Cuckoo's Nest Social Hierarchy

In the story, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey places racial groups into a social hierarchy in the Combine in order to empathize with these minority groups and reveal the stereotyping that society perpetrates. Throughout the story, these minority groups such as the black orderlies, Turkle, and Chief Bromden are placed on a lower social level than the other characters in the story so that Kesey can justify his use of racism.
The black boys are chosen because they “hate enough to be capable” for the Big Nurse’s liking. They are described as “black as telephones” and carry out any order that their superior, Nurse Ratched, asks them to. McMurphy's attitude toward the black boys is typical based on the social hierarchy of the Combine.

Turkle conveniently buys into McMurphy’s plans of a party after persuading him with alcohol and white women. Even with the fear of being caught and punished by Nurse Ratched, Kesey suggests that the temptations of a black man cannot be tempted no matter the circumstances. When faced with an opportunity to put McMurphy in his place, a white man seen as a rival to Nurse Ratched in terms of power in the ward, the black boys take the chance knowing that “I [they] was begginin’ to think we [they] might never get down to it.” At this point, Kesey blatantly stereotypes the black boys as violent and that they
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are always looking for a fight. As the black boys are marginalized in society, they realize that their opportunities are limited, likewise their ability to react towards their constant mistreatment in the ward. A lot of their actions are done to fight against the environment in which they are treated unfairly. Furthermore, they are cruel to the Bromden because he also is a minority and supposedly he is deaf and unable to speak out against his problems. In the social hierarchy of the ward, Chief is seen as at the bottom, allowing the black boys to constantly torment him to relieve themselves of the abuse they receive.
By observing Bromden throughout the story we can examine his identity crisis as he is split between the desire to maintain his Indian heritage and the necessity of developing behavior acceptable to the dominant white culture. Coming from a white mother, Bromden’s identity crisis becomes quite complicated as his father is Indian. Bromden’s mother is such a dominant force that the she takes her own last name instead of her husbands, thus relinquishing part of the tradition of the tribe. Instead of trying to be a part of both of his two cultures, Bromden, as half white and half Indian, becomes an outsider to both traditions he comes from. He can no longer admire his Indian father as he has lost Bromden’s respect, and he begins to fear his powerful white mother who states, "we ain't Indians. We're civilized and you remember it" (239). Bromden’s mother is the one that convinces her husband into selling the tribal lands making Bromden lead to think that as his mother’s power grows larger, his father decreases in power and becomes less important. Even though Bromden is physically a
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6'8" well built adult, he talks about his much smaller mother as growing larger all the time; she got "Bigger than Papa and me together" (186).
Chief bases his self concept on the white man's perception of him that he observes throughout his life.

White characters such as Nurse Ratched and McMurphy show surprise that he is able to speak and understand them while the black boys claim that Indians can't read or write. Bromden justifies that he is victim to racial inequality when people look "at me [him] like I'm [he’s] some kind of bug" (26) or when people "see right through me [him] like I [he] wasn't there." Throughout Bromden's childhood, he realized that the white people thought he was deaf and mute and that even if he spoke, no one could hear him. In order to survive through the dangers of the social hierarchy he existed in through the ward, he feigns deafness. Bromden points out that, "it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all." (178) Bromden, has also been constantly abused by the staff and other patients at the ward who call him Chief Broom, a derogation of his name as Chief and a mockery of his floor mopping “duties” in the ward that the black boys force upon him. Bromden's circumstances is illustrative of his race and of his entire tribe. The social criticism that Kesey portrays, emerges piecemeal through Bromden’s constant flashbacks and hallucinations of his village. Kesey compares Native Indian cohesion with the new estrangement accompanying the loss of Indian cultures and the adjustment of a white lifestyle to show the social unity once created by Indian traditions. By the end of

the
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story, through the support of McMurphy, Chief is able to regain his self confidence and finally leaves the ward. However, his escape would not have been possible without the involvement of McMurphy in the ward. This conveys the idea that even though Bromden was able to obtain power and leave the ward, he could not have been able to do it without the help of a white man.
Some people may argue that the Japanese Nurse is portrayed as the opposite as Nurse Ratched. She disagrees with Nurse Ratched’s method of handling her ward and acts very friendly toward Chief and McMurphy as they arrive to the Disturbed Ward. However, Kesey purposely excludes the Japanese Nurse from the social hierarchy that is existent in the Nurse Ratched’s ward. By doing so, the minorities that are constantly abused and stereotyped are empathized to justify Kesey’s use of racism.