Insanity In 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'

Ethan Collard
Miss Lewis
AP Literature and Composition Combined
17 January 2016
Question 3 Final Draft
Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the definition of insanity is profoundly questioned, however the societal implications of this ambiguity are just that, implications. Kesey, the author, never gives any specific answer to this question. For many of the patients, their madness is unquestionable, a direct effect of Nurse Ratched’s treatment. To the audience, though, the question of the patients’ insanity is more uncertain. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest questions societal expectations’ effect on the definition of insanity, and this proposal of Kesey directly impacts the theme that this definition of madness is ambiguous and that societal norms are able to be both oppressive and pillars of civilization simultaneously.

Societal expectations are dictated by those in power, and the person in power in the psychiatric ward is Nurse Ratched.

Ratched is depicted as the embodiment of these social standards because she controls the definition of insanity just as the standards do. For example, McMurphy’s defiance is nearly halted when “the Big Nurse” explains that she can hold him in the ward until she deems him sane. McMurphy, however, is able to interrupt Ratched’s plans, and therefore the expectations, by rebelling and empowering the other patients.
During his time in the psychiatric ward, McMurphy discovers that many of the patients are self-committed. This spurs him into action, along with Dale Harding, to rebel against Nurse Ratched. In addition, McMurphy’s rebellion equates to an attack on the social expectations that initially caused so many of the patients to commit. The ability to allow the patients to overcome their fear of their social standing is indicative of McMurphy’s embodiment of the novel’s central

question.
There are three primary examples that can be credited to McMurphy: Dale Harding, Billy Bibbit, and Chief Bromden. Dale’s initial commitment was caused by his immense shame over his homosexual urges and his fear of his social status with his wife should she find out. Soon after McMurphy’s lobotomy, Harding is able to overcome his fear of the social expectations and leave the ward. Billy Bibbit’s reason for commitment stemmed from an extreme dependence on his mother and his trepidation that he might do something to disappoint her. For however brief a time, Billy was able to overcome his fear of his social standing with his mother by having sex with a prostitute, to whom he was introduced by McMurphy. Finally, Chief Bromden, simply through McMurphy’s presence at the ward and his downfall, was able to overcome his fear of the outside world and escape. McMurphy relieved all of these men’s fear of societal expectations by rebelling and eventually sacrificing himself to tear them apart, just as he tore open Nurse Ratched’s uniform.
Kesey’s question of the effects of societal expectations on the definition of insanity solidified the theme by calling all of these characters’ sanity into question. This theme that the nature of madness is ambiguous and that social standards are oppressive is illuminated by McMurphy as a character. McMurphy embodies the proposed question because he rebels against the societal standards that deemed these patients, these people, insane.