Pg's 50-66 Quotes &Contemplations

The majority of these pages is McMurphy and the previously supposed "leader" of the group Harding, debating life in and outside of the institution. It pretty much blows my mind. It all started after a group meeting with the Big Nurse where Harding was the topic of conversation. The group meeting consist of a problem, and the Nurse encourages everyone to ask questions and try to "help" the person with the problem. Only McMurphy realises that all they are doing is completely tearing the person in question apart. He describes it as "Bunch of chickens at a pecking party" (pg 51. Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) Not everyone is from a farm, so they ask him to explain what hes talking about. He says how when the flock of chickens sees one of the chickens is hurt or bleeding, they peck and peck at the chicken till it dies. Than one of the chickens gets hurt in the scuffle and the other chickens notice and rip at that chicken till it dies, and so on. He says Harding is that chicken in the flock and the Big Nurse takes the first peck. McMurphy is astounded that Harding would sit there and let everyone do that to him, and that everyone would do that to him in the first place. At first Harding doesn't understand saying it is all for therapeutic reasons, and of COURSE everyone was just trying to help him out, its all part of the cure. He says Miss Ratched/Big Nurse was a nice lady who would never try to peck out his eyes. McMurphy says its not his eyes hes trying to peck out, its his balls. He goes into great detail on how shes trying to weaken him to make herself stronger. Harding starts to get anxious, going on and on about how sweet and kind she is, telling a made up story of what she probably does on the weekends, drawing up a great deed she did. He tells how she goes out to peoples houses and donates and gets more and more anxious. Suddenly he stops and says "Oh the bitch, the bitch the bitch" (pg 55, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) He realises McMurphy is absolutely right, talks about how they all knew, but no one ever dared say it before. He talks about how she never accuses, how she has so much power she can simply "insinuate" something, and everyone will scramble to defend themselves. Some quotes of Harding to do with this matter on the next few pages would take too long to explain, and will have more effect in the whole of them, instead of summarized.

"No. She doesn't have to accuse. She has a genius for insinuation. Did you ever hear her, in the course of our discussion today, ever once hear her accuse me of anything? Yet it seems I have been accused of a multitude of things, of jealousy and paranoia, of not being man enough to satisfy my wife, of having relations with male friends of mine, of holding my cigarette in an affected manner, even-it seems to me-accused of having nothing between my legs but a patch of hair-and soft and downy and blond hair at that! Ball cutter? Oh you underestimate her!"  "The world ... belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong  getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognise the wolf as the strong. In defence, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn't challenge the wolf to combat. Now would that be wise? Would it?"  "Mr. McMurphy ...my friend .. I'm not a chicken, I'm a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick here is a rabbit. Billy Bibbit is a rabbit. All of us here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity hopping through our Walt Disney World. Oh don't misunderstand me, we're not in here because we are rabbits-we'd be rabbits wherever we were-we're all in here because we cant adjust to our rabbithood. We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place. (pg. 57. Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)

McMurphy than starts to get angry asking how they can let it happen and how he is NOT a rabbit. What exactly makes him a rabbit? Is it his violence and too much sex? Harding argues he's just a more capable sexually active rabbit.  They all argue some more and McMurphy starts to learn how things work, you cant just tell the Big Nurse to go to hell, or she will operate and electrocute you till you can't even talk at all.

All McMurphy want is for the guys to have some guts, he says "You know the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since i came through that door do you know that? Man when you lose your laugh you lose your footing. A man go around lettin' a woman whup him down till he cant laugh anymore, and he loses one of the biggest edges he's got on his side. First thing you know he'll begin to think she's tougher than he is and-" Harding interrupts "Ah. I believe my friend is catching on, fellow rabbits. Tell me Mr. McMurphy, how does one go about showing a woman who's boss, I mean other than laughing at her? How does he show her who's king of the mountain? A man like you should be able to tell us that. You don't slap her around, do you? No, than she call the law. You don't lose your temper and shout at her; she'll win by trying to placate her big ol' angry boy. 'Is us wittle man getting fussy? Ahhh?' Have you ever tried to keep up a noble and angry front in the face of such consolation? So you see, my friend, it is somewhat as you stated; man has but one truly effective weapon against the juggernut of modern matriarchy, but it certainly is not laughter. One weapon, and with every passing year on his hip, motivationally researched society,  ....." (pg 63&4, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) Harding's main point in his paragraph is that even McMurphy could not "get it up" over Miss Rached and he wins the argument. Just like that.

It amazes the arguing raw power and perceptive of Harding. He is supposed to be crazy, and here he is arguing like nothing I have ever seen before, he backs McMurphy right up into a hole and he knows it. McMurphy was trying to tell him they should be more manly, they shouldn't let Miss Ratched boss them around, and Harding agrees, goes into detail, but than makes McMurphy realise there isn't even much he can do to up her in any sort of battle. Harding's whole perspective of things blows my mind, the way he can be so in denial about the whole situation and than argue it with only the slightest provocation. How he can just switch the situation around so that now McMurphy doesn't have enough 'balls". Maybe that is what makes him crazy. I have officially started liking the book. McMurphy is now absolutely determined to get the better of the Big Nurse now and everyone makes bets to whether he will or not.

Pg's 1-50, Summary and Musings

So far in this novel, the setting has taken place in a mental institution, and the point of view has been from a man named Chief Bromden. He never says anything to anyone and is assumed deaf and dumb, but in his narration he tells us that he isn't crazy. The story starts off harshly, already talking about the abuse that the inmates have to put up with. The main characters are the Staff, the Chronics and the Acutes. The Staff include the Big Nurse, the 3 "black boys", Doctor Spivey, and a few other nurses and staff of little mention. The Chronics are older, more mentally unstable men, that have no hope of ever getting better. This could be in part from the drugs and operations that were done on them from the institution to help them become more socially acceptable. The Acutes are younger men, with less offences towards them who have hope to get out of the institution still, if they can avoid operations and getting into trouble.
Chief Bromden goes into specific detail about the Big Nurse as she is the most feared and in my personal opinion the most precarious of even the patients. Bromden describes everything as a machine in the institution, he calls it the "Combine" representing authority in general and the Big Nurse is in the middle of the web controlling and manipulating everything to how she needs it to be. In his words "And I've watched her get more and more skillful over the years. Practice has steadied and strengthened her until now she wields a sure power that extends in all directions on hairlike wires too small for any body's eye but mine; I see her sit in this center of wires like a watchful robot; tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every second which wire runs where and just which current to send up to get the results she wants." (pgs. 25-26, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) She has complete power and she needs to have it at every second. This makes her an important person, but so feared and despised that even if she wanted to do good deep in her heart she couldn't possibly. She could be sat and studied just like the patients could, or more so, as she is so odd in her complete manipulation and evil. She reminds me of one of Shakespeare's characters like Iago in Othello or Edmund in King Lear, always doing things for her own good, never thinking of anyone else.
 I think it is interesting how Bromden sees society and structure and the institution as a machine/ the Combine because in my opinion it's right. People notice things that are different and want to make them the same, make them conform to what is seen as right. It is all a system, advertising and the government and parents teaching children whats right and wrong, what acceptable and whats not.
 One thing that disturbed me was when Bromden was describing the Black Boys, and how Big Nurse chose them because they hated deeply and continuously. He talks about how they had terrible childhoods, like the patients in the institution and that's why she chose them to work there. She lets them do terrible things to the patients, and turns a blind eye, once so far in the book even implying rape of  the patient named Taber. There were other implications with other people but not so obvious, just mentioning vaseline left the room with them or a closed door.
McMurphy shows up near the end of where I have read, and is new and exciting to the patients. He doesn't seem crazy, just seems like someone who like to have fun and get out of jail free. He gives the patients hope and laughter and challenges the Big Nurse in a way she hasn't been challenged before. I am looking forward to reading more about him.

Some questions I'm left with are:


- Why do we conform? Is it because it is simply easier? It reminds me of the one poem I heard, which is actually a song as I just looked it up, called Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds.
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same
And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same
And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.
And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.


- Why is it that we don't question things more, like authority or rules? Some may argue that teens these days do question more than enough, but there are so many things that just are, that aren't questioned or even thought of.


-Why do more people not speak up, when they see something terrible happening, or something wrong going on? Why do people just assume it's how things just ARE?


- Why do so many people think they have the answers to questions that can't be answered? Should they be answered? For example the nurse or doctor thinking they are evaluating and figuring out the patients, what's wrong with them mentally, physically or socially. Is it really the patients that should be evaluated? Or the ones who think they know? The patients have reasons for being the way they are, whether a bad childhood, something traumatic happening, or just being simply different, and the Evaluators do not, they just blindly follow what is told to them is how things are.

Introduction in the Book

During the introduction in the book there is much contemplation about the government and mental institutions during the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. It talks about different books written, besides One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in these times. Many authors thought that mental institutions were good for the general public, to have unstable or different people off of the streets. Other authors thought that it was all a scam to assert the power of others, like mental health professionals. Some thought it was just a way to conform people. It says in the book, while Ken Kesey was working a graveyard shift at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital he began to consider "wether madness really meant the common practice conforming to a mindless system or the attempt to escape from such a system altogether." (pg x, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey) The introduction talks about how the government does tests using acid, mescaline, and other hallucinogenic drugs, and how Kesey actually participated. Kesey used his experiences to write his book. The rest of the introduction talks about different peoples views on Kesey's characters and interpretations, like Bromdon and his views on McMurphy, the Big Nurse or society. It gives us an insight on how the book will be, and different ways to interpret it.