Plot Summary Thus Far: Chief goes on the internal monologue below after he overhears a conversation held between Nurse Ratched and the medical team overviewing McMurphy’s care. At this point in the novel, Chief has already described what he called “The Combine”, which is a hallucinogenic conspiracy that an organization adjusts people through installing mechanical structures within them in order to get them to comply with and spread social order. He believes that Nurse Ratched is one of the enforcers of “The Combine” in adjusting people to social standards dictated by “The Combine”, and that the optimal goal of it is so that the world would be abiding by the same order as Nurse Ratched’s ward.

“The ward is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods, and in the schools, and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up, good as new, better than new sometimes. It brings joy to the Big Nurse’s heart; something that came in all twisted different is now a functioning, adjusted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold. Watch him sliding across the land with a welded grin, fitting into some nice little neighborhood where they’re just now digging trenches down the street to lay pipes for city water. He’s happy with it. He’s adjusted to surroundings finally….

‘Why, I’ve never seen anything to beat the change in Maxwell Taber since he’s got back from that hospital; a little black and blue around the eyes, a little weight lost, and, you know what? he’s a new man, Gad, modern American science…’ 

And the light is on in his basement window way past midnight every night as the Delayed Reaction Elements the technicians installed lend nimble skills to his fingers as he bends over the doped figure of his wife, his two little girls just four and six, the neighbor he goes bowling with Mondays; he adjusts them like he was adjusted. This is the way they spread it. When he finally runs down after a preset number of years, the town loves him dearly, and the paper prints his picture helping the Boy Scouts last year on graveyard cleaning day, and his wife gets a letter from the principal of the high school how Maxwell Wilson Taber was an inspirational figure to the youth of our fine community.”

(40-41) 

Kesey is arguing through Taber that forced social cohesion to a standard of male behavior via the treatment of mental health is dehumanizing and strips one of their individuality. Kesey also uses Chief to describe what happens when one does conform to the system. The ward being a factory for the Combine, Chief’s schizophrenic ideation which lends itself as a metaphor to society, emphasizes the idea that the ward is meant to “fix mistakes” rather than treat mental illness. Chief’s metaphor of the Combine seeing the patient as a “completed product” (Kesey 40) demonstrates that mental health being treated is not actually effective. It is dehumanizing because it suppresses the individual down into what society is telling men to be, while also erasing their sense of identity as displayed by the idea that men are “good as new, better than new sometimes” (Kesey 40). Emphasis on the word better places stress on the idea that the men who they once were have been completely erased and replaced by a new, socially acceptable version of a man. The Big Nurse (Nurse Ratched) being brought joy by this displays that she takes pride in forcing men to fit into a socially acceptable role rather than heal them. Men coming in as something further dehumanizes them, and the idea that that “something came in all twisted different” (Kesey 40) displays that they are not fitting into a socially acceptable standard-hence why they are twisted-and why the Big Nurse must craft them into an “adjusted component” (Kesey 40). She forces them to adhere to socially acceptable standards of masculinity through what is disguised as treatment for mental illness. The idea that Taber has a “welded grin” (Kesey 40) emphasizes that he is not actually happy, but that he has been manipulated into a standard which he cannot break from. He is in a “nice little neighborhood” (Kesey 40), which displays the social conformity he is now going along with, and “digging trenches down the street to lay for city water” (Kesey 40), meaning that he is fitting into what society sees as a productive masculine role. Kesey is arguing that this form of Taber is actually more broken instead of healed, in that he can no longer even express true emotion. The idea that Maxwell Taber is “‘changed’” (Kesey 40) again emphasizes that he is no longer himself, and the people around him seem to believe that is it better because he is no longer himself, downplaying the negative impact of lobotomy on Taber through comments like “a little black and blue around the eyes” while touting the lobotomy as a miracle of “modern American science” (Kesey 40). The societal standard of men not being overly sexual while still not underperforming sexually is also emphasized, as “the Delayed Reaction Elements the technicians installed lend nimble skills to his fingers as he bends over the doped figure of his wife” (Kesey 40), means that Taber is expected to pleasure his wife and be sexual while not acting on his own sexual desires, which in itself is dehumanizing. Eventually, Taber spreads the idea of masculinity that he has been forced to conform to into everyone, from his daughters down to his acquaintances. The idea that Taber runs down after a “preset number of years” (Kesey 41) shows that now everything about his life fits beneath a mechanical, uniform standard; one which he cannot break from even in death. Even after death, the image of Taber which remains is him “helping the Boy Scouts last year on Graveyard Cleaning Day” (Kesey 40), which disrespects his own passing while downplaying his individuality while emphasizing how he played a greater societal role. Worse, his wife “gets a letter from the principal of the high school” (Kesey 40-41), emphasizing that he has even further spread the masculine ideal that he has been forced into onto young, impressionable men. This is seen as good socially as “the whole town loves him dearly” (Kesey 40).