Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1991. British and American Philologycal Studies (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 20)

Katalin Grezsu: Layers of Implication in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest

41 isolation, sterility, alienation, greyness, de-personalization and de-humanization. The symbology of the novel increasingly ieinforces this effect. Thus the fog-machine, besides being a perfect image, is in integral part of the novel's symbology. On the one hand it is physically expressive of the heavy medication, on the other hand it is the symbol of isolation and escape. Patients think they are lost from view, they can hide. It also shows the effectiveness of McMurphy's work: as the fight between him and Big Nurse proceeds the fog clears in Bromden's head. Lobotomy, the other 'therapy' reminded me of Nazi experiments in brain-washing. The Combine's aim with these kinds of treatment is to destroy personality, as the Institution does not need thinking individuals, but a standardized crowd. The best representation of the Combine, the embodiment of its ideology is Big Nurse. Her chief methods are group therapy, rules and persecutions on the one hand, and electroshock treatment and lobotomy on the other. As Miles Donald wrote it in his book on The American Novel, 'She and her trio of cruel and themselves disturbed - black helpers have reduced the patients to a state of abject subservience. A combination of the •a petty ... and the great

... keeps the patients as Big Nurse's toys. Her patients become more and more vulnerable as she makes them show up their weakest side and as she takes away their self-confidence. She, being a woman, should be the symbol of life, but she stands for sterility rather than fertility. Her white uniform reinforces this image. Into this world comes Randle Patrick McMurphy, who at the beginning of the novel is full of vitality, ideas, representing outer life, which is totally different from the one inside. He brings an absolutely new atmosphere to the asylum. His laugh, as Bromden remembers, is "free and loud", and it has been the first laugh the Indian has heard in years. McMurphy, as one critic has observed is agressively masculine and formidably independent, and as such he wants to reestablish the masculinity and individuality of which the patients of the ward are robbed.^ This makes him superior to the others and free from the rules of society. His first actions show his self-interest, but as the story proceeds McMurphy realizes his responsibility for the others. Although his leadership and humor veil the real confrontation, we can feel the impending disaster and the inevitable clash between him and Big Nurse, or Good and Evil. McMurphy is by nature a born doctor, though his methods are questionable, he gives his mates confidence. He cures Billy Bibbit's Oedipus complex, but Big Nurse pushes the boy back to his complex and Billy commits suicide. At this point it is inevitable that the clash between the two opposing forces, Big Nurse and McMurphy, can only end in the destruction of one of them which is in this case McMurphy.