symbolism and racism in the book "one flew over the cuckoo's nest"
... the facility. Here in the facility the reader is given an idea of the substandard state financed facility and is left with feelings of pity toward the inmates, most of whom are there by choice, trying to escape the outside world. These inmates are symbolic of the attack on conformity and the organizational man as they try and hide their sad frightened lives behind fences, bars, florescent lights and white painted walls trying to become that which they fear (brothersjudd.com 1). The celebration of individualism is first shown as McMurphy first steps in sounding the first real laugh ever heard in the common room (mouthshut.com 1). The lives of all the inmates are to say the least bleak until this coarse obscene Irishman arrives, and again we can see the symbolism as he embarks on a journey to restore some dignity to their pathetic existence. Nurse Ratched obviously the ruler of the secure world they live in; part of the price they pay for their security is living under the watch of this dictator. Referred to as “Big Nurse” by Chief Bromden, who narrates the story, Nurse Ratched is the villain of the story. She is seen almost as a cartoon villain, funny in her excessive frustration and hateful in her manipulations towards the patients. She is never seen as a human; therefore she is never sympathized with (123helpme.com 1). Seen only as a tyrant, Big Nurse is a stern, controlling, woman who behaves with a serene confidence. She is a mechanical woman who attempts to suppress all human and in particular all feminine characteristics, but she cannot hide her large breasts, her one incongruous physical trait (enotes.com 2). She is the hated representation of the ideas of sexual repression, authoritarianism and conservatism. Symbolic of the “forced” moral, ethical, religious applications that individuals fought so hard to go against in their struggle against the oppression of confinement and conformity. R. P. McMurphy symbolizes the thirst for freedom as an imposing man who has no room for conformity in his life. He represents ideas of sexuality, freedom and self-determination against Nurse Ratched’s oppression and is later seen as a Christ like figure (Whissen 64). He takes the role of a savior to Billy Bibbit after he procures a girl (Candy) to him and essentially talks the two in to engaging in sexual congress. After introducing them to each other, Billy stopped stuttering as he did so fiercely throughout the story. He did so much to fight against the oppression of Nurse Ratched that he eventually managed to change the life of all the inmates in some way. For example Billy was happy for at least a moment, thanks to McMurphy, before he took his own life. In the time this book was written, the main focus of society and politics was on conformation, returning to a state of peace that hadn’t been disturbed for some time. The problem was that this time of peace was already broken and the whole of the U.S. knew it; nobody wanted to go back to the way things were, simply because they would never be the same again, and the people knew that it was time for a different type of change than the government was talking about. This is what Randall Patrick McMurphy stood for. Billy Bibbit is to play the part of Judas Iscariot to McMurphy’s Jesus when he confessed at the end to nurse Ratched that candy was McMurphy’s idea, thus denouncing him and goes on to commit suicide (brothersjudd.com 1). Billy is a patient who has been dominated by his mother intimidated by her into behaving younger than his years and instilled in him a strong sense of guilt. It is this guilt that causes him to commi...