This book is a marvelous display of human nature, power struggle, and collapse. It appears as if those in the ward are really not so much mentally handicapped or insane, but just socially awkward and abnormal. In fact, most of the Acutes are self hospitalized because they are too weak and afraid to face the outside world. McMurphy, a strong man both physically and mentally, enters the ward to avoid the labor of the outside world.
It seems that for the majority of the patients, they enter the ward sane, and either are driven to madness by the incomprehensibility of Ratched’s totalitarianism and narcissism, along with the continual deeper understanding of human nature. When McMurphy explains the character of Nurse Ratched, Harding breaks down at the revelation of the truth the entire ward has always known, but has been too afraid to address. Humans ignore, and this intentional ignorance is then mandated by the dictator of a medical professional ruling over her subjects. The said ignorance forces the “mentally ill” into a deeper lack of coherence and cognition, and therefore become subjected to Ratched until they conform completely to her whims and desires for their existences, as though she was an almightily appointed judge for the socially bizarre. On occasion, one will see the system, and break it. This is McMurphy, he is the power which is necessary for the liberation of the ward: the doctor, the nurses, the patients. He becomes a martyr for the cause of liberation.
Power, power, power: power is shifting like a slinky down the steps until no power is left except in those who were controlled. Ratched needs power, craves power like a hungry beast, slaughtering thousands to fulfill her endless lust for fuel. She is almighty and in control of all before McMurphy can begin to play the game against her, for the benefit of those in the ward, at the mercy of her terrible rule. Ratched controls the fate of all the patients, and this normally keeps them all timid, but when led by McMurphy, they feel limitless. They find new ways to rebel, they actually hold votes, and they succeed in gaining their lives back from themselves. Ratched desperately tries to keep a grasp on her power, and the tighter she grips, the quicker the oiled patients slip through her fingers. However, it doesn’t end well. McMurphy dies, dies before Bromden ends his physical existence. Ratched pushes, pushes so far for so long that he snapped, snapped like a twig in a hydraulic press, and she unconventionally and unprofessionally has him killed, turned into a subhuman being through the means of lobotomy. This power, it is addicting, and it is awe-inspiring in its horror; it kept the patients subject to her rule for years and years, until they at last broke free.
Collapsing is inevitable of any human system, all due to one fundamental law first found in thermodynamics: entropy. Entropy is in more than just the science of heat, it is everywhere; subatomic structure, decomposition, galactic formations, iris patterns, finger prints, food chains, life cycles, weather, solar flares- but not any human devised system; why? Well, we just love our order, don’t we? And in order to achieve this order, we need to have things set in stone, predictable, understandable, easy, and there must be as little chaos as possible. This is why human systems fail: they are not rooted in the fundamental keystone, foundation, and structure of all system buildings: chaos. Entropy is the tendency of a system to retain chaos, and it is necessary for the continuation of a system. Why? In thermodynamics, there is a little thing called 0 Kelvin, which is also called absolute zero. Absolute zero is where the total entropy of a system is at its lowest possible state: nonexistent. When any mass is at absolute zero, it doesn’t move, doesn’t do work, doesn’t emit energy, and certainly has absolutely no ability to sustain itself or live. What does Ratched do? What all humans have always done, of course! Disregarded chaos as the base component of all things and thus the fundamental principle of entropy tore the system to shreds like an infant in a wood chipper; small, defenseless, senseless, and so dead and gone it is practically impossible to discern just exactly what was there before. This is entropy in humanity; that mysterious force that nobody ever takes the time to understand which always destroys every system set in place, be it organizing elementary physical education to full scale political and economic policies: unless the fundamental concept is rooted in chaos, it cannot begin to hope to stand indefinitely.
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