Throughout the novel, Kesey incorporates metaphors and further characterizes one of the main characters, McMurphy, to critique the authority of the doctors that work with the patients in the hospital. To the other patients in the ward, McMurphy preaches to them about the importance of sticking up for themselves against the other nurses, doctors, and even patients. The author uses a rabbit metaphor to illustrate the difference between the patients and the doctors. “All of us in here are rabbits” (Kesey, 61). In the ward, the patients are the rabbits and the doctors are the wolves. Wolves are powerful because the rabbits have accepted their role as the weaker animal. The patients in the ward have given power to the doctors because they have accepted
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Critiquing suicide is a powerful but very controversial message to illustrate in a novel. This book uses the death of Billy Bibbit to demonstrate how suicide is never a crime committed by just one person. There are many people involved in and that influence a suicide, however rarely do these bystanders take the blame of a death. “He opened the doctor's desk and found some instruments and cut this thoat. The poor miserable, misunderstood boy killed himself. He's there now in the doctor's chair with his throat cut.” (Kesey, 266). The imagery that this quote adds to the scene is heart wrenching, allowing people to connect with feelings of being misunderstood or miserable for a moment. This part of the novel critiques suicide in that the nurse blames the rest of the patients in the ward for pushing Billy to the point of it. It is so easy for society to see a suicide case and to think that it was only the fault of the person who committed the crime. Society often forgets about the people who surrounded that person and most likely drove them to that point. This novel does not forget about those particular people. Nurse Ratched expresses to the rest of the patients how Billy’s death could have been avoidable had they not gotten him so wrapped up in trying to defy the rules of the
Critiquing suicide is a powerful but very controversial message to illustrate in a novel. This book uses the death of Billy Bibbit to demonstrate how suicide is never a crime committed by just one person. There are many people involved in and that influence a suicide, however rarely do these bystanders take the blame of a death. “He opened the doctor's desk and found some instruments and cut this thoat. The poor miserable, misunderstood boy killed himself. He's there now in the doctor's chair with his throat cut.” (Kesey, 266). The imagery that this quote adds to the scene is heart wrenching, allowing people to connect with feelings of being misunderstood or miserable for a moment. This part of the novel critiques suicide in that the nurse blames the rest of the patients in the ward for pushing Billy to the point of it. It is so easy for society to see a suicide case and to think that it was only the fault of the person who committed the crime. Society often forgets about the people who surrounded that person and most likely drove them to that point. This novel does not forget about those particular people. Nurse Ratched expresses to the rest of the patients how Billy’s death could have been avoidable had they not gotten him so wrapped up in trying to defy the rules of the