While we have made some drastic leaps and bounds in the field of the human mind in recent times, there is still much that is unknown. One thing that is certain though is that everyone thinks in different ways. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, we encounter a lot of different perspectives on how the world is viewed. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the story, believes that the world is a “Combine” that we are all parts of. What is “The Combine” and how might biases towards mental illness in the 1960s help develop his thoughts about it? Let’s find out!
Reader #1-In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief describes the asylum system as “the combine”. Chief believes the asylum is a huge over controlled atmosphere which he believes is being run by the combine. He uses “combine” to describe the authority figures and the society around him. “The ward is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospitals. When a completed product goes back out into the society, all fixed up good, as new, better than new sometimes….”(Kesey 40). This is explaining the point that the society wants the patients to be controlled under lock and key. Being watched and told what to do. Just as in the 1960s, the society wanted nothing to do with the mental and they would stop at nothing to try to “fix” them. They would try to come up with new solutions such as using shock therapy and other brutal techniques. Similar to what the “Big Nurse and the black boys” do in Cuckoo’s Nest to deal with the patients that are still unacceptable. In the 1960s being “mental” was something that needed to be fixed. It wasn’t normal and needed to get out of the way for the rest of society. Similar to how the society looks at the people in Cuckoo’s Nest. Reader #2-In the novel Chief Bromden uses the term “the combine” to describe one of his beliefs in the first part of the novel. In the book Bromden says, “when you got something under your belt you’re stronger and the bastards who work for the combine aren’t so apt to slip one of their machines in on you in place of an electric shaver.”(Kesey 6). The combine to bromden symbolizes the forces of authority and society that place the mentally ill inside the asylum he currently is in. The combine represents people that want mental ill patients to be kept under control and locked up. In class we have learned about the 1960s and the way people would deal with the mentally ill. Doctors and all of society would think of patients as crazy/psychotic people that needed to be locked away somewhere and this is why institutions like asylums were created. the combine are those people that do not respect people with a mental illness. These people that are apart of “the combine” are just there to keep these patients locked up in the asylum. Reader #3-what is the combine? chief Bromden describes it as a “ huge organization that aims to adjust the outside as well as she had in the outside” (Kesey 28). This connects to what we learned about mental illness because it shows that people need to be controlling of their surroundings and what is going on. People with a mental illness want to be controlling of what they think is going on; even if what they think isn't really happening. The combine actually controls things by tricking the patients into doing what they want. this does not describe the truth they are altering what reality is. Reader #4-In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief uses ,The Combine, to represent the asylums machine like character. This “machine” has control over how the asylum runs in it’s day to day operations. Chief describes The Combine as a machine that either makes or destroys a man when he says” Across the room from the Acutes are the culls of the Combine’s product, the Chronics.”(Kesey 15). Since mental illness had no set treatments in the 1960’s, many new treatments failed and would damage the patient physically or mentally. Chiefs delusion of this machine could possibly represent protocols for treating patients or even society's little experience in treating mental illness. Although The Combine is a figment of Chiefs imagination, it is describing the truth about mental institutions. These institutions followed the same cookie cutter treatment plan for everyone, those who were broken in the process just rot in the institution until they suffer the same fate as Chief or Ellis, life in a institution.
5 Comments
Paige Callahan
11/11/2015 05:12:29 pm
I agree with reader #1 when they say that the asylum is trying to keep the patients under lock and key. This is exactly whats happening in the book, and chief Bromden is seeing this first hand. Nurse Ratched may think that he is def and not capable of understanding what shes doing. But in truth, he does.
Reply
Hanna Smith
11/11/2015 10:10:07 pm
I can agree with what reader #4 says and how the combine describes how mental institutions were, but I'm wondering how they would know if it was a figment of Chief Bromden's imagination. I think that what he's seeing is there but it seems like his imagining it because its so unheard of for mental institutions this day and age.
Reply
Christian Pishotta
11/12/2015 08:37:05 am
I agree with reader #1 when they say that they are trying to control the patients that have arrived at the ward. From what we've seen so far in the book, it seems that the patients have no will of their own in the ward and the "Big Nurse and her Black Boys" seem to be in control. But there seems to be a little hope for the patients because of the appearance of McMurphy arriving at the ward and causing a disruption just by standing in a room.
Reply
lauren seidenzahl
11/12/2015 09:40:57 am
i agree with reader three that the patients in the ward want to feel like they know what is going on. and that the ward is a very controlled envoirnment. i do think that the ward is tricking the patients into thinking things.
Reply
Megan Fata
11/16/2015 10:59:33 am
I agree and think reader number 4 described what the combine is well. I like how they used the comparison of a machine. This really clears up the understanding of the combine.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWelcome to Miss Hardie's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Blog! Here we will be posting our thoughts and discussing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Please join in on the discussion! ArchivesCategories
All
|