“Last Episode Of”: McMurphy has began a rebellion against Nurse Ratched’s authority by having the white men on the Acutes side of the ward engage in gambling, and attempted to have a vote so as to watch the World Series. Nurse Ratched rigs this vote by claiming there is not a majority because none of the Chronics of the ward were considered in the vote. Chief breaks his years long act of being silent and unable to hear for the first time by raising his hand and voting to watch the World Series. Although the men are not able to watch the series, they pretend as though the television is on. However, McMurphy stops rebelling against the Nurse temporarily when he learns that other white male patients (the Acutes) were voluntarily committed, though because he was brought in by law enforcement, he is only able to leave the ward when the hospital deems it fit for him to do so. Below is Nurse Ratched’s response to the men who are demanding that they not be rationed out cigarettes, which is one of the rules she uses to maintain order throughout the novel. 

“‘Please understand: We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of thought about their therapeutic value. A good many of you are in here because you would not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World, because you refused to face up to them, because you tried to circumvent them and avoid them. At some time-perhaps in your childhood-you may have been allowed to get away with flouting the rules of society. When you broke a rule you knew it. You wanted to be dealt with, needed it, but the punishment did not come. That foolish lenience on the part of your parents may have been the germ that grew into your present illness. I tell you this hoping you will understand that it is entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline and order.”

(199-200) 

As explained previously, Nurse Ratched’s goal is to force men to adhere to a socially acceptable standard of male behavior rather than actually cure them (Embrace your Rabbithood), which supports the argument put forth by Kesey when he initially introduced McMurphy. This is that the mental health system is not curative of any real illness, but rather acts to punish deviant male behavior. Strengthening this is the idea put forth by Nurse Ratched that the men are being institutionalized because they “would not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World” (Kesey 199), meaning that the men are not institutionalized due to mental distress or illness, but rather because they did not adhere to the rules which society has placed on them. By citing their actions as a reason for their institutionalization, Nurse Ratched reveals inadvertently that there is nothing within their physical brains that is wrong with the men.

Nurse Ratched has to place rules upon the men in order to break them so that they adhere to these social standards. She is also forcing men to adhere to her rules by gaslighting them by saying that they “wanted to be dealt with” (Kesey 200), and places an emphasis on them needing to be dealt with because they were breaking the rules, meaning that they were not adhering to what standards of masculinity which they should have been adhering to. The idea that their “illness” could have been caused by “foolish lenience on the part of your [the men’s] parents” (Kesey 200), also places the emphasis of their mental illness on an interpersonal failing of their parents to instruct them on the standards of male behavior rather than an actual illness. Kesey is again arguing that mental illness does not actually exist, because the “therapy” which men are being administered is actually a ploy to get them to abide by standards of male behavior. Therefore, Kesey is also arguing that Nurse Ratched’s rules and restrictions are meant to break men so that they adhere to this standard because her rules and restrictions are created with “thought about their therapeutic value”, the idea of “therapy” being fake because there is nothing actually wrong with the men. The men are only wrong by society’s standards of what masculinity should be, not because there is an actual bodily flaw within themselves. However, it is notable that through the physical manipulation of their bodies by administering “treatments” such as lobotomies, that men can be broken down to a point where they are able to be forced into society’s standards for male behavior (Is for you to spread our approved form of masculinity).