Power

“Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power.” (238).

Today we will focus on the turn of power. There is a transition underway in the ward, a flip for power, a flip for what seems like the better. We learn early off that Nurse Ratchet has all the power. She is top nurse backed by the whole power of the government. Yet we see a change, a change in the form of a small red hair man. And now, the power has fully turned. We see the group now allowed to go on a fishing trip, with women, and participate in the outside. The doctor is now standing up for what he truly wishes to do. And we see the effects of power, we see Chief begin to speak.

The group is allowed to go to the coast. McMurphy does one heck of a job convincing and coaxing people into joining his expedition, despite the nurse’s best efforts to deter the men. The patients are starting to feel a sense of security again, and now a sense of adventure. We see attacks against the nurse whenever possible and we see her starting to wear down. This is the flip of power, this is her final press for control before she is fizzled out; or is it? She still holds all the cards. The men are merely nipping at them. Yet we see an effect that washes over the men. This effect, this disease called power. Now the men believe they have power. They see the effects of having power, how it is great, how they can do as they please. However we can also see how power corrupts in the form of Cheswick. He thought he had power – hopes of an influential input – but it turned out to be nothing. It is curious to see how this plays out.

The quote at the top is when the men learn power through scare tactics. McMurphy props all the men up to being enraged killers from the crazy, loony hospital. This, in turn, gives the men power over people that have heard this, because they are scared. “Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example.” (238) I love the example being Hitler because he was an expert at scare tactics. I am not here to debate if he was crazy or not, and I am not going into depth on what sanity really is, but for all intensive purposes we will say Hitler was crazy. Now with these men coming to a realization that their mental health can be used as a way to gain power over an everyday citizen by portraying that they are potentially dangerous, it does not solve their issues in the ward. They begin to like the feeling of power, they enjoy the intimidation factor that they can display, but back at the ward there is no way that this will fly with the nurse. 

This is a clash of powers – power hungry patients and a dominant nurse backed with every possible resource imaginable – yet we always cheer for the underdog. 

A Terrible Realization - McMurphy's Silence

In Part 1: we saw a rebel force enter the institution in the form of a red haired, little man. Since then, McMurphy has revolutionize the scene for everyone with his all out war (built off of a bet) to make the nurse crack. It is like poking a bear in the eye – eventually its going to get pissed right off. When McMurphy pulls his stunt of taking his towel off we see how he has won a small victory over the nurse. One may win a battle, but they may not win the war...

 McMurphy is stopped dead in his tracks... After the nurse’s outburst, he learns that because he is committed to the institution the nurse is the one that holds him, she controls how long he has to stay. In the text, the now newly educated McMurphy does not push his luck. He takes to becoming reserved and non-provocative. When Cheswick votes at the group meeting about the cigarette rations McMurphy does not support him. Instead McMurphy is now laying low and not drawing attention to himself. I believe he does this to make his possible punishment or stay at the institution less; but he too has learned and seen the nurse and her ways, does he not know she will never forget such an event?

 When the group heads to the swimming pool Cheswick gets his fingers caught is the drain and drowns – this is thought to be an act of suicide. McMurphy is to blame in my opinion. We could imagine that Cheswick was crushed and scared to not have been backed by their rebel leader. He was scared to take the vicious wrath of the nurse’s treatments or punishments. I find McMurphy to blame because he was the back bone of the whole operation, yet he abandons Cheswick in his time of need. Since McMurphy is the unspoken leader, if he were to have voted with Cheswick I guarantee that others would have followed suit.

Ok, enough of connecting/elaborating about the text. Me, how does this connect to me? Well for starters I consider myself loud and a leader in most circumstances. I could say I relate to McMurphy a lot; if I were in the same situation I would probably do the same thing standing up to this terrible system. However, it is apparent that if I were to be going against the system or to be a revolution leader there would be some pretty heavy consequences. To think, it would be like me in our English class trying to take over and rewrite the curriculum. I do not think Ms McErlean would be very joyous about that situation.

The world – how to connect you, more so what level to connect to you? If we were to look at a government, a supposedly smooth running system, we would see that there is someone in charge and there are his/her advisors and there is a system in place. Now, a system is key, all major operations run on systems. If you were to introduce someone into the system (this is purely based on the fact that we do not judge if the system is good or not) and they had their own agenda and ideas to implement into the system, the people would be mad. People hate change – simple as that.

Although, if we investigate the book and connect it to this situation, we would see that it is one measly, little guy against the hospital, government, and society. McMurphy is resisting the system of an entire nation – not literally but more so based on the fact that everything is all connected and he is against the most powerful woman in the institution. Bringing everything back to the main point; when someone disrespects or disregards a system imposed by people with major power, normally the person is simply crushed. This is interesting when we look at how McMurphy has backed off and is now trying to calm down the bear that he was poking.

Questions of Truth - A Look at Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey has clearly had a very interesting life. Being at the front of revolutionary experiments with CIA and new drugs, he has seen the world through many sets of eyes. While he was in the hospitals being a part of the experiments he was able to meet with the patients and relate to them and their situations. This made him write the Coco’s Nest and gave him the insight into the wards. While he was on LSD he would continually have trips about a Native American who would be mopping the floor. This later became Chief Bordman in the Coco’s Nest.

Now in the book Chief gives insight into what he sees and what he feels. Being a first person narration we are able to see imbalances throughout and also some of the hallucinations he presents. As Chief says in the end of the first chapter, ‘But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.’ This makes me wonder about the credibility of the events that Chief says are happening, because if he is that messed up, and the author is that messed up, then what is real. Is this a style thing or is it meant to raise questions on truth? Or is that statement meant more toward things that are directly happening in the ward? For example: it may be the truth that the Black Boys do terrible thing to the new patents but it will never be admitted to have happened. Therefore it’s a conspiracy in which the wards are presented to the public as truly helping these people. Clearly Ken didn’t see it that way, because he writes this book explaining how the people inside the ward get away with such acts and the front they use to do so.

I think that Ken Kesey is a bit of an interesting guy at least. He seems sort of irresponsible. If we examine the fact that he went to university and had a good education and he had a happy family; why would he go and blow it all away. First he dives into these drugs, which were still in experimental stages. I understand that we did not realize the full extent and dangers of drugs, but from his morals about drugs being the only way to truly express yourself I don’t think his morals would’ve changed if he did know. Also to then become a hippy and have a love child and blow up his family with his high school sweet heart, it just seems irresponsible.

Next Ken becomes part of the whole counter culture. The non-conformists! Instead of doing what society and the churches and elders wanted them to do they would partake in lots of drug abuse, sex, and trying to not conform in any way possible (long hair, etc). Ken toured around in a double deck bus, the second deck was an addition. They would tour around and express their views and give out drugs. They were the start of a revolution; they were rallying up support from young people because this was fun. It was the start of a revolution.