Cuckoo’s Nest Discussion Question #1
Collect the references made to machines. How does Kesey use these to build up an attack on American Society? Ward policy is one of the means by which Nurse Ratched exercises her control. What aspects of society do you think Kesey is criticising in her handling of such incidents as the dispute over the baseball game and the toothpaste incident?
REFERENCES TO MACHINES
-Machines in the walls (Combine’s way of control)
-Fog Machine (Chief’s way of removing himself)
- Black oil (references to black boys)
-Hum of machines (Combine control)
-Wicker basket (Big Nurses tool box)
- Soldering iron (References to Big Nurse’s fingers)
- Big Nurse’s Breasts (A mistake in manufacturing)
- Nurse Ratched is compared successively with various machinery a tractor, doll, robot, knife, truck and molten metal
Big Chief talks of the ward as being a factory for the Combine, as a ‘smooth, accurate, precision made machine’. We see throughout the book the technicians as ‘mechanical puppets’ and of the chronics as ‘mechanical birds’ wonders of tiny bones and wires that have run down and fallen.
The only exception to the impression of Big Nurse Ratched’s ‘artificiality’ and machine like precision is the one sign of her humanness- her Big womanly breasts. These are seen at the start of the book as being mistakes in manufacturing.
How does Kesey use these to build up an attack on American Society?
He uses these references to machines to convey the expectations of American society for the individual to conform to what is considered ‘normal’. By comparing it to machines the reader is able to understand how society exercises its control over us. Kesey uses the ward as a microcosm for the real world that we can relate to. He shows us that although the people in the ward are ‘different’ they are not actually crazy, just step from what society is willing to accept. This is an attack on the American government for trying control society and force people to conform.
What aspects of society do you think Kesey is criticising in her handling of such incidents as the dispute over the baseball game and the toothpaste incident?
Nurse Ratched is using her position to exercise control over the patients over the small, irrelevant request to change the TV schedule. She claims this is ward policy and is not ‘therapeutic’ to disrupt the routine.
When a vote is taken she over-rules it with her power, although the patients had a majority vote in favour of watching the baseball game.
Kesey is criticising people in society who use their power for the wrong reasons, including the government.