Plot Summary Thus Far: During a group therapy session, one of the male patients on the ward, Harding, is attacked and ridiculed by the other male patients of the ward after Nurse Ratched brought up an entry written in the logbook. The logbook is meant for other patients to comment on the behavior of another so it can be brought up within group therapy sessions. After surveying all this, McMurphy talks to Harding, critiquing the men on the ward’s behavior and pinning down Nurse Ratched as a cruel, sadistic figure who wants others to conform to her standards of behavior at the expense of their personal pride and masculinity. Harding then argues with McMurphy about his critique, seeking to explain to him life on the ward, the conduct of the other white male patients, and Nurse Ratched herself.

“‘This world…belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn’t challenge the wolf to combat. Now would that be wise? Would it?’ … ‘Mr. McMurphy…my friend…I’m not a chicken, I’m a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick there is a rabbit. Billy Bibbit is a rabbit. All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity-hopping through our Walt Disney world. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, we’re not in here because we’re rabbits-we’d be rabbits wherever we were-we’re all in here because we can’t adjust to our rabbithood. We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place.”

(64)

Harding is arguing with McMurphy after McMurphy criticizes the manner in which the other patients ridiculed him during the group therapy session. In this, Harding is arguing the exact goal of their punishment within the mental institution–to be forced to conform to their place in society, where they must abide by an acceptable standard of male behavior. While McMurphy is put into the mental health system for being overly masculine, Harding is put into the mental health system because he is seen as not masculine enough. Elsewhere on the page, he says he has been institutionalized for having feminine traits “of jealousy and paranoia”, holding his cigarette “in an affected manner” and being accused of “having relations with male friends”, meaning that there is a standard of male sexuality that must be adhered to (Kesey 64). He is accused of not being sexual enough to the point at which people around him doubt he even has a penis (Kesey 64). As Harding argues above, they need Nurse Ratched, a wolf, to teach the men, the rabbits, how to adjust and thereby accept this standard by which they must live. This standard is that men must abide by what people higher than them say and do, as evidenced by the rabbits (men) accepting their roles and recognizing the wolf (people like Nurse Ratched) are stronger. 

This also means that men are meant to submit to certain social standards for male behavior, as Nurse Ratched represents “the evil forces of a repressive hospital and a repressive society.” (Semino & Swindlehurst 7). All of the men on the ward are “rabbits” (Kesey 64), that is, meant to be weak, timid, and submissive to greater powers. The implication of the reference to “Walt Disney world” is that they must happily conform in their position as men, which hearkens back to the example of Maxwell Taber (Is for you to spread our approved form of masculinity). However, the men of the ward are “rabbits of varying ages and degrees” because they do not all adhere perfectly to this standard. They are being punished because they are not adjusting well to their social role, resulting in them not adhering to standards which they are meant to fulfill. Men must adhere to a strict standard of heterosexuality, and that is that their urges must be either amplified or repressed. In the case of Harding, he must repress his homosexuality while still having relations with his wife and thus amplify his heterosexuality, while McMurphy is sent there as a continuation of his punishment for being overly sexual behavior towards women and asserting his dominance. Stronger members of society controlling the weaker is one of the other standards which the establishment wants the men to adhere to. This is why they are still rabbits even if they are not adjusted to that submissive role–they cannot escape the cogs of society, and will always be seen as weaker and lesser than. They need the Nurse, an agent of society, to take on the aggressive, assertive role of “wolf” (Kesey 64) in order to force them to conform. Harding saying all this also means that he is aware that he has internalized the system around him.