Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Invisibility
Many important elements in the novel are either hidden
from view or invisible. For example, Bromden tries to be as invisible
as possible. He has achieved this invisibility by pretending not
to understand what is going on around him, so people notice him
less and less. Moreover, he imagines a fog surrounding him that
hides him and keeps him safe. He keeps both his body and his mind
hidden.
Bromden’s hallucinations about hidden machines that control the
patients call attention to the fact that the power over the patients is
usually covert. He imagines that the patients are implanted with tiny
machines that record and control their movements from the inside.
The truth is that Nurse Ratched manages to rule by insinuation,
without ever having to be explicit about her accusations and threats,
so it seems as though the patients themselves have absorbed her
influence—she becomes a sort of twisted conscience.
When McMurphy smashes through the glass window of the Nurses’
Station, his excuse is that the glass was so clean he could not see
it. By smashing it, he reminds the patients that although they cannot
always see Ratched’s or society’s manipulation, it still operates
on them.
The Power of Laughter
The power of laughter resonates throughout the novel.
McMurphy’s laughter is the first genuine laughter heard on the ward
in years. McMurphy’s first inkling that things are strange among
the patients is that none of them are able to laugh; they can only
smile and snicker behind their hands. Bromden remembers a scene
from his childhood when his father and relatives mocked some government
officials, and he realizes how powerful their laughter was: “I forget
sometimes what laughter can do.” For McMurphy, laughter is a potent
defense against society’s insanity, and anyone who cannot laugh
properly has no chance of surviving. By the end of the fishing trip,
Harding, Scanlon, Doctor Spivey, and Sefelt are all finally able
to participate in real, thunderous laughter, a sign of their physical
and psychological recovery.
Real Versus Imagined Size
Bromden describes people by their true size, not merely
their physical size. Kesey implies that when people allow others,
such as governments and institutions, to define their worth, they
can end up far from their natural state. Nurse Ratched’s true size,
for example, is “big as a tractor,” because she is powerful and
unstoppable. Bromden, though he is six feet seven inches tall, feels
much smaller and weaker. He tells McMurphy, “I used to be big, but
not no more.” As for McMurphy, Bromden says he is “broad as Papa
was tall,” and his father was named The Pine That Stands Tallest
on the Mountain. Bromden says his mother was twice the size of he
and his father put together, because she belittled them both so
much. With McMurphy’s help, Bromden is gradually “blown back up
to full size” as he regains his self-esteem, sexuality, and individuality.
