Goal: to show what this novel says
about human nature and fear, or society, or power
Ideas - find quotes - and credit the
source - as a way of synthesizing or jump starting your essay
- When constructing your quote sheet, make sure you record the page numbers!
People who have
control: Nurse, McMurphy
Society
-charisma gives Mack
power
-what types of power
-"it's society
that decides who's sane and who isn't" - said by Chief
-Chief has a lot of
power - since he pretends to be deaf and dumb and finds out people's secrets
-manipulates other
people
-Big Nurse has a
subtle form of control
-Mack has a more
likeable form of control (government vs. revolutionaries)
-"now who will
start… eyes like a turning beacon" - Nurse manipulates the men - turns the
men against each other with log book
- Symbols which represent power and control?
- If we reduce the novel into a power struggle between the nurse and McMurphy, we diminish the scope of the novel - how does what the novel show us about power and control apply to our lives?
- Control panel: "At least I tried" - no one else is trying to overthrow the Nurse [also, he's trying to take control for himself VOLITION]
- When the patients take control over themselves, Nurse loses power
- Wolf and rabbit [are the patients fearful of the Nurse or themselves?]
- Group therapy sessions - Nurse's form of control
- Mack knows he can't lift the control panel by himself
- We (audience) enjoy the underdog - rather than those in power - rise up (we are actually the rabble)
- Chief: "they don't bother not talking about their secrets"
- What is the nature of power? How do the patients lose and gain power? Do we want to focus on the Nurse? What about Cheswick, Chief, Billy Bibbit and Harding?
- What does Harding tell us at the end about society and shame?
- Nurse says it's "my ward" but then corrects herself and says "our ward"
- Why does Nurse want control? Just to make her life better?
- Why does Mack fight for the patients? [justice; he thinks the vulnerable are being manipulated]
- How does Chief get better - he becomes big again. How? Control panel shows his control over himself
- Mack has a hatred for authority - part of his character -
- Control panel, pillow (Chief has power), EST (Nurse could threaten) Nurse's new uniform (in the end she just gets a new uniform, whereas Mack is dead), fog, world series/TV, window, combine
- Hope -
- Hope that patients will get better [does the Nurse make them lose hope?]
- Mack set off a switch which lead the patients to try - give hope
- Mack tries to lift the control panel - gives patients hope
- In the pool Mack finds out he's committed - he decides not to help - then Cheswick commits society
- [it's not about the Nurse - she didn't put the patients in the hospital!]
- What does Mack do to give the patients hope?
- When Mack gets EST and comes back - sees it doesn't break them
- TV - represents hope - they watch the blank screens [like a sit in - mass peaceful protest - rise up against the power structure]
- The nurse represents the power structure (government, or in our times big corporations)
- Who is controlling us now?
- Nurse is flustered - McMurphy shows this
- Mack gets hope - when Chief talks to him for the first time - he realizes he's getting through to the patients
- Control panel - Chief gains control of himself
- How does the Nurse crush the patients' hope? When Mack gets a lobotomy
- Not letting them watch the World Series, keeping cigarettes
- Patients don't believe that Mack has become a vegetable (loss of hope)
- Loss of hope when it comes to Nurse's new uniform (like a new regime of power)
- How does hope work in our world
- When Mack comes the patients realize they can be united (isn't this true of all rebellions - the masses can get together and overcome a tyrant)
- Billy Bibbit was slowly gaining control - gained so much from "date" - also learning to dance, stopped burning himself with cigarettes
- Cheswick - big symbol for hope - loses hope when it seems that Mack has given up his fight
- "you guys are no crazier than the average a'hole on the street" - what is it Mack does to
- Nurse hopes the patients get better - she doesn't have the knowledge - society she creates is toxic
- Lobotomy is not supposed to be a punishment - research showed at that time that lobotomy was helpful
Society
- How does Kesey present society? As a machine combine
- Anyone who doesn't fit in goes to the institution to be "fixed"
- Society = unnatural - patients are different - individuals - society oppresses him (think of Harding)
- What is normal?
- Combine = society in general
- People who don't fit into the mechanism - have to be changed
- Billy Bibbit's first attempt on his own life - he stutters and people judge him for it
- "society is what decides who's sane and who isn't"
- "the deadly pointing finger of society pointing at them" - Harding feels insane because people judge him for being gay
- Society is still similar - think of the rest of the world - has society really changed that much?
- Are institutions there to cure people?
- Not everyone is "fixable" - some people cannot ever go off medicine
- If the patients can't change - they stay there
- Society doesn't want hard, complicated solutions - they want easy ones - in the institution people don't need to look at them
- What is society?
- Implied majority
- What is our society? What are our values?
- Nurse is just a fraction of the power of society - society is manipulative and has power
- Some of the patients are on the side of Nurse
- Nurse is a representation of what society can do
- There's always something bigger driving people
- Lobotomy and EST shows what society thinks of these patients.
- People don't "get better" when they are lobotomized
- Is society ignorant?
- Some of the patients are there because society misunderstands them? Look at Billy Bibbit
- "The ward is a factory for the combine…" (beginning of Part One)
- "we need a good strong wolf like the Nurse to teach us our place" Harding
- What about the fact that most of the patients are there voluntarily?
- Combine, machinery, structure of the asylum,
- Is it possible to cure people of mental illness? How do we integrate them back into society?
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