One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey was published in 1962. The 1950s and early 1960s were a time of conformity versus rebellion in the United States . While the average breadwinner returned to a suburban living room lit by Father Knows Best, Allen Ginsberg was in Greenwich writing Howl to criticize the mechanization and conformity of modern society, Pollock splattered the canvas with paint, Kinsey redefined sexuality, and Kesey was publishing One Flew ("Voices Against Conformity"). These era-defining themes of rebellion are reflected in Kesey's novel, the story of an unnamed ward in a psychiatric hospital and the patients who reside there. The ward is headed by Nurse Ratched, the head nurse, who rules the ward with fear and manipulation until Randal McMurphy, a man who pretends to be insane to get out of the prison labor camp, comes to tremble. things are going well. McMurphy refuses to be subjugated by the system of manipulation with which the nurse governs the ward. His goal to dethrone Nurse Ratched begins as a bet he makes between the men that he can "bother her until he gets there." falling apart in those neat little seams,” within a week, but as the novel continues its lighthearted rebellion it eventually evolves into a desperate battle to maintain his agency and identity, a battle he ultimately loses (Kesey 72 ) His spirit, however, will inspire other patients to take control of their lives, at least temporarily. The story is told through the eyes of one of the patients, a troubled half-Native American named Chief Bromden, who witnesses McMurphy's struggle. against the powers determined to control it. This novel focuses primarily on society's effect on individual free will and calls for a break with the social contract of our society, which punishes differences and violates our right to self-determination to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned” Get an Original Essay To be part of a civil society, every individual must give up some measure of self-determination. Without an implicit agreement that binds us as a people and establishes the rules for our governance and social behavior, there could only be anarchy, where each person works exclusively for their own self-interest (Friend). This idea was most famously outlined by two natural law theorists John Locke and Thomas Hobbes (D.). The two men believed in the “Social Contract,” the idea that individuals enter into a voluntary, mutual agreement to create a society with the power to ensure the protection of its citizens, however the two men interpreted it slightly differently (“ Social Contract”). . Locke believed that the individual gave up the right to obtain his own justice in exchange for the protection of his own well-being and the security of a powerful and impartial justice system (D.). Hobbes, who was of the opinion that life was “nasty, brutish, and short,” thought that an individual gave up all personal rights in exchange only for the protection of his own life (D.). Although both Locke and Hobbes agree that being part of a society requires giving up some degree of self-determination, they disagree about whether it is possible to break the social contract. John Locke believed that the social contract could and should be broken if people felt that their fundamental rights had been violated, but Hobbes believed that the individual had no rights and, once made, the social contract could never bebroken(D.). There are two social contracts that function in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the first is the Lockean social contract of our society, which in addition to protecting and regulating justice for its citizens, also pushes them into conformity, shaming those who do not adhere to it . what governs as socially acceptable. The second is that of the department. The department is separate from the company and the rules are different. Nurse Ratched creates a Hobbesian social contract on the ward that requires patients to give up their free will in exchange for protection from the outside world. In the ward the patients have formed a sort of social contract, Hobbes style, with Nurse Ratched. They give up the entirety of their free will by remaining in the ward, a society unto themselves, willingly allowing it to mistreat them in exchange for protection from the outside world. Each man has a reason for being in the unit: Chief Bromden is schizophrenic, Billy has a crippling stutter, and Sefelt is epileptic. Nurse Ratched says that the men "are in [the ward] because [they] couldn't adapt to society's rules" (Kesey 188), but in reality it was society that was unwilling to adapt to them; he found their “flaws” unacceptable and sought to punish them for being different, tearing them down with “the great voice of millions singing, “Shame. Shame. Shame'" (294). Billy tries to explain this to McMurphy, saying, "Have you ever had people laugh at you? No, because you're so big and tough! Well, I'm not big and tough. Not even Harding is. Not even F-Fredrickson. Not even Suh-Sefelt . Oh-oh, you-you talk like we stayed here because we liked it!” (184).Unlike the Hobbesian theory of the social contract, the men are free to break the agreement, leaving the ward, at any time, but as Billy says they do not have the courage to re-enter the society that has rejected them the ward as a refuge, albeit a hellish one, from the outside world and the cruelty of the people who inhabit it. Even if they don't like the ward, or Nurse Ratched, at least they feel like they belong on that ward, among others. rejected and misfits like them. They also let Nurse Ratched control them, they allow her to manipulate them mainly because it is better than the Outside World but also because they are lost, in a fog, like the drug-induced halo of the. Cape in which “You had a choice: you could force yourself and look at the things that appeared before you in the fog, however painful it might be, otherwise you could relax and lose yourself” (125). Men do not know who they are or what they should do with their existence unsatisfactory, and it is easier to forget yourself and completely give up your free will than to free yourself from the fog and take responsibility for your life (Martin). Chief Bromden is one such patient, who has given up his free will to the point of feigning mutism. He is the initially passive witness to the events of the department, who tells us everything he sees. Chief Bromden is the son of a Chinook chief and a white city girl. Physically he resembles his father, tall as a horse and strong, but takes his mother's surname. These two conflicting identities, exacerbated by the horrors of war, create an identity crisis that he cannot resolve (Ware). He sees the deterioration of his people's way of life, at the hands of government officials. Society has rejected him more because he is half Native American than because he is schizophrenic, but instead of laughing at him like other men, the Outside World ignores him, hides him under the table and tries to forget him. He recalls: “I didn't start acting deaf; they were the people who first started acting like I wastoo stupid to hear, see, or say anything" (Kesey 198). Although his mutism is symbolic of his helplessness, he feels as if he has no voice; it helps him because it allows him to hear and see things hidden from others. He sees and tells us about the hatred of the orderlies and the system of fear and mechanical precision with which Nurse Ratched manages the ward. A system that is interrupted by the arrival of McMurphy, who enters boldly, with large hands, broad shoulders, the voice "Loud and full of hell" (11). Chief recognizes in McMurphy all the traits that society has stolen from him; while the Chief feels small and silent, McMurphy is big and loud. McMurphy hides from no one. During the Chief's first meeting with McMurphy, Chief Bromden describes that when McMurphy shook his hand it felt “strange and started to swell out there on my arm, as if he was sending his own blood into it of blood and power. It blew up almost as big as his, I remember,” (24). This foreshadows how forcefully McMurphy will reinvigorate the patients on the ward, especially Chief Bromden who has the opportunity to become “big” again, but also how it will be costs McMurphy dearly, the strength he transmits to the other patients comes directly from his own life source (Martin). At the end of the novel Chief Bromden's strength is returned to him and he begins to speak again suffocating the newly lobotomized McMurphy, saving the her body and her legacy from any further corruption by Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched may be mistaken for the force that creates all men's problems, but in reality she is subject to injustice by the same society she has. hurt She has been forced into an inadequate role by a society that does not consider women equal to men is, if not a victim, certainly a product of this power environment in society and must, at least outwardly, adhere to the position of. guardian of the role of women in society. However, his skills, which boast mastery of manipulation and subterfuge, are better suited to a CIA interrogator or politician than a healer. Because she has been stripped of any power in the outside world, she demands it on the ward and preserves it by keeping men at bay, exacerbating their feelings of shame and low self-esteem instead of trying to help them. The men on the ward see Nurse Ratched as the ultimate antagonist. It seems to them so powerful that it controls not only men themselves but also time, speeding it up or slowing it down at will. Our narrator, however, recognizes that “it is the whole Combine, the nationwide Combine that is the really great force, and the nurse is just a high-ranking official to them” (Kesey 181). The Combine is what Chief Bromden calls the company's initiative to make everyone uniform. According to him it is something that "you can't whip... forever. All you could do was keep whipping it, until you couldn't get out anymore and someone else had to take your place" (303). McMurphy also realizes that Nurse Ratched is not omnipotent, he tells the men that "to detach from her would not be to get rid of the real deep problem that causes the complaints" (181). While he can't pinpoint the true source of their problems, he recognizes that it's not the nurse. She's just a hateful woman, and he proves it in his final act against her when he tears her uniform, exposing her femininity which is seen as synonymous with weakness. While victory over a woman who has subjugated and belittled these men for years is a feat, it is outweighed by the sad realization that the men do not realize that the Nurse is only a product of their society's injustice, not the cause of all the evil.injustice. They think the fight is over and that they have won, they do not recognize the true nature or magnitude of what they hope to free themselves from and are therefore more vulnerable than ever. Unlike the patients or Nurse Ratched, McMurphy is free from the distorting effects of society. He is a man who lives his life on the fringes of society, enjoying its pleasures but refusing to respect its rules. This is partly because he has no ties to society, he has “no wife who wants new linoleum. No relative attacked him with the old watery eyes. Nobody to worry about” (Kesey 89). He can take care of himself, so he doesn't need society to protect him, and if there is justice to be exacted, he would like to do it personally, so he has nothing to gain from abiding by society's rules (D. ). A crucial part of the social contract is the agreement to follow common laws, these include the laws established by the government of a society but also the social rules that a people agree on, which outline acceptable and unacceptable behavior (Friend). McMurphy ignores both of these aspects, most notably by unapologetically sleeping with an underage girl; This not only violates the social rule we have as a society that prohibits adults from having sex with children, but it also violates the law established by our government that reinforces this belief. At the beginning of the novel, McMurphy defies the social contract not, as Locke hopes, to protect his human rights, but because he does not want to be bound by society's rules. When he is first admitted, McMurphy's antics are just a continuation of this behavior. He is as reluctant to submit to the rules of the ward as he was to those of the outside world, however, as the novel continues, his behavior changes from a casual violation of the rules. for fun and personal gain to a more desperate struggle (Martin). McMurphy cannot understand this change, even though he certainly feels it, just as he cannot fully recognize the hopeless nature of his struggle, but he continues, even when he has nothing to gain, even when the consequences are excessive and cruel because he does not it is in him to surrender. He proves again and again that he is willing to suffer exorbitantly to maintain the right to decide his own fate, even if the only choices available are terrible. It is unclear, however, whether this behavior can truly be considered an exercise in self-determination. Chief Bromden's father told him, "If you don't watch it, people will force you one way or another to do what they think you should do, or just to be stubborn and do the opposite just out of spite." This belief suggests that McMurphy's decision to do the opposite of what Nurse Ratched wants may not be an expression of his free will because it is still the nurse who controls his actions (198). Ultimately, Nurse Ratched manages to take McMurphy's free will, but her influence outlasts him. After the illicit party and his involuntary disrobing, Nurse Ratched has McMurphy lobotomized and leaves his body empty in the center of the ward, like Achilles dragging Hector's body around the walls of Troy. The men, however, refuse to believe it's him, claiming it's a fake and just another of the nurse's tricks. The men thwart her every attempt to regain power, and Nurse Ratched cannot stop the fourteen men who finally have the power to break the ward's social contract and leave, taking control of their lives for the first time since were hospitalized. Even our narrator finds the strength he thought he had lost and tears the chrome panel from the floor of the tub,, 2015.