When an external element is introduced into a "closed system,"changes occur. In terms of the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, this closed system is the ward in the mental institution. The external element is R.P. McMurphy. When he comes strutting into the ward laughing and scratching his stomach while walking around in his white-whale shorts, major changes occur. McMurphy causes the entire ward to change. There are three people that he affects on the ward above everyone else. These are Chief Bromden, Doctor Spivey, and Nurse Ratched. It is in these changes that McMurphy enacts an overall positive change in the way the ward works.

The Chief spends the majority of the book pretending to be deaf and mute, while seeing himself as being very small in comparison to the huge man that walked into the ward at the beginning of...