Tuesday, November 11, 2008
You Birds
On page 117 McMurphy says "how many of you birds will vote if I bring up that time switch again?" and then down the page he refers to them again as birds. McMurphy sees the group as sort of a flock of birds. In the context this isn't a good thing. Like a flock of birds, the group sticks together and all seem to follow each other in their fear of Nurse Ratchet. This makes them all seem to blend together into one big mass while McMurphy stands out as an individual and a threat to Nurse Ratchet.
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As McMurphy is convincing the doctor to bring up the carnival idea at the meeting, “The Big Nurse comes into the day room with her covey of student nurses and her basket of notes… The nurses look at one another and wonder what’s got into this man” (104). Not only are the patients labeled as birds, but the nurses are as well (a covey meaning a “brood or small flock of partridges or similar birds”). The reference to partridges may be significant because partridges are “heavy-bodied small-winged South American game bird[s]”. They are heavy and yet have small wings, which can seemingly make flight difficult. Also, they are hunted for game, bringing back Chief’s memory of the bird in the bush. As long as the nurses don’t question or defy Big Nurse and draw attention to them, they are safe under her. This applies to McMurphy with the patients as well. Labeling others as birds is a claim to authority. It reminds the patients or assistant nurses of their vulnerability against an authority figure.
Absolutely a reference to a flock of birds would be an indicator of some sort of power over people, however, the patients aren't nearly as compliant at this moment as the less important nurses and the orderlies and this continues the pattern of the Big Nurse to dominate the men. It seems like it will continue until the men are succesfully able to unite in a true flock of birds that thinks with McMurphy rather than their current pattern of fear.
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