"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and the Insane History of "Rehabilition" in the United States.

             

*somewhat of a spoiler ahead, beware. Skip the paragraph about Billy Bibbit if you don't want to read it. Also, this book talks about heavy topics, so trigger warning.

            One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, displays the graphic nature in which severe mental disorders were dealt with in the mid 1900s. The book follows the protagonist, Randle McMurphy, in his interactions with several mentally-ill patients, their nurses, and psychiatrists all within the confines of an old-style insane asylum. McMurphy was sent to the ward after a court order, and throughout the book it is unclear whether he is actually mentally ill, but it is obvious that he is sane enough to stand up for himself and challenge authority. McMurphy's arrival to the ward and up until the climax of the story is narrated by Chief Bromden, who describes the impact McMurphy's personality has on the other ward patients.

            Chief Bromden is a patient of the ward who pretends to be deaf and mute to escape the cruelness of society. He faced constant ridicule because of his lineage as a Native Indian, and like McMurphy, tried to escape his problems through the asylum. He found it comparably difficult to be in the mental ward, however, because of the novel's antagonist Nurse Ratched.

            Nurse Ratched, although seemingly nice, uses her knowledge of all the patients to manipulate them. She targets their insecurities and weaknesses to create a power dynamic, almost Stockholm syndrome-like, in which the patients either fear or admire her so much they don't want to leave the asylum. She doesn't actually care about rehabilitating or helping the patients orientate into a scary society which doesn't suit them. She, instead, mentally and physically tortures them through what she claims is therapy. 

            The reader realizes her inaptitude after Nurse Ratched hosts group discussions and democratic-like votes, all of which are corrupt. She forces schedules upon the patients which don't allow for any freedom or individuality, and when McMurphy tried to temporarily alter these schedules to accommodate the world series, he immediately got shut down--Nurse Ratched tried to use the seemingly deaf and mute Chief Bromden, who she believed couldn't understand the debate, as a vote in her favor against changing the schedule. The antagonist also gains more dominance and creates a fear factor by prescribing electroshock to the most rebellious patients, which can ultimately leave a patient a zombie who cannot think. She disguises her psychological damage as mere treatment, brainwashing her subjects into submission.

            The character that resonated with me the most in the book was Billy Bibbit. Bibbit is characterized by a stutter and clear anxiety, although this is never clarified in the book. He looks up to McMurphy and his confidence, but himself has been so emotionally scarred he can't commit to doing anything rebellious without re-assurance from someone else. Bibbit is evidently mentally tortured by Nurse Ratched, who triggers his anxiety by mentioning how his mother could be hurt by his actions. She pushes him, as well as the other patients, to talk about subjects that are emotionally scarring and triggering to them for no apparent reason, often causing embarrassment or guilt. Bibbit's character progression throughout the story is really saddening because it's obvious how positive of an effect McMurphy has on him by teaching him how to gain confidence, and how monstrous of an effect Nurse Ratched has. Billy Bibbit kills himself near the end of the book after Nurse Ratched expresses her disappointment in him because he slept with a prostitute McMurphy brought into the ward. Nurse Ratched verbally berated him after finding out about this scandalous act, which she fully knew would trigger his anxiety, and was not the correct way to approach that situation.

            The scene below is from the movie version of this film and I think it really expresses how manipulative and authoritative Nurse Ratched is; it's important to note just how much harm her behavior can cause and how it should never be compared to actual therapy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlmBNVVQMw

(the guy standing up for Billy is not McMurphy, rather Cheswick, another patient of the ward).

            In the mid-1900s and even now (although electroshock therapy may no longer exist, there are still many of the stigmas discussed above implemented in prisons, mental hospitals, etc,), rehabilitation facilities in the U.S. have focused on keeping patients in their facilities, rather than helping re-introduce them to society. At one point in the story, McMurphy organized and led a fishing trip to get the other patients to experience normal unconfined life, but he got shunned. Even though the event clearly brightened the patients' moods, and motivated them to work towards living normal lives, the psychedelic ward didn't want any alternative voices to arise from the trip. In my opinion, events like these are the most important things a facility like that asylum can do, in order to slowly adapt patients into society. Ken Kesey's writing isn't just a story about a corrupt nurse and a rambunctious patient, it clearly discusses flaws in how the U.S. has historically believed that the best way to fix the problem of people unadapted to societal standards is to lock them away forever. I believe anyone who reads this book will gain incite on how messed up confinement and submission based treatment can be.

As kind of a writer's note: I originally read this book because it was banned in multiple schools, and we were required to review a banned book for a class project. However, I really wanted to cover the topic and idea of rehabilitation in this blog, as it can be very controversial.

- Dan