Electro Shock Therapy In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Throughout One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the patients talked in fear of the “Shock Shop,” the nickname given to the Electro Shock Therapy machine. If a patient tries to rebel against the system at the hospital, they are sent to the “Shock Shop” where they are quickly fixed by the harsh device. The threat of the “Shock Shop” usually keeps the patients at bay, but every once in while someone is sent for Electro Shock Therapy. Nurse Ratched keeps order in the hospital by displaying these rebellious individuals where everyone can see the cruel effects of the “Shock Shop.” However, the “Shock Shop” and its victims symbolize something much greater than just a machine. In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the Electro Shock Therapy machine is an allusion that relates to crucifixion.

First, the shape of the device is similar to a cross, “You are strapped to a table, shaped, ironically, like a cross, with a crown of electric sparks in place of thorns” (Kesey 69). Harding describes the structure to be a cross, and even goes further into the allusion by talking about a crown of electric sparks, instead of a crown of thorns. For many in the hospital, the “Shock Shop” symbolizes the end of sanity and the transfer into a Chronic, or worse, a Vegetable. Going further into the allusion, Ellis, who was turned into a Vegetable by the EST machine, is left nailed to the wall for all the patients to see. The actual thought of the “Shock Shop” scares the patients enough; however the result of the Electro Shock Therapy is what really keeps the patients from rebelling against Nurse