McMurphy and Alex share much as protagonists. Certainly, neither considers himself bound by the rules of society, nor will they alter their behaviour for its convenience. It could be argued that the two characters diverge only in motivation. Alex is motivated by selfish gratification alone. He rapes, beats, ingests and murders his way to pleasure. He is aware his actions are wrong, admitting that ‘you can’t have everybody behaving in my manner of the night’; this would seem to indicate a begrudging acceptance that society’s rules are generally quite useful. In spite of this, he attempts to make himself exempt from them, committing terrible crimes in the name of sating his desires. This would, by conventional standards, make him a revolting protagonist, but the language barrier between Nadsat (the teenage language burgess constructed from various Russian dialects) and conventional English dilutes his crimes somewhat. Burgess has engineered the novel so that the same language barrier does not preclude Alex from being an engaging and charming narrator –whilst his dialogue is sometimes confusing, his passion becomes apparent, and despite his crimes his love of refined things such as classical music ( Beethoven in particular) lend an air of innocence to his prose. Similarly, when McMurphy enters the ward he seems driven by his own goals, conning the patients on the ward out of as much money as he can. Despite this, as he grows to understand the patients and the terrible injustice of Nurse Ratched’s regime, he eventually grows from a sleazy conman into a messianic force (‘Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?’) powerful enough to rival Nurse Ratched’s ‘juggernaut of modern matriarchy’ (this reflects the increased power of women in society during the 1960s and Kesey’s personal, somewhat misogynistic opinion of it). References to Christ are blatant throughout the novel; the electroshock table McMurphy is strapped to is shaped ‘like a crucifix’, and the patient Ellis is nailed to a wall by both hands. Most crucially, however, Jesus, like McMurphy, rebels against society and sacrifices his life. Whilst the Christ allusions could be seen as an attempt by Kesey to align his protagonist with the all-loving divine avatar of God for the sake of contrast with the power-crazed Herod that is Nurse Ratched, it could also be argued that Kesey intends to viciously parody the Christian government and its social order by making his Jesus figure a swearing, drinking, almost-convicted rapist. In spite of this possibility (it would certainly be in line with Kesey’s deep resentment of the social order) the serious nature of the novel would seem to indicate the former. Joseph Waldmeir perhaps summarised the character best: ‘individualistic to the point of disaffiliation, but...altruistic to the point of self-sacrifice’.
The abuse of authority by those in power is a recurring theme in both novels. In ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the rehabilitative efforts of the Government are directed towards submission rather than true reform of character. They are prepared to sacrifice the basic human right to free choice for ‘a quiet life’. Alex, perceived by the state as a misfit psychopath, is treated inhumanly, referring to his ‘rehabilitation’ as a ‘new form of torture’. By attempting to force him to adhere to their standards, the state is instead leaving him vulnerable to abuse. Tellingly, Burgess makes what the government officials say absolutely clear (in standard English), but dilutes the gravity of Alex’s crimes by having him speak in Nadsat (a deadly razor-blade is a ‘cut-throat britva, sexual intercourse is ‘the old in-out in-out’). The Minister of the Interior best represents the government’s corruption; he doesn’t sincerely want criminals reforming- he considers it a helpful by-product of his scheme to clean out jails and make room for political dissidents (who, by our standards would be free to protest). Kesey, in spite of the radically different environment, maintains a similar dynamic in his novel; the nurse and orderlies, people appointed to assist the infirm, are cruel, unfeeling oppressors, concerned only with their own power, and the ones supposedly lacking complete control of their mental faculties are (comparatively) logical, compassionate people – ‘hell, I been surprised how sane you guys all are’. The irrationality of this system is perhaps best demonstrated when McMurphy makes a perfectly reasonable request to watch the World Series, for which he devises a sensible plan that inconveniences as few people as possible. Nurse Ratched denies him, her reasoning being that the catatonic patients, unable to even speak, must vote, despite their obvious inability to. So desperate is she to maintain her authority that she calls the group vote to a premature close without the consent of the group (undermining the entire concept of a group), tries to invoke the doctor’s power as a threat, and openly suggests that McMurphy is losing control of his ‘condition’, when in reality she is losing control. This hysterical behaviour reflects how paranoid Nurse Ratched is about McMurphy’s growing power over the ward, and what the famously rebellious Kesey saw as authority’s reaction to insubordination, no matter how justified.
Burgess and Kesey also explore the problems that arise from forcibly suppressing an individual’s natural instincts. Kesey does this most obviously with Billy Bibbit. Billy behaves in an immature fashion, maintaining a stutter and giggling like a child at any vague inference of sexuality, despite being a grown man of more than thirty years. This is as a result of his mother ingraining in him a fear of women and intimacy. His mother is good friends with Nurse Ratched, suggesting a similar personality. Although she never appears, her influence on Billy is felt throughout the novel. Nurse Ratched only aids Billy’s repression by threatening to tell his mother about any slight indiscretion (‘What worries me Billy...is how your poor mother is going to take this’). When Billy loses his virginity to Candy, he also loses his stutter, symbolising his newfound maturity. However, his repression is so severe that he cannot live with the idea of his mother finding out about his sexual awakening. Billy is punished for performing a perfectly natural function by social taboo; and when he, out of fear, attempts to place the blame on McMurphy and Candy, it becomes clear that he has become irrevocably conditioned by the ward. On the other hand, his suicide (serving both as atonement for his betrayal of McMurphy and as an assertion of his independence) represents his freedom from his oppressors. McMurphy both recognises and consciously rejects the ‘Combine’ and its illogicality. He is a primal character, reliant on instinct and embodying ‘fear and hate and defiance’. This aspect of his character is cited as what put him in prison- ‘too much fighting and fucking’. The alliteration makes the statement seem much more forceful, in line with McMurphy’s forceful, free-spirited nature.
McMurphy is rejected as a non-repressed person forced to live in a thoroughly repressed society. Burgess deals with repression in a markedly different fashion; making his narrator and victim a character fully uninhibited about anything – from his thirst for violence to his nigh-orgasmic passion for classical music. Alex is not against the principle of order and discipline; he simply chooses to make himself exempt from it. This makes him a somewhat one dimensional character, until he is thrust into a situation in which his natural impulses are forcibly denied him. He is, on the exterior, a ‘better’ member of society, but inside he is by no means ‘cured’. Alex is in essence transformed into an automaton: incapable of committing evil, but deprived of his right to choose goodness independently.
The characters in both Burgess’ and Kesey’s novels are remarkably changed at the conclusion of their respective novels. In ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’, McMurphy and Bromden have opposing story arcs; The Chief, initially so conditioned by the hospital that he is reluctant even to speak, reclaims his father’s identity as ‘The Tallest Tree on the Mountain’, emerging from the hospital triumphant and free. In stark contrast, McMurphy openly rejects Nurse Ratched’s regime from the moment he enters the institution, and he consequently finds himself hero-worshipped by the patients, leaving him exasperated, pleading ‘what do you want out of me?!’ as he struggles to live up to the idea of him that the patients have formed. As his defiance grows, his punishment worsens; culminating in him being stripped of his humanity, ‘rehabilitated’ as a docile, drooling vegetable. He becomes a more ghoulish version of Bromden at the novel’s beginning, serving as a warning to all that dare conceive of defying Nurse Ratched. Alex, prior to undergoing the Ludovico treatment, is highly successful, carefree and intelligent. After, however, he is seemingly irrevocably changed; his parents reject him, he is reduced to aimless wandering, and he is repeatedly assaulted by people he considered friends – he is a ‘clockwork orange’; outwardly normal, but inwardly mechanical. The interference of government has left him a crippled automaton. By the conclusion, however, he is changed, but through natural maturity and individual growth. Both Burgess’ and Kesey present the liberation of their narrators as a positive thing; by rejecting society and embracing their individuality, they are both richly rewarded.
Kesey’s opinion on the constant struggle between individuality and submission to authority was that one should never compromise or yield to the people in charge of society (his anarchistic tendencies were documented colourfully in Tom Wolfe’s ‘Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test). He saw society as he wrote it; corrupt, self-interested and detrimental to people’ welfare – demonstrated in the depiction of the ‘Combine’ and Nurse Ratched, its sinister agent. The rendering of the system as polluted and fascist appealed to the ‘hippie’ movement of the sixties enough to secure a Broadway play and an inarguably more popular film adaptation (which eschews Bromden’s narration and schizophrenia) . In contrast, Burgess seems to hesitantly accept the system itself (Alex admits that ‘you can’t have everybody behaving in my manner of the night’) but is concerned with the danger of officials abusing their power over those in it. He also relates his story in a somewhat more straightforward way; whilst Kesey uses metaphor frequently (the Christ allusions, the ‘fog’ enshrouding Bromden), Burgess’ uses a foul protagonist to better accentuate the foul government, but also makes him charming and sophisticated to better accentuate the charmless and inhuman government .
In spite of these differences in overall presentation, character, and environment, the struggle of the individual against society is uncompromisingly presented in both novels and neither Kesey nor Burgess understated its importance. They have endured as compelling treatises on both the dangers of over-mighty governance, and served as effective warnings against the consequences of restricting personal freedom.
