Resolving the Irresolvable: Ending the Conflict Between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

It is not surprising that neither Dr. Spivey nor the ward supervisor ever attempt to interfere with the way Nurse Ratched runs her ward. Before McMurphy is admitted, they do not try to fix what is not broken by interfering with a smooth operation. After McMurphy is admitted and the confrontation between him and the Big Nurse begins, they mostly stay out of the way because there is absolutely nothing they can do to resolve the clash of the two powerful wills. Frankly, if it were up to me to come up with a solution to this conflict, I would be similarly out of ideas. The only reasonable thing do that would leave both of them satisfied is discharging McMurphy as quickly as possible. Let out into the world, he would quickly get into trouble again and, knowing his disposition, probably end up in jail again, while Nurse Ratched, rid of his disruptive influence, would regain full control of the ward operations.

To recognize this as the only possible solution where neither of them ends up dead, one must only examine other options and see how futile they are in achieving the necessary result. One such option is the implementation of Dr. Spivey's idea of Therapeutic Community, with patients deciding policy issues by a majority vote. It is easy to see why this method would not work. Before McMurphy turns the Acutes into "men," they are, according to Harding, "rabbits," weak creatures hounded by the "wolf" personalities of either Nurse Ratched or McMurphy and determined, in order to survive, to stay out of the way of the "wolves" as much as possible by withholding their opinions and going with the flow. Each episode of voting within the group reaffirms this conclusion. Men simply sit and listen and observe the verbal sparring between the Big Nurse and McMurphy, trying to determine who is prevailing and going with that party. Allowing patients to determine policy by a vote would therefore result in policy adjustments suiting the prevailing personality rather than the group.

Another option is moving McMurphy to a different ward. As Nurse Ratched says, this would not solve the problem at all, merely transferring the disruption from one ward to another. Moreover, rumors of McMurphy's exploits would spread through her ward anyway, as they actually do in the book while he spends time in the "Disturbed" ward and later in surgery. At a certain point, McMurphy as a person is no longer important to the patients; McMurphy as a symbol of independence, assertiveness, and disregard for the "system" is. Without breaking him, Nurse Ratched would never have the kind of control she has had before his arrival.

Yet another option is recognizing the common sense of at least some of McMurphy's suggestions and implementing them into the ward's policy. In this case, Nurse Ratched-a single, childless woman for whom the control of the ward has become the only measure of personal accomplishment-would most likely resign. This still would not solve the problem because with the object of antagonism gone, there is going to be nothing to keep McMurphy acting for the benefit of other patients. Most likely he would revert to his individualistic and exploitive behavior that landed him in trouble in first place.

As is perceivable from this analysis, discharging McMurphy is the only optimal solution, resulting eventually in a situation where it would seem like McMurphy has never even been committed at all. The hospital might catch some heat for discharging a man without fixing his obvious asocial tendencies, but compared to the kind of trouble that result from the "farewell" party, Billy's suicide, and McMurphy's attack on Nurse Ratched, a slightly tarnished diagnostic reputation would be quite insignificant.