Theme Exploration 2: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

     In the previous post discussing themes for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it became evident that the Acutes, or lower-priority mental patients, didn't truly believe themselves to be mentally deficient until some other entity led them to do so. In this theme exploration, some of those outside entities will be discussed, but in a sort of different manner. The patients in the novel have a constant craving to either establish leadership amongst themselves or pick a leader to follow. At times, they bend under the will of the Head Nurse, whereas at other times, they blindly follow McMurphy into whatever antics he has planned for the day. The main theme to be discussed here is how people crave a leader but follow the chosen leader blindly and loyally, molding their personalities around that of the leader's.
     The two main "leaders" in the novel are McMurphy and the Head Nurse, each leading in each's own way. The Head Nurse leads the patients on the ward in a forceful, intransigent way that suggests they must follow her and be molded by her ways or suffer the consequences. Evidence of this is present throughout the novel, especially when Chief Bromden speaks for the first time to McMurphy. The Chief says that the Nurse and her establishment "work on you in ways you can't fight! They put things in! They install things. They start as quick as they see you're gonne be big and go to working and installing their filthy machinery . . . (Kesey 209)" The Head Nurse's lead is focused on breaking the will of the patients, forcing them to side with her. Up until McMurphy enters, the patients are afraid to speak out against anything. In relation to the theme, the patients blindly follow this leader to the point of their own wills breaking. Their individuality is robbed from them in lieu of establishing a leader. Some might say this isn't entirely an effective leadership. In fact, it's really not. It's a dictatorship. The minds of the people are forced to be expressed in a certain way and nothing further than that, which is exactly what the Head Nurse wants. However, McMurphy stands for something more worthy.
     The presence of Randall McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is along the lines of a free-thinking savior. It's not until McMurphy starts to change things up in the institution that the patients start to realize their full potential. With McMurphy, the patients flourish in standing out and making their true wants and needs known, in place of having this spirit drained out of them by the Head Nurse. However, even with the introduction of McMurphy and his new leadership, the patients still lack the true skill to think for themselves. This becomes evident whenever they decide to do something and McMurphy either disappears or tells them the opposite of what they first believed. One instance of this is shown when the group is on the fishing trip and McMurphy disappears, when the Chief states "all our hard-boiled strength had just walked up those steps with his arm around the shoulders of that bald-headed captain (230)." As soon as McMurphy is out of the picture, the patients seem to lose all hope and begin to revert back to their natural skittishness that the Head Nurse has implanted in their minds. It becomes even more obvious when one of the patients believes he sees something in the shower's canvas straps. When McMurphy says he can't see anything, the patient responds with: "Oh . . . well I didn't see thum either. I's just kidding you (176)." As soon as McMurphy puts in his opinion, this patient immediately changes his mind.
     The discussion of this inner theme prompts very curious psychological questions. Can a mass of people truly move without a stable leader? Can people who've been beaten down their whole lives truly think for themselves? In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the audience is led to believe that no person who establishes a leader can really act on their own accord. Everybody chooses to follow a common leader, whether blind to the leader's values or not.