Society thinks in black and white. There are normal people, and there are abnormal people. The normal people are the neurologically typical who can function in regular society, while the abnormal people cannot. These people are usually pushed out of the circles of acceptance and casted as outcasts, or in the case of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, pushed into the Oregon psychiatric hospital and labeled as “crazy.” However, the men in the institution are not “crazy.” Most of them are simply misfits where the institute provides an escape from their reality and the outside world; while it is neither the best nor healthiest option, it offers the men a sense of purpose and belonging.
The Oxford Dictionary lists the definition of crazy as “mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way.” Yet, these men are hardly wild, aggressive, or anywhere near deranged. Most of the patients in the mental hospital just don’t fit society’s expectations of normality. One example can be seen in Billy Bibbit and his stutter. Because of his seemingly incurable stuttering, both his mother and Nurse Ratched keep him in the institution. …show more content…
The pills that the patients take numb the thoughts that torment the consumer. In addition to numbing them, they feel the need to be cured of something like a personality crisis. It is strange how, in the end, the patients who have been shocked into a docile, almost vegetative, states are considered the successful cures by the hospital staff and sent out into society. Maxwell Taber, who questioned the nurse’s authority, was punished with the Electro-Shock Therapy. Once he stopped fighting, he was released. Oddly enough, these cures can also damage them. For example, Charles Cheswick drowned himself after McMurphy did not aid him in his defiance. The pools that were used to pacify the patients ended up killing one of
The Oxford Dictionary lists the definition of crazy as “mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way.” Yet, these men are hardly wild, aggressive, or anywhere near deranged. Most of the patients in the mental hospital just don’t fit society’s expectations of normality. One example can be seen in Billy Bibbit and his stutter. Because of his seemingly incurable stuttering, both his mother and Nurse Ratched keep him in the institution. …show more content…
The pills that the patients take numb the thoughts that torment the consumer. In addition to numbing them, they feel the need to be cured of something like a personality crisis. It is strange how, in the end, the patients who have been shocked into a docile, almost vegetative, states are considered the successful cures by the hospital staff and sent out into society. Maxwell Taber, who questioned the nurse’s authority, was punished with the Electro-Shock Therapy. Once he stopped fighting, he was released. Oddly enough, these cures can also damage them. For example, Charles Cheswick drowned himself after McMurphy did not aid him in his defiance. The pools that were used to pacify the patients ended up killing one of