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.
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