Thesis: Kesey uses machinery as a form of imagery to show the reader how life, in and out of the ward was supposed to be orderly with little variety among individuals. Quote: “Nine o’clock young residents wearing leather elbows talk to the Acutes for fifty minutes about what they did when they were little boys. The Big Nurse is suspicious of the crew-cut look of these residents, and that fifty minutes they are on the ward is a tough time for her. While they are around, the machinery goes to fumbling and she’s scowling and making notes to check the records of these boys for old traffic violations and the like. . .Nine-fifty the machinery hums up smooth again. ” (Page 36) Analysis: This quote shows that Nurse Ratched needs complete control over everything in the ward at all times. When the men with the leather elbows come in to talk to the Acutes, she feels vulnerable because she can’t control these people and the questions they might ask the Acutes. She doesn’t know how to shift her attention to other aspects of the ward unless she is completely in control of everything possible.
Nurse Ratched is out of control when Chief hears the machinery “fumbling” and being inconsistent which blatantly shows her anxiety about these men. What this quotes also shows is that Nurse Ratched doesn’t just sit helplessly for these fifty minutes without control; she has to do something to make sure that she can get these men “in trouble” and off of the ward. She was looking for anything at all, even “old traffic violations” that could possibly put her back in control. Quote: “The ward is a factory for the Combine.
It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse’s heart; something that came in all twisted different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold. Watch him sliding across the land with a welded grin, fitting into some nice neighborhood where they’re just now digging trenches along the street to lay pipes for city water.
He’s happy with it. He’s adjusted to surroundings finally. And the light is on in his basement window way past midnight every night as the Delayed Reaction Elements the technicians installed lend nimble skills to his finger as he bends over the doped figure of his wife, his two little girls just four and six, the neighbor he goes bowling with Mondays; he adjusts them like he was adjusted. This is the way they spread it. ” (Page 40) Analysis: This quotes shows Miss Ratched’s purpose is to perfect the impurities of society, these impurities being the patients of the ward.
Her sole purpose is to “fix” the patients and then send them back into society with her own influence on them of how they should act among people. She is compared to a well-oiled diesel machine for the reason that she “repairs” people. However, she isn’t nearly fixing the patients at all; she is masking their true identities to ensure they are her opinion of perfect for the world. The patients have “welded grins” that portray her view of what perfect is, which is very doll-like, which is almost like herself; they also aren’t typically being cured of their sickness, they’re being drugged into thinking so.
Once the patients finally do get out; they seem to have a mission to “adjust” everyone they can, just the way they were adjusted in the ward. Quote: “I expect to be sick, but there’s no blood or innards falling out like I was looking to see-just a shower of rust and ashes, and now and again a piece of wire or glass. Worker’s standing there to his knees in what looks like clinkers”. (Page 88) Analysis: This quote shows one of the many ways that Nurse Ratched has dehumanized the patients of the ward.
In Chiefs hallucination he literally sees that she has turned Blastic into some kind of robot and has striped him of his living human organs; this may be the reason as to why Blastic is an “old vegetable”. He might’ve been uncontrollable and unpredictable when we first came to the ward and they way she could going control over him was to, in Chief’s imagination, gut him out and fill him with scraps of anything she could find. She might’ve done this to all of the Chronics to ensure her position in control and further ensure that none of the patients will think to try and over power her and get out of the ward.
