Examples Of Individuality In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

A Modern Martyr
In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey writes about a group of inmates in a mental hospital struggling to deal with their oppressive nurse, the mechanical Nurse Ratched. McMurphy the aggressive, gregarious, and overtly-sexual patient fights to be able to express himself individually as well as free the other inmates from the forced conformity of the ward. The author uses this struggle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched as a device to convey his main argument, society is intolerant of, and suppresses, expressions of individuality.
One’s sexuality is undeniably a major part of who they are as an individual. The sexuality of characters plays a major role throughout the book and this is used to show how society

By leveraging peer pressure the nurse can have complete control over most of the patients in the ward. This is clear in the way group therapy sessions are used in the ward. Here, the doctor and Nurse Ratched try to create an environment where patients help each other become function members of society. While this continues to establish the idea that the nurse is an agent of society, the more interesting part is the role patients play in criticising each other. McMurphy makes the connection between the therapy and his time working at a chicken farm. He tells the story ,‘“The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckn’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in this fracas, then it’s their turn. And a few more get spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a pecking party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy...The only way to prevent it-with chickens-is to clip blinders on them”’(55). The pecking party is a metaphor for societal pressure. At the sign of something to criticize, the spot of blood, the other chickens jump onto the bandwagon and go crazy. Because animals are frequently used to reveal something about human nature in this book, we can deduce that the author is using this as a commentary on human nature. Much

This is seen in both the silencing of natural sexuality and the use of social pressure to punish dissenting thoughts and maintain order. Sexuality is a massive part of one’s individuality, but as shown through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, society is intolerant of natural sexuality and ashamed of its own sexuality. This intolerance leads to society suppressing sexuality and therefore individualism and this can be seen in the ultimate fate of McMurphy, lobotomization. As well as suppressing individuality through sexuality, society uses social pressure to maintain order and assure that people don’t step out of line. The Nurse uses “pecking party” style therapy sessions and manipulates people to make sure they are under her control and don’t have the opportunity to express themselves or be their own people. Ken Kesey’s argument lends itself to the conclusion, we should celebrate our differences and embrace them, instead of trying to artificially enforce conformity and societal unity. In our divided social environment, many people think that progress means everybody agreeing with them, but this is where Kesey’s message can be applied. In order to have a functioning society, differences need to be accepted and celebrated instead of suppressed. This is what McMurphy died for, the right to individual