In Chapter 18 of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the defiant Randle McMurphy, who had heretofore dedicated himself to resisting the dictates of the autocratic Big Nurse, Miss Ratched, has accompanied the other inmates to the indoor swimming pool, a Wednesday ritual that the novel’s narrator, Chief Bromden, disdains. McMurphy had not just been defiant towards Miss Ratched himself; he had encouraged the other inmates to similarly demonstrate some measure of defiance. Big Nurse’s decision to confiscate the inmates’ cigarettes proves a particularly useful opportunity to demonstrate this defiance by demanding the return of the cigarettes, and the other inmates prove increasingly willing to buck the system in response to McMurphy’s apparently inspirational leadership skills. The trip to the swimming pool, however, proves transformative for McMurphy, who, in contrast to the other inmates like Billy Bibbit, who are there voluntarily, had been committed due to his successful ploy at evading hard labor at the prison farm. It is during his conversation with the lifeguard that McMurphy finally grasps the distinction between those committed to the mental facility and those there voluntarily. In the following passage, Chief Bromden describes the interaction between McMurphy and the lifeguard:
“He [the lifeguard] and McMurphy had got to talking about the difference between hospital and jail, and McMurphy was saying how much better the hospital was. The lifeguard wasn’t so sure. I heard him tell McMurphy that, for one thing, being committed ain’t like being sentenced. ‘You’re sentenced in a jail, and you got a date ahead of you when you know you’re gonna be turned loose,’ he said. McMurphy stopped splashing around like he had been. He swam slowly to the edge of the pool and held there, looking up at the lifeguard. ‘And if you’re committed?’ he asked after a pause. The lifeguard raised his shoulders in a musclebound shrug . . .”
The lifeguard continues to explain to McMurphy the reasons for his own internment, and Kesey’s narrator describes the latter’s reaction to this enlightening information:
“He turned and walked over to his lifeguard chair, climbed up the chair ladder like a drugged gorilla, and peered down at us, his lower lip pushed way out. ‘I was picked up for drunk and disorderly, and I been here eight years and eight months,’ he said.
“McMurphy pushed backward from the edge of the pool and trod water and thought this over: he’d had a six months’ sentence at the work farm with two months finished, four more to go - and four more months was the most he wanted to spend locked up any place. He’d been close to a month in this nuthouse and it might be a lot better than a work farm, what with good beds and orange juice for breakfast, but it wasn’t better to the point that he’d want to spend a couple of years here.”
McMurphy’s response to the lifeguard’s comments are reflected in a sudden, highly-noticeable decision to conform. Rather than continue to encourage defiance of the autocratic dictates of Big Nurse, McMurphy instead becomes pliant, willing to sit quietly and resist the temptation to make waves. The other inmates don’t understand the reason for their leader’s sudden conversion from rebel to conformist: the conversation with the lifeguard has frightened this previously audacious former Marine. The Chief, however, understands: “I heard him talk to the lifeguard. He’s finally getting cagey, is all. . .they can understand as well as I can that the only way he’s going to get the Big Nurse to lift his commitment is by acting like she wants, but still looking at him like they wished things didn’t have to be this way.”
The significance of the conversation between McMurphy and the lifeguard is the transformative effect it has on the former’s attitude towards the hospital staff, especially towards Miss Ratched. McMurphy had conned his way into the mental ward as a means of escaping the prison farm. He had believed that spending his sentence in the hospital would prove far more relaxing than working on the farm under the watchful eyes of prison guards. What he didn’t know, however, was that, once under Miss Ratched’s control, the loss of freedom he experienced in prison was nothing compared to the loss of freedom he will now endure. As the lifeguard pointed out, being sentenced to jail at least comes with an end date; being committed to the mental institution, however, could prove endless.
No comments:
Post a Comment