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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Insanity Analysis

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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Insanity Analysis
The Voice of Madness and Sanity In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the author Ken Kesey, portrays sanity versus insanity, and maybe most predominantly, who gets to determine what qualifies as sane versus insane. The ward’s mentally ill patients happen to be the “different” people in society, which is why they are institutionalized. Chief Bromden considers this social economic society as “the combine” because it reminds him of a huge machine. Chief Bromden thinks that the combine is going to turn into a dehumanized society where people act like robots and do not think for themselves. The people who do not conform to this dehumanized society end up in the ward. It is "a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches..."(Kesey 40). The combine is a made up establishment that portrays how society was during the 1950’s. Throughout the novel, there is a huge struggle between men and women and their gender roles. The person in charge of the men in the mental ward is a woman named Nurse Ratched. She is in charge of the men and notably, turning them into robots. Once McMurphy arrives at the ward, he immediately begins to bring happiness and …show more content…
As Harding speaks to McMurphy, he explains to him that he, as well as the rest of the patients, are rabbits and they need a wolf, someone like Nurse Ratched, to teach them their place. McMurphy does not agree with Harding and calls him a crazy man. “You ain’t crazy that way. I mean—hell, I been surprised how sane you guys all are. As near as I can tell you’re not any crazier than the average asshole on the street—,” McMurphy ends the conversation by telling Harding that he is “hung up” rather than crazy (Kesey 63). This shows the difference between a genuinely insane person and a person who just does not conform with the rest of
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