Examples Of Injustice In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

When stepping inside a hospital to receive help, one should expect care, treatment, and respect. However, shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and “Howl,” American society equates mental illness with inhumanity. In both texts, the characters are forced to live without basic human freedoms and a voice to change it. Society pressures the mentally ill into becoming submissive counterparts of the community by stripping away their physical freedoms, forcing inhumane treatment, and depriving them the freedom of expression. By pressuring confinement and treating the patients inhumanely, society strips away their freedom to express themselves. Once deemed mentally ill by society, one no longer has the right to physical freedom. As seen in both texts, the patients are often confined to the hospital and physically bounded until they no longer can be envision as free. In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, some of the patients are admitted under the pretense that they cannot decide when they leave. In this case, these patients have absolutely no voice in the matter of their confinement; except, they can change their situations if they conform “to policy merely to aid his chances of an

In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the nurse exposes the patients to harsh procedures in hopes to either cure them of their illness or stop unwanted behavior. Harding explains one of the treatments the patients endure: “Electro-Shock Therapy. Those fortunate souls in there are being given a free trip to the moon. No, on second thought, it isn’t completely free. You pay for the service with brain cells instead of money.” Not only is the procedure torturous, but also truly harms their health. Chief Bromden often alludes to his fear of the procedure and “being sucked through that door.” He exemplifies the powerlessness the patients have when denying