In the movie, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” there can be many inferences made about the symbolic nature of the movie, especially in regards to politics and government. Nurse Ratchet is the perfect example of power and control, whereas Randall McMurphy personifies the concept of individualism. When dealing with government the balance of order and freedom must be examined and in the movie it is this balance that is scrutinized, perhaps to the extreme, but nonetheless important when comparing the movie to the way governments keep control of its subjects. Therefore, the movie, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” could be seen as an allegory representative of similar issues of balancing order and freedom in governmental institutions.
Nurse Ratchet exemplifies the role of the “one in charge.” What are interesting are the techniques she uses to maintain control over the patients. Nurse Ratchet is calm and yet unyielding in her approach. She expects total obedience. One technique she uses is the patient’s insecurities. For instance, towards the end of the movie when she is confronting Billy about having sex with Candy, Nurse Ratchet states she will tell Billy’s mom, which sends him back into his stuttering, insecure old self. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, “when [the needs of esteem] are frustrated, the person feels inferior, week, helpless and worthless” (2). An example of this can be found in the way President Bush used the insecurities of the people about terrorism to justify and make the people feel it was justified to go to war in Iraq. Nurse Ratchet also feels like a failure because of her inability to bring McMurphy to the same place (behaviorally) as the other patients. Therefore, she makes it her personal mission to “fix” him. This also can be compared to the Bush administrations refusal to “give up” on the war in Iraq. Nurse Ratchet also uses what the book, A Novel Approach to Politics describes as crosscutting cleavages. During the meetings, she uses small points of debate to keep the group from coalescing on one single issue, which works as a safety valve.
McMurphy represents individualism. Thoreau points out that there are those who get their power from charisma and expression of individualism. People, who resemble McMurphy, are feared by governments because they tend to extinguish some of the power of legitimacy the government has over the masses. McMurphy does not agree with the way things are run in the institution and, therefore, takes a rebellious attitude against it. This undermines the legitimacy of the institution. In A Novel Approach to Politics, “legitimacy exists when people have the sense that obeying the government’s rules is just the right thing to do” (83). The most effective way of gaining legitimacy, whether it is Nurse Ratchet or a government, is by convincing the populace that it is in their best interest to voluntarily accept her or its leadership (A Novel Approach, 84). It is more difficult to do this if people of McMurphy’s nature are present in the society. Therefore, McMurphy is dangerous. He is dangerous to the powers in control because he has the ability to upset their control over the masses. He is dangerous to conformity.
The patients in the movie are the epitome of society as a whole. They are comfortable with being told what to do, as they feel secure in their environment. They are like those in the cave, in “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave,” afraid of change, comfortable with what they think they know. Therefore, the patients see McMurphy as crazy because what he knows of the world differs from what they know. They are also representative of those that Thoreau hates, complainers without action. They have found themselves, in what Mill’s explains as, “the powers of society over the individual, both by force of opinion and even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable” (3). Nurse Ratchet cows the patients in order to maintain power over them and order in the ward.
Institutions, whether they are mental or governmental, are in existence to maintain control and order over a group of people. The mental institution in the movie no more wants to cure insanity then governmental institutions want to cure conformity. Neither would be in existence without the other and anarchy would exist without the former. Balance between order and freedom must be maintained in order to prevent chaos. Obedience is necessary for this to occur. Milgram explains, “Conservative philosophers argue that the very fabric of society is threatened by disobedience [like McMurphy], while humanists stress the primacy of individual conscience” (1). The patients also wish to feel safe just as a society wishes to feel safe. The institutions provide that for their subjects, even if it is at a cost of personal freedoms. Interestingly, the psychiatrists in the movie play the part of deciding what appropriate and acceptable behavior is and what it is not. This is somewhat like our senators, congressional representatives, and religious leaders (among many others), all of whom point the finger at what they think is right and wrong and what the masses should or should not support. As pointed out in A Novel Approach to Politics, “Collective action is the essence of government because there are certain things that only groups can accomplish” (50). Simply put, regardless of their opinions, we need these people of power in control in order to achieve a society that is not anarchical.
It remains clear that it is easy to compare the hierarchical nature of government and the institution present in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The movie can be used as an allegory of the connection between the balance of power and freedom. As stated in The Perils of Obedience, “obedience is as basic an element in the structure of social life as one can point to. Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living […]. For many people, obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed a potent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct” (1). Thus, explaining why someone of McMurphy’s nature is dangerous to the community as a whole and the type of person Mill’s believes we all should be, individuals. Each individual must find their own balance between order and freedom. However, without the few who willingly step away from conformity and venture out into the realm of individualism, there would be no breakthroughs in rights’ and freedoms’ that we in the U.S. are able to enjoy.
