Power, Fear and Volition - block 2

My notes are in square brackets/italics
Make sure your quote sheet has page numbers!

Power

- Goals and conflicts between Nurse and Mack - show power
- "What worries me, Billy, is how your mother is going to take this." - Nurse wants to punish Mack by saying this to Billy [near end of the novel]
- "Who's the bully goose loony around here" - Mack tries to assert his dominance right away [near beginning of novel]
- "And as far as the Nurse riding you like this…" [Chief in Chapter 15 talks about the power Billy doesn't have - Chief can't give Billy power]
- Nurse tries to control the patients with EST threats and lobotomies
- Nurse cares about power more than patients well being [is this true?] - what are the Nurse's real intentions? Is she really cruel
- What is Mack's real goal throughout the novel?
- What is Nurse's goal throughout the novel?
- How does Nurse gain power - using fear
- [think about how power works generally, what does this novel tell us about power in our world - power structures - how is the ward a microcosm of how power works]
- Cigarettes - major symbol - goal of patients - rebellion
- Mack gives up - Cheswick kills himself [hangs all his hopes on Mack and he lets them down]
- Chief, who has no volition through most of the novel, finds self power - control panel is a symbol of power
- Fishing trip - Mack has real power - is really in control [does the fishing trip give everyone power?]
- [does this novel show us any differences between female power versus male?]
- EST - is it a treatment if Nurse uses it as a punishment
- [what about when Nurse uses "therapy" to tell on each other - even to decide a punishment or treatmentI]
- Lobotomy is the ultimate scare tactic ["you'll end up over on that side!"
- Music = Nurse's overwhelming presence - Mack wants it gone, but she turns up the volume - even when she's not there, the music is
- Music affects everyone in the ward - Mack wants men to converse - Nurse says it's for the older folk who have problems hearing and enjoy it -
- Wolves and rabbits
- Harding [at end of novel says "we're not rabbits any more, we're men now"]
- Medication - Nurse doesn't want to tell patients what medications they're taking
- Lithium makes patients groggy and heavy
- Dilantin helps one thing, but hurts another (bleeding gums)
- Distortion of time - Chief thinks the Nurse is so powerful that she can control time [thinks she's omnipotent]

Fear

- Nurse uses patients' fears "she recognizes this fear and knows how to put it to use" (18)
- Nurse uses EST and lobotomy as a fear tactic
- [how does fear exist in our society]
- Nurse is like a disease of fear and Mack is the antidote
- When Mack arrives, the patients become more confidence in themselves
- "All I know is this, nobody is very big in the first place" [this is Mack - see sheet]
- [Mack realizes that it's something bigger - remember he has an epiphany that it's not just the Nurse - it's society]
- Nurse fearful of ward being taken over by men
- She knows she cannot use power (natural for men at that time) she uses fear to make up for it
- Is Mack a hero? He also has a fear - he fears staying in the ward forever, he fears going back to the work farm
- [what was his childhood like]
- Harding's fear is people finding out he's gay - he gets a wife
- The role of society - ["shame"]
- "the finger of society pointing at me" - Harding is ashamed [society makes him feel that way]
- Difference between wolves and rabbits - all patients except Mack are rabbits [until the end when Harding realizes that he's a man]
- Billy is afraid of his mom's judgment
- They are all afraid of outside judgment
- "people laughing at you? I'm not big and tough" - Billy Bibbit talking to Mack about society's judgment
- Nurse has so much power that even the doctor is afraid of her
- [big connection between power and fear - what's the best way to gain power? What's the connection between fear and power?]
- Nurse is friends with the hospital administrator (also Billy's mom)
- Chief hides in the fog - this is a manifestation of his fear
- "Nobody complains about the fog… you can slip back in and be safe… that's what Mack doesn't understand" (Chief)
- Chief's fog goes away as he progresses through Mack's friendship
- [look at each character's progression - what happens to each character at the end of the novel]
- "they're still sick men" - not rabbits any more - Mack helps them with confidence - fear resides
- Mack empowers the men - that's why he gets so tired
- Know something is wrong with them but not be afraid of other people
- Mack says for the patients to be proud of who they are - fishing trip - he has the patients embrace their own mental illness
- Chief creates a barrier by acting deaf and mute
- "That's one fear hiding behind another" - Chief doesn't want to deal with his fears directly - the idea of him being gay is a distraction (not the real fear)
- Fear - used as a system of control
- Mack - as a politician - gets trust of patients not through fear
- Cheswick's fear (killing himself) - Nurse's power - thinks the ward is hopeless - afraid of outside world

Volition

- Compared to the beginning of the novel - how does the patients' volition increase?
- [what does that tell us? Comparing the ending to the beginning shows us Kesey's purpose]
- Chief starts talking and leaves the fog - near the end he says "never again!" referring to the fog
- Chief putting his hand up and voting shows us volition - he realizes he chose to do it himself - no one else was telling him to do that [does voting have anything to do with our own volition?]
- Turning point - Chief has free will
- Selfless act - Mack
- During the vote - the patients' big act against the Nurse - staring at the blank TV screen [symbol?] - gives them volition and hope
- Mack has a more therapeutic influence than the Nurse [but then again, Cheswick and Billy Bibbit might not have died if Mack had never come]
- Difference between a democracy and a monarchy (tyranny)
- Nurse shut down the voting since she "likes a rigged game" - she involves the chronics in the count [do the chronics represent anything in our society - people who aren't counted?]
- After Chief votes - he starts to see the real world - can see outside the windows - instead of the TV screen for the first time
- Mack has an infectious personality - confident in himself - shakes everyone's hands
- Has a rebellious attitude
- No one would have changed their ways without Mack
- Mack wanted to hear what people had to say - example of talking Martini through the monopoly game to see through his hallucinations
- Control panel = key to freedom - Chief has the will to leave the ward - the will to pick up the control panel - he could lift it the whole time [which Mack actually knows] always saw himself as small - realizes he's big enough, through Mack's help
- Volition and power inverse throughout the novel - charisma of Mack - symbol of volition
- Chief takes control of himself [symbolized through lifting the control panel]
- Hope + volition
- Size of everyone - Mack is seen as the biggest (has the most will) - almost always in a good mood, by end of novel people are the same size - or at least bigger
- Chief equates size to free will (Nurse is seen "blowing up as big as a tractor")
- After the fishing trip - Chief felt like he had grown 10 inches (gained confidence) - grown as a person
- Nurse didn't want them to go outside
- [does the fishing trip tell us anything about men in general? Big Nurse doesn't want them to go]
- Mack tells them to be proud of their mental illnesses - in the outside world
- Fishing trip -first time no one is telling them what to do - no rules - drink, laugh
- How to act around other people
- [could judgment be a theme that ties all these themes together, what about perspective, personal growth, mental illness generally]
- [think about the fact that Harding's "illness" is being gay - think about how society's judgment caused him to be anxious and depressed - think about how we don't see this as an illness today - is there an "illness" we are currently stigmatizing people with today that soon we will see as in the spectrum of "normal"]