurse is the Villain of this story because she is a "ball-cutter" and she is a very hateful person who takes advantage of these men. She makes the patients feel, "like frightened , desperate, and ineffectual rabbits" scared for their own skins. She even spent a prolonged amount of time finding employees who had "just the right amount of hate". The protagonist, McMurphy, is also and anti-hero. he is not a very good person, seeing as how he gambles and fights, but the fact that he is trying to liven up life in the Ward and free the patients from the tyrannical rule of the Nurse is noble.

Great Gatsby Reading Blog #3

1. Why do you think that the setting of the book was so heavy with symbolism? Fitzgerald could have chosen any aspect of the story to be symbolic of the events that were happening, but he chose the places in which they occurred to do so. Why?
2. Analyze how Fitzgerald feels about dreams, are they futile and worthy of abandonment? Or are they Something to live for, a goal that the universe necessitates we work for?
3. Why do you think that Fitzgerald chose to have Tom "win" at the end of the book? Why was it that Gatsby had to die for his point to be proven?
4. How effective in propelling the plot was the use of parallelism in Chapter 7, where the truth comes out?