#5-2. One Flew over a Cuckoo's Nest: Hero's Journey (Analysis Journal)

Writer's Comments

I promised myself to write series of essays on one book I was greatly impressed of (#5-1. Miscellaneous). Now I reveal; the book was One Flew over a Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey), and here comes my first essay! I’m not sure whether this can be called “review”, because this analysis journal is close to report about hero’s journey in the novel. This essay is quite informative; it lacks my opinion, and almost every paragraphs are merely explaining hero’s journey stage with quotations. Maybe in the next essay, I can combine my personal experience or impressions with this book =) Anyway, I spent a lot of time writing this “report”, so though it might seem quite long and boring, hope you enjoy it =) And if I don't forget, I will attach some pictures that will entertain you while reading the essay!

                                                                                                                                   

Ye Ji Park / 111053 / 6

Mr.Garrioch

English Composition

November 4 2011

Hero’s Journey: One Flew over a Cuckoo's Nest

     Whenever my grandmother and two uncles—who all are devout Christians—talk about how Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for mankind, one question always pops in my head; Was Jesus courageous all the time? Didn’t Jesus feel lonesome and fear, and crave escape from his responsibility sometimes? Well, Jesus lived more than two thousand years ago, and there is no way to ask him how he felt during his hero’s journey – but I have no doubt that Jesus may had yearned for running away at least once. Not only external obstacles, such as the persecution of Rome, but also internal hardships including believers’ doubt upon him would had driven him to question what the objective of his heroic journey is. Still, despite the temptation to stop the journey, Jesus completed his journey; this was because he had a clear answer to the objective question. He had done this journey not for himself, but for the mankind. Meeting the gazes of people in hope, he had to accomplish his journey and actualize the promise of hope.

     R.P. McMurphy, the protagonist of One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey), is the Jesus in an Oregon psychiatric hospital. The protagonist grasped the existence of invisible violence and totalitarian state in this hospital as soon as he joined the patients group, and also that the main culprit was Miss Ratched, the “Big Nurse”. The novel vividly depicts how McMurphy behaved, thought, and felt in each stage—the sacrifices he made for the other patients, despite he himself was getting tired and exhausted.

      McMurphy was a criminal; he committed various offenses, including “leading an escape from a Communist prison camp, … a history of street brawls and barroom fights, … drunkenness, assault and battery, disturbing the peace, repeated gambling, and … rape.” When he was given a chance to decide whether to stay – psychiatric hospital or the prison, Pendleton Farm – he followed the public view that few months with insane people is better than in prison. When he voluntarily chose to enter the mental hospital, it was McMurphy’s original world.

But as he arrived in the hospital, his ordinary world started to shatter. When McMurphy laughed, patients “looked spooked and uneasy”, and when he offered hand to Ellis, one of the patients, Ellis “looks down … in pure surprise”. Slight suspicion upon this world turned into conviction as Big Nurse publicized Harding’s sense of inferiority upon his wife in the meeting, and the patients insinuated him by shooting offensive questions. McMurphy titled the meeting “peckin’ party”; he said “the flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers”. Then McMurphy pointed out the Big Nurse as the first chicken to peck. Harding unwillingly admitted McMurphy’s point, still showed no volition to revolt, since he viewed himself as someone who “can’t adjust to rabbithood, and need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach their place”. This is the moment McMurphy is called into the adventure; he could not accept the fact that every patient were underestimating, self-denouncing, and obeying themselves to the Big Nurse’s domination. He promised to “put a betsy bug up that nurse’s butt within a week”. Still, until this stage, McMurphy did not consider the adventure any more serious than usual gambling he enjoyed playing.

McMurphy, as he promised, started to arouse trivial revolutions to make the Big Nurse lose her temper. He sang, wandered the dorm with only underpants on, gambled at cards, proposed to change the regular schedule so that patients can watch the baseball Series. Some of his efforts were successful; especially the last action was provocative enough to agitate Big Nurse, “hollering and squealing about discipline and order and recriminations”. However, as McMurphy heard that a committed patient, such as him, could not leave the hospital without the Big Nurse’s permission, he decided to stop his little gambling. At the meeting, when Cheswick argued the patients should be free to possess cigarettes by themselves, instead of being distributed from nurses, he asked for McMurphy’s support. And McMurphy kept silence, “didn’t even look up”. This clearly shows McMurphy, afraid that he might not be able to leave the hospital, is refusing the call.

Not soon, however, McMurphy decided to return to adventure. This is due to Cheswick’s suicide; Cheswick, disappointed at Mack’s indifference, killed himself by clutching the grate of the swimming pool so firmly, thereby drowning. McMurphy learned that his attitude can greatly influence patients, regarding even their life. This lesson made him realize his responsibility as a leader, thus the confrontation of Cheswick’s suicide can be titled the meeting with a mentor.

To interpret the meeting with a mentor stage in another perspective, it could be the moment when McMurphy grasped how to lead the patients. Once, McMurphy questioned others, “Why should it be me goes to bat at these meetings over these piddling little gripes about keeping the dorm door open and about cigarettes in the Nurses’s Station?”, and blamed that the patients should not use him, but act by themselves. Then Billy screamed that patients including him are not big and tough enough to revolt, while McMurphy can. In other words, Billy again underestimated him as a rabbit. And here, the goal of his leading is defined; inspiring self-confidence to the patients, so that they can recognize themselves as “good strong wolves”, not “rabbits”. This experience determines McMurphy’s destination on the hero journey—that is, it plays the mentor’s role.

While realizing the heavy responsibility and setting the objective of revolution, McMurphy first decided to rise a big disturbance that can show patients change can occur in the hospital. When the Big Nurse tried to exert her authority by taking away the privilege of the tub room in where patients played card games, McMurphy “ran his hand through the glass (of the Nurses’ Station), got one of the cartons of cigarettes with his name on it and took out a pack”. As Cheswick once criticized, patients were not allowed to get the cigarettes except when the nurses distribute them. Thus, McMurphy’s act of breaking the glass and taking out a cigarette shows a clear sign of revolt against the nurses’ authority and regulations. Once such obvious challenge is happened, McMurphy can no longer cancel his volition to revolt, which is definitely the crossing the threshold stage.

Afterwards, McMurphy started activities inducing patients’ participation, such as organizing basketball team or planning fishing trips. The Big Nurse tried to disturb McMurphy, for example, by “bringing in clippings from the newspapers that told about wrecked boats and sudden storms on the coast” so that patients would think fishing trip is dangerous. Still, McMurphy took a firm stand, persuaded people that two aunts accustomed in sea voyage will go with, and kept gathering participants. He also made allies; representative is Chief Bromden, whom he encouraged to grow again to his original grand size—in other words, to regain his masculinity. All of these are definitely about Tests, Allies, and Enemies.

The inmost cave McMurphy approached is the fishing trip. When McMurphy and patients stopped by the oil station, the staffs mocked them. Staffs were going to sell the “weak and dirty and watered down and cost twice the usual price” gas and unnecessary items such as “new oil filters and windshield wipes and sunglasses”. Patients knew the staffs were belittling them, but could do nothing except approving at everything staffs say. Then McMurphy brought a wind of change; he threatened the staffs, saying that he and his companions are “lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of mankind”. Previously, patients’ identity as psychopaths made them to believe they are abnormal and inferior to the general public. However, McMurphy turned this flaw into strength, thereby gave patients self-confidence. To illustrate, on the remaining way to the sea, Billy, Harding, Chief Bromden, and all the other patients “sit up straight and strong and tough-looking” every time people gaze green uniforms of mental hospital eerily.

McMurphy’s attempt to plant strong identity to the patients is even more emphasized on the board. When four poles started to whip over, patients did not know what to do and called McMurphy for help. However, McMurphy just “laughed and stood at the cabin door, not even making a move to do anything”. At last, when they caught the fish, it was their achievement, not McMurphy’s. Also, on their way back to the shore, it was Billy who volunteered to take off his life jacket for the girl, not McMruphy. This shows that Mack yielded the position of hero to others, thereby making them feel valuable and proud of self. Such transfer of leadership from McMurphy alone to his followers is what McMurphy set as his goal; this implies Mack’s success in the inmost cave.

However, McMurphy was slowly feeling tired and exhausted in his role as the leader. To fight against the Big Nurse, and simultaneously, to motivate patients to follow the way he lead, must gave him grand mental stress. Chief Bromden mentioned he saw from McMurphy’s face—“dreadfully tired and strained and frantic, like there wasn’t enough time left for something he had to do…” This clearly shows McMurphy’s exhaustion, additionally foreshadows that maybe McMurphy would, in the end, be completely fatigued, losing or barely winning in the battle with the Big Nurse.

After the trip, the Big Nurse decided to plant seed of suspicion among patients toward McMurphy. She pointed out that everyone’s account balance was going down except McMurphy’s, and questioned them to think about McMurphy’s objective of being a leader. As the Big Nurse planned, patients, including Harding and even Chief Bromden, started to suspect about Mack “always winning things”, and maybe the purpose of him leading is to gain money. This ordeal is, however, turned into reward in near future. In the shower room, when George firmly refused to cleanse himself but black boys forced him to do so, McMurphy stopped the boys. As a result, he was sent to the Disturbed, and this heroic action returned patients’ faith toward McMurphy as a reward.

McMurphy suffered from the Disturbed; he was given four electric shocks—which was called “treatment”—one week. As soon as he recovered from the shock, he received another one. This definitely made him tired; “the muscles in his jaw went taut and his whole face drained of color, looking thin and scared”, every time he was called for treatment. Still, McMurphy did not forget his responsibility as leader—he consolidated Chief, who also received treatment once, to “Don’t holler”. He also did not forget sense of humor he used to irritate the Big Nurse (he’d tell her “she could kiss his rosy red ass before he’d give up the goddam ship”) and insisted EST wasn’t hurting him. When McMurphy returned to the ward, he postponed his breakout until Billy’s date with a prostitute; this date is the last adventure on the road back, to let Billy confront a girl and thereby establish his identity as a man – what McMurphy tried to do during his whole journey.

McMurphy decided to run away after the party is over, but he fell in asleep and when he woke up the Big Nurse was already in the hospital. As the Big Nurse inspected what had happened last night, she found Billy Bibbit and the girl together on one mattress. Bibbit first responded proudly to the Big Nurse’s shaming, but as the Nurse threatened him with his weak point—mother—Bibbit returned to a weak mental patient from last night’s man. Rabbit Bibbit confessed what and by whom the party was done, and after, he committed suicide, ashamed of his own modification.

Throughout the harsh journey, McMurphy succeeded in changing Billy into a man, and the Big Nurse had returned Billy into a rabbit within few seconds. McMurphy had to do something about Billy’s death, maybe a shockingly revolution stronger than any previous ones, to prevent the other patients modifying like Billy did and the hospital returning to totalitarian state. This is why he strangled the Big Nurse to eliminate her voice, her tool of giving orders to the patients, the symbol of her authority. He knew that he will be lobotomized by attacking the Nurse, thus lose his future days, still he put into his action for the patients. This last sacrifice is the resurrection, the revival of journey that could be stopped by the Big Nurse’s disturbance.

Patients realized that it was them themselves, not McMurphy’s gambling nature or the Big Nurse, who drove McMurphy to sacrifice his whole life. Chief Bromden reviewed that they could not stop McMurphy crying over Billy because the patients “were the ones making him do it” and it was their “need that was making him push himself slowly up from sitting, … obeying orders beamed at from forty masters”. Chief, thus, feels responsibility to repay McMurphy for his heroic acts. This is why Chief suffocated McMurphy after he returned to the ward, lobotomized. By killing McMurphy, Chief stopped the Big Nurse from using Mack as “an example of what can happen if you buck the system”. McMurphy would be remembered to people in hero’s image eternally—which is, unquestionably, return with the elixir.

If McMurphy performed the journey for entertainment—gambling nature—or material greed, he would never be able to overcome the exhaustion and mental stress. Just because he had worked for patients, like Jesus did for the mankind, he was able to put forth every ounce of his energies. Considering this noble motivation, and all the obstacles that McMurphy so hardly conquered, McMurphy deserves to be reminisced as the evermore hero in the minds of patients.