Power In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a work of literature containing the theme of individuals mentally imprisoning themselves when in reality, they are not physically imprisoned. The novel is narrated by a resident patient, Chief Bromden, who pretends to be deaf and mute within the mental hospital. Bromden mentally believes he is weak in the face of authority, when in reality he is physically capable of rebelling. In the mental institution a new resident’s, Randle Patrick McMurphy, arrival begins to disrupt the balance previously placed upon the ward by the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. Through countless acts of uprising there is a constant struggle for power between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, while McMurphy slowly instills hope into

the minds of the other patients. The residents of the mental hospital lack of confidence to be a part of society can be better understood when examined through a psychoanalytic lens. By applying Stephen Grosz’s “The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves,” to the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, it is evident that past adolescent experiences are often the cause of future psychological illnesses through the lives of the mental hospital patients Billy Bibbit, Chief Bromden, and Randle Patrick McMurphy.
Stephen Grosz believed that there is always a reason hidden deep in patients past which reveals why they have developed such psychological illness. Grosz claims that “what we do believe is ‘in the past’…shapes our thoughts and actions every day.” In other words, a past trauma can manifest and cause continuous trauma to that individual despite it being primarily from and early experience.
One specific example of a patient who demonstrates such manifested trauma is the acute Billy Bibbit, whose habit of constantly stuttering when speaking as well as his inability to act his true age is a result of his playful behaviors with his overbearing and dominant mother.

In the novel, Billy Claims in a group session, “And even when I pr-proposed, I flubbed it. I said ‘Huh-honey, will you muh-muh-muh-muh-muh…’ till the girl broke out l-laughing,”(page 136). When Billy proposed to a woman he wanted to marry, he stuttered and lost confidence in himself because he did not have his mother’s approval. It was stated previously in the text, that Billy’s mother, a close friend of Nurse Ratched, claimed she did not know of this girl Billy liked. Due to the control Billy’s mother has upon Billy’s life, he constantly seeks his mother’s approval in all aspects. Also in the novel, the narrator describes the relationship between Billy Bibbit and his mother through a detailed romantic scene. The novel states “…Billy lay beside her and put his head in her lap and let her tease at his ear with a dandelion fluff. Billy was talking about looking for a wife and going to college someday. His mother… laughed at such foolishness,”(page 294-295). Billy Bibbit’s inability to speak is caused due to his lack of confidence, which results from his overbearing mother. Her control on his life is evident when she dismisses any ideas of him getting married and possibly leaving her. In addition, Billy’s

mother intends to keep Billy in a child mentality, based on the childish actions she exhibits when with Billy. It can also be interrupted that Billy’s mother fears growing old and thus projects such fear on Billy by refusing for him to grow old. However such actions only create present trauma for Billy Bibbit due to constantly being treated in such a matter by his mother in both the past and present.
Furthermore, another patient who exhibits manifested past trauma is the narrator Chief Bromden. The Chronic Chief Bromden’s withdrawal from society and into himself is caused by his past adolescent experiences when he lived with his father’s tribe as well as the actions of his own father. In one specific scene, readers view the interactions between Bromden and white men who wish to take his tribes land. Bromden narrates “And I get the notion they’re talking about these things around me because they don’t know I speak English…I think how ashamed they’re going to be when they find out I know what they are saying,”(page 212). In this event, the men who come to discuss building a hydroelectric dam ignore Bromden and speak badly about them in front of him because they assume he cannot understand, primarily due to his physical appearances. Due to such events, Bromden has become accustomed to others believing that he is deaf and mute. In addition, in that same scene, one of the people who came to speak about the hydroelectric dam claimed, “You recall the record we have shows the wife is not Indian but white? White. A woman from town. Her name is Bromden. He took her name, not she his,” (page 214). This reveals Bromden’s father as a passive male in comparison to his mother with him taking her name when married. Thus such an example on Bromden at an early age may have impacted him by gaining such a passive quality from his father. Thus Bromden became cagey and withdrew from society due to instances when he was invisible to the people around him. He also gained a low self of confidence by viewing his father’s passive actions when pressured into selling their land as well as around his dominant mother.
In addition, another character haunted by past experiences in the form of future trauma is Randle Patrick McMurphy.

McMurphy is a sane mane who chose to stay at the institution rather than live on a work farm, to serve the rest of his 6 month sentence. His past history of hostility, disobedience against authority and arrest for statutory rape is caused by his experiences in the army as well as his adolescent sexual encounters. In one specific scene in the novel, during the first group session for McMurphy, the doctor reads “McMurry, Randle Patrick. Distinguished Service Cross in Korea, for leading an escape from a communist prison camp. A dishonorable discharge, afterward, for insubordination…and one arrest-for rape,” (page 45). McMurphy’s history of disobedience can be caused by his deep rooted distrust for authority, stemming back from his imprisonment in Korea. This distrust authority manifests when he is at the mental hospital when he is attempting to overthrow the authority of the ward, whom is Nurse Ratched. Furthermore another past experience which manifests throughout McMurphy’s life is the incident when he first lost his virginity. McMurphy explains the event by stating, “The first girl ever drug me to bed wore that very same dress, I was about 10 and she was probably less… But this little whore - reached down and got her dress off the floor…” (Page 257). McMurphy’s relationships with young women and his treatment of women as if they are inferior are caused by his

trauma when he lost his virginity to a more experienced girl. This past experience can be connected to the current issue at hand where he was convicted of possible statutory rape. In addition McMurphy reveals no respect towards Ratched for she is a combination of both a woman and the face of authority, in which McMurphy feels it is necessary to rebel.
With the use of Stephen Grosz’s “The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves,” individuals are able to understand the truth behind the psychological illnesses of characters in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Readers learn that mental illnesses always have some form of cause, especially found in deep rooted past experiences, which is effectively revealed through the characters Billy Bibbit, Chief Bromden, and Randle Patrick McMurphy. Each character experienced different situations in their past which later created different mental illnesses based on those past experiences.