Having gained this asset of communication with the current patients, McMurphy now knows that with his guidance and their trust, he can use the patients to accomplish his own goals. It is through his innocent card playing that he gets to know them and eventually had them in such a position that he had their full trust. He knows that he alone has not the power to overthrow the rule of Nurse Ratched, but over time he can slowly gain the patient’s trust and convince them to adopt his views and beliefs about her abuse of power. Although his objectives are unclear to the patients in the beginning, they do know that his immediate kindness has some plot behind it. They cannot be sure if this kindness is sincere or if he has some gamblers reasoning to befriend them so quickly (Kesey 21). It is definitely obvious to the reader that Kesey has presented the antagonist with a key obstacle, which must first be overcome if he hopes to even begin his ultimate plan. His use of breaking the rule was a lucrative tactic that he uses to gain the patients trust. They are fearful of Nurse Ratched’s consequences for breaking rules, because she has been with them for such a long time that she knows all of their personal weaknesses, however with this new stranger, she does not know his weaknesses so his provocation can be tolerated to an extent. The tactic that McMurphy is using is that his rebellion and voicing of opinion is in the patient’s defense and for their benefit, but more so that he is representative of their voice and that he is attempting to accomplish things that they want. While using his mild rebellion in gambling as a trust-gaining scheme, he slowly has begun to instill his own values, beliefs, and thoughts in them. His act has been seen as convincing by many, other than the characters of the book. One writer said that Kesey’s McMurphy is “a con man so crisply depicted and so charming that one easily can imagine losing a fortune to him at the poker table and signing up for his every crazy scheme” (Skinner 26). Ergo with his self serving actions the patients felt that he was representing them, even though what is being represented came from his own beliefs all along. Now, with McMurphy representing the patients’ causes, he starts building their self-esteem such that he no longer will have to do all the rebellion, but instead just lead it. It commonly can be thought that a one-man rebellion does not go too far.
It is evident that a key turning point in the story where McMurphy takes the innocent card games to his next level of benefit. He takes it upon himself to make the game less for fun more for purposes of winning, by planning the first bet. This deliberate and strategic breaking of rules is immediately picked up on by Nurse Ratched. She typically recites the rules against gambling to McMurphy but to no avail, the petty gambling continues, but is limited to betting the one thing that they truly can own, cigarettes. Ratched even indicates that there is no use of argument with her decision on rationing cigarettes, after suppressing one outraged patient, with her saying “Is there and more discussion, on the rationing of cigarettes?” (Kesey 149). Such allowances on the Nurses past was a major mistake, for this shows that she indeed had left room for disobedience, thus giving McMurphy “fuel for the fire”. Gambling was to McMurphy just the beginning of things that he would force the nurse to compromise. After she gave in to the gambling for cigarettes, McMurphy knew that if he could cause enough of a ruckus about, other, larger, more important things, she would eventually succumb over time. Nurse Ratched had the odds against her because even if she did not give in to his demands, she still lost because of the lack of punishment. This is what happened with the World Series incident. (Kesey 124-126). This act of rebellion went beyond the fact that it broke a rule, but it showed the rest of the patients that the world did not end if the Nurse’s rules were ignored and broken. Once again, this effort was a simple way for McMurphy to prove that Nurse Ratched’s rules were not all governing and that they too could break them. As mentioned before, a one-man rebellion can be stopped with ease but if twenty others adopt the philosophies of one rebellious man, a serious problem can occur.
When Kesey wrote McMurphy’s character he took one aspect of the character and applied it to him entirely, including most all of his actions. When Kesey portrayed McMurphy as a gambling crazed rebel, he took the stereotypical compulsive gambler and applied their lifestyle to his. The National Council of Problem Gambling has researched and made a list of common traits among habitual gamblers, most of which apply to McMurphy. They win to have fun, which is a perfect description of McMurphy when he first starts gambling. They possess eager, and unreasonable optimism (National Council of Problem Gambling). This is a very close relation to McMurphy’s hope of bringing down Nurse Ratched. Finally, they often give gifts to those close to them; McMurphy gives Chief the gift of gum, which he had won from Harding earlier (Kesey 186). It is obvious that Kesey took the small factor of McMurphy is the love of gambling and turned it into a way of life for him. Such an addiction can get so out of hand that it develops into an illness or disorder over time. Gambling has been seen as a problem for many and we can be led to believe that this is McMurphy’s problem. He was lucky enough to find that the patients already played cards which made satisfying his gambling urges easier, but just in case, he had brought his own deck of cards anyway. McMurphy’s habit goes beyond the card playing though; his obsession with gambling extends into his risk taking behavior with Nurse Ratched. He had been forewarned of some of the possible consequences of his actions, yet he still would test the Nurse to see if she simply would do any of the things his peers spoke of. Unfortunately, he did what most gamblers do; he put all his chips in one pot and ended up losing. He was hit with the big fall and his career was over.
Compulsive gambling is seen as a troublesome problem among many, and in a number of cases it has been classified as a disorder. Gamblers can get so into winning that this desire begins to affect their mental well-being. According to a medical journal report on the health related effects of pathological gambling it was said that increased rates of mental health disorders have been reported in problem and pathological gamblers (Fiellin 724). What is a pathological gambler? According to the Journal Studies on Alcohol, a pathological gambler is “persons who cannot control their gambling and whose personal lives have been seriously harmed by gambling” (Barnes 706). One can deduct from these facts that McMurphy indeed is mentally ill, and that the cause is his uncontrollable desire to gamble. There are a number of symptoms by which one can identify a compulsive gambler. A few are going back and trying to recover your losses, using extreme measures to win, writing bad checks, or selling personal items for gambling money (Barnes 710). Even though it cannot be said that McMurphy exhibits
all of these there are comparable exhibits of behavior that can apply, and fulfill these symptoms. Although some may disagree, McMurphy is indeed mentally ill. His desire to gamble has taken over his life. It causes him to hurt others, as well as himself. To McMurphy everything is a gamble, including life. This gambling of Mcurphy’s life does however follow the patterns of a habitual gambler’s career. It says that once a gambler reaches a desperation phase that the phase ends in “Either help of hopelessness, imprisonment, suicide, or death” (National Council of Problem Gambling).
Kesey’s selection of symbolic ideas are expressed in wonderful ways, but what he does even better is that he takes an entire stereotype and molds a character into it by starting with a simple detail. Kesey based McMurphy’s thoughts, and actions upon those of a typical gambler. In doing so, not only did he show that gamblers gamble money but their lives as well, including their families. With knowledge of Kesey’s odd and distorted life, perhaps McMurphy is a parallel of some decisions Kesey has made. What must be realized though is that because of R.P McMurphy’s illness, he indeed did belong in the ward. The thing that McMurphy did not allow was for this experience to help him. He was determined that his being in the ward was a mistake and would not help him in the least. He expressed that he was sane and that he was in a mental institution with a bunch of loonies, but what he looked past was his on degree of insanity. Had he actually taken the time to listen to Nurse Ratched he would have finally discovered that he was in the ward for a legitimate reason. Instead he stubbornly ignored his problem and those wanting to help him and he gradually allowed his addiction to get out of hand. Some say his demise was Nurse Ratched’s doing; it obviously was his own doing. McMurphy placed the bet and, when he crapped out, he couldn’t cash the check he had written.
Works Cited
Barnes, Grace, et al. "Alcohol and gambling pathology among U.S. adults: prevalence, demographic patterns and comorbidy." Journal of Studies on Alcohol 7th ser. 62.5 (2001)
Fiellin, Davin A., et al. "Gambling: An Addictive Behavior with Health and Primary Care Implications." JGIM: Journal of General Internal Medicine 12pth ser. 17.9 (2002): 721-732.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York, NY: Penguine, 1976.
National Council of Problem Gambling. Phases of A Gambler’s Career. 11 Oct. 2003. The Eating Disorder Recovery Center. 16 Nov. 2003 <http://www.addictions.net/phases.htm>.
Skinner, David. "Cuckoo for Kesey: Viking publishes a special anniversary edition of author Ken Kesey' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Rev. of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey. Insight in the News 15 July 2002: 26.
