“Combine,” the name that Chief gives the organization, is a term for a threshing machine, whose main purpose is to cut down and harvest wheat. The name defines what the organization does; it takes people down and then turns them into something. They are suppose to try to change the patients into better people so they could attempt to one day reenter society as a full functioning person. Yet this isn’t the only machine is the ward. There are machines in the Shock Shop that are used to punish people who are disobedient. In the main part of the ward there are fog machines installed into the walls, these manipulative machines are used to isolate the patients and confuse them. The Combine is supposedly trying to help the patients, yet they are ironic. The Shock Shop Therapy kills the patients’ brain cells. This is made visible through Ellis. He was considered an Acute when he entered the hospital, until they mistakenly gave him to much Shock Therapy. The result is that now you can see him now standing permanently “crucified” on the wall, an unfortunate consequence of the ‘therapy.’ They also employ another method of attempting to improve a person, which is a lobotomy. This is a procedure where they remove a small part of your brain; Ruckly was the victim of this manipulation. The lobotomy caused him to turn into a Chronic. “The staff, now, they consider Ruckly one of their failures” (Kesey 20). The Combine is actually hurting the patients to the point that they are unable to recover from their illness that is keeping them in the ward.
There is also another way that the staff manipulates the patients. Nurse Ratched leaves a logbook out for the patients to leave comments in about the other patients. The person who writes in the logbook, is then rewarded by being allowed to sleep in the next morning. This causes conflict between the patients and teaches them a bad habit of tattle tailing. These comments are then brought up in the wards weekly discussion groups. In these meetings, the patient basically picks on the person’s problem and makes them feel uncomfortable. McMurphy calls them “pecking parties.” Nurse Ratched encourages these actions, which is ironic because it only hinders their development.
The ward has a set hierarchy. Dr. Spivey is suppose to be in full control, but is a coward, so Nurse Ratched takes advantage of his weakness and has full power over the ward. She has her own set of workers that she has hand picked herself. She has the three black boys, Washington, Warren, and Geever, followed by them are the patients which have little to no say of what goes on in the ward. An example of corruption in the hierarchy is Nurse Ratched taking advantage of the Doctor, the black boys steel hair products, there is nobody checking on the procedures that occur on the ward, and the welfare of the patients. Nurse Ratched, the black boys, and the Doctor all conform to Nurse Ratched’s rules, while McMurphy is the nonconformist. In the country of Iraq, if you were to challenge Sadam Hussein’s ideology, there by being a nonconformist, you would be considered a threat and thereby eliminated. This was parallels the situation between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy. Due to his diverse ways, she eliminated the threat created by McMurphy by sending him to get a lobotomy. Conformity for McMurphy is achieved only after Nurse Ratched forced it upon him, after she was humiliated in front of the ward. Once McMurphy is back in the ward, Chief attempted to talk to him, to then realize that he has turned into a vegetable. Chief is all upset over this that he smothers him to rid his life of misery. With the help of Scanlon, another patient, he helps plan Chief’s escape from the ward. Chief is now the only person to have triumphed over the Combine.
In Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is conflict between the different levels of the Combine due to nonconformists. McMurphy, the nonconformist, challenged Nurse Ratched’s ways throughout the book. Nurse Ratched, the conformist, is always fighting for absolute power of the ward. Due to her manipulative actions and corruption, the Combine is weakened, which leaves it vulnerable. This is how Chief is finally able to succeed. Due to this kind of manipulation, the Combine is destine for failure.
