In What Way does One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Demonstrate Foucaults Theories - Assignment Example

?In What Way does One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Demonstrate Foucault’s Theories Regarding How Power Works in Current Society? By Date Foucault’s social theories argue that society is constructed in terms of dominance and the dominated. In circumstances where there is resistance to dominance, control is engineered via a system of control and submission. Institutions are the greatest symbol of this system of dominance and responses to resistance. In this regard, the rehabilitation reforms implemented in prison systems is not a manifestation of a progressive humanity. In fact, rehabilitation is no less inhumane than the previous practice of torturing prisoners and imprisoning the insane (Seidman, 2011). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest provides an example of Foucault’s theories of power and control in modern society in terms of dominance and commanding adherence to social order prescribed by those who wield power in socially. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is both symbolic of Foucault’s theories of power and control in society and an example of how power and control functions in a rehabilitative penal system. The film is set in a mental ward of a psychiatric institution. Although, the film itself is set in a mental institution it raises the question of whether or not the control and power asserted within the confines of the institution is sane or rational. In this regard, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest incorporates Foucault’s theory that modern society is fashioned after a prescribed manner of conduct and those who do not comply with this prescription must be separated from society and made to conform before they can re-enter society (Foucault, 1979). The prison system as representative or symbolic of the social prescription has the effect of producing and encouraging resistance. As Foucault (1979) stated: Although it is true that prison punishes delinquency, delinquency is for the most part produced in and by incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn (p. 301). The prison system perpetuates delinquency, because the inmate, subjected to rigid structures and under constant surveillance, and marginalized might take comfort in the knowledge that he/she is an “outlaw”, that “prowls on the confines of a docile, frightening order” (Foucault, 1979, p. 301). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest demonstrates Foucault’s contention of prison systems perpetuating delinquency via power and control through Randle McMurphy. McMurphy, an obviously sane individual manipulates his institutionalization as a means of escaping imprisonment. McMurphy immediately comes across as a rebellious free spirit and influences resistance from previously docile and conforming patients. McMurphy presents a challenge to Nurse Ratched, the agent of the institution’s power over the condemned and institutionalized patients. The more Nurse Ratched punishes McMurphy, the more resistant he becomes. The heightened surveillance that influences the perpetuation of delinquency argued by Foucault (1979) is portrayed via Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched runs a tight shift in that patients have rigidly guarded space and activities. Nurse Ratched asserts absolute control over the patients and a rebellious free spirit like McMurphy does not accept Ratched’s absolute control. The more he challenges Ratched’s control over him, the more determined Ratched is to regain and assert control over McMurphy. For example, McMurphy requested permission for the ward to watch the World Series, and when Nurse Ratched denied his request, McMurphy insisted that Nurse Ratched put the request to a vote. While Nurse Ratched agreed to the vote, she denied that the vote was in favor of watching the World Series when it was. McMurphy responded by putting the World Series on in the recreation lounge. When Nurse Ratched discovered McMurphy’s disobedience, she used her power to turn the electricity off. Even so, McMurphy’s delinquency persisted. Rather than submit to Ratched’s assertion and proof of power, McMurphy continued to resist. With the television turned off, McMurphy called the game himself and in doing so, succeeded in getting the rest of the ward engaged. In this particular instance, it was obvious that McMurphy enjoyed being what Foucault described as an outlaw in the outer fringes of a marginalized prison society. McMurphy also demonstrates how the prison environment serves to perpetuate delinquency rather than reverse it. McMurphy’s persistent delinquency and resistance is also an example of Foucault’s social contract theory. Foucault (1979), explains the social contract theory by asking, how “a new foundation was given to the right to punish” (p. 303). Foucault (1979) asks further, “how were people made to accept the power to punish, or quite simply, when punished tolerate being so” (p. 303). As Foucault (1979) argues: The theory of the contract can only answer this question by the fiction of a juridical subject giving to others the power to exercise over him the right that he himself possesses over them. It is highly probable that the great carceral continuum, which provides a communication between the power of discipline and the power of the law, and extends without interruption from the smallest coercions to the longest penal detention, constituted the technical and real, immediately material counterpart of that chimerical granting of the right to punish (p. 303). In other words, Nurse Ratched’s authority as an agent of the institution is not fully explained by her position of authority. The patient’s acceptance of her authority also confers upon Nurse Ratched the right to punish them. Indeed the film opens to depict a ward in which the setting itself is entirely clinical and mechanical with patients appearing to be in a particularly vegetative state or entirely confused or fearful. Thus the impression is one that reflects the social contract theory to which Foucault addresses. The patients are amenable to the punishment and the control asserted by the institution via Nurse Ratched. As the film progresses however, the social contract is broken as patients become more resistant to Nurse Ratched’s power and in many cases follow and subscribe to McMurphy’s resistance. McMurphy, however never subscribed to the social contract and as such never gave Ratched the power to punish him. For example, when McMurphy was prescribed electroshock treatment for his rebelliousness and delinquency, he submitted to the treatment as if it was an ordinary and natural event that did not give him pain and would therefore not be a rehabilitative form of therapy. Nurse Ratched however, believing that the electroshock therapy was painful and an effective form of punishment told McMurphy to apologize for his misconduct and in turn the electroshock treatment would be stopped. McMurphy, dismissed her request and seemingly happily took electroshock treatment. It was at this point that the threat of an operation was held over McMurphy’s head and still he would not give in to the punishment of the threat of more severe punishment. In other words, the punishment itself was only punishment in the eyes of the disciplinarian. For the victim of that punishment, the punishment had no value or effect and as such, McMurphy did not give the punishment or the disciplinarian the power to use punishment as an effective disciplinary tool. In this regard, McMurphy did not subscribe to a social contract with the institution. Moreover, as Foucault (1979) argues: The prison becomes less useful when, through the gap between its penitentiary discourse and its effect of consolidating delinquency, it articulates the penal power and the disciplinary power. In the midst of all these mechanisms of normalization, which are becoming ever more rigorous in their application, the specificity of the prison and its role as link are losing something of their purpose (p. 306). The link and purpose to which Foucault (1979) refers is the educational and rehabilitative powers and goals of the penal and criminal justice system. According to Foucault (1979), if the purpose of the prison system and the criminal justice system is to rehabilitate or heal or normalize inmates, it fails to accomplish this goal when the focus is on punishment and discipline. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is no doubt that punishment and discipline is the primary mechanisms used in the asylum. Patients are medicated and corralled like animals in designated spaces and for prescribed activities. Even group therapy which should be rehabilitative and healing in nature is entirely punitive. In therapy sessions the patients are humiliated as their secrets are exposed for the scrutiny of the group against their will and obviously without their consent. In this regard, the patients on Ratched’s ward who are male are entirely emasculated and humiliated. In one scene in the film, the male patients are lined up against the wall in the shower, forced to strip and hosed down. Therefore, the idea of humiliation as a form of punishment and punishment over rehabilitation is a pervasive theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and is a persistent theory of Foucault’s theories of power and control in modern society. Foucault’s (1979) criticism of penal systems emphasizing punishment and discipline focuses on the apparent misuse of power and borders on a breach of the social contract. The state and its agents have the power and the resources to use science and knowledge effectively. Instead, science and knowledge is misapplied. For instance in Seidman’s (2011) reading of Foucault’s work, Seidman (2011) observes that: Foucault underscored the growing authority of mental health experts whose therapeutic discourses and practices create new psychological subjects – e.g., the neurotic, the narcissist, hysteric, schizophrenic, the anal-compulsive, the frigid personality – who are objects of psychiatric and state social control (p. 318). While these scientific characterizations may be legitimate and can be treated by humane medical methods, the misuse of these scientific diagnoses and the practices used are inhumane. In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, practice does not correspond with the medical knowledge associated with the various mental maladies suffered by the patients. Instead the patients are disciplined and punished, often with humiliation as a form of punishment and forced discipline. In Foucault’s (1979) description of the Mettray, the penal institution that formed the foundation of his theory of power and control in modern society, he wrote that: Training was accompanied by permanent observation: a body of knowledge was being constantly built up from the everyday behaviour of the inmates; it was organized as an instrument of perpetual assessment (p. 299). This kind of training and its effect in practice was observed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Knowledge obtained in the observation and assessment of patients was put to use as an instrument of control. For example when patient Billy whom Nurse Ratched observed had an intense fear of his mother was caught in a compromising position with a prostitute, Nurse Ratched threatened to share this information with Billy’s mother. However, the misuse of this knowledge and the focus on discipline and punishment as a method of control backfired. Billy was not conformed or normalized by this threat. He cut his throat either out of fear of his mother discovering his misdeed or as a final act of rebellion and resistance of the power that Nurse Ratched had over him. Science was ultimately used to conform McMurphy. When electroshock therapy failed to have the desired outcome, McMurphy was lobotomized and thus reduced to a vegetative state. Although the institution would have arguably accomplished its goals of rehabilitation via punishment and discipline, it failed in that McMurphy was not freely exercising the will to conform. McMurphy was far from normal. Moreover, the impact that Murphy’s tragic outcome had on the ward was counterproductive to rehabilitative aims of institutionalizing punishment and discipline. Outraged by the docile body that was once a free spirited and rebellious man, Chief Bromden used his extraordinary strength to break open a glass panel so that the remaining patients could escape the institution. In the final analysis, the institution failed to rehabilitate its patients via discipline and punishment. The discipline and punishment only created what Foucault (1979) described as prison solidarity. The patients became entirely united by their inhumane treatment and in the end could not be normalized except by scientific methods that produced an unthinking and unfeeling subject. According to Foucault (1979) society is fragmented and there is no “social center that gives to them a unity and telos” (Seidman, 2011, p. 319). In other words, there is no dominant norm setting standards and norms of behavior. Society is made up of different people with different logics and different norms (Seidman, 2011). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest not only reflects the diversity in society, but also symbolizes the injustice associated with forcing one set of norms over another by the inhumane misuse of power as a method of control. In the penal system, the same approach is taken to the treatment of offenders. One size cannot fit all. Some methods of rehabilitation may not be effective for or required for some inmates. In attempting to find and use a one size fits all method of rehabilitation, the prison system resorts to discipline and punishment and forgets about rehabilitation altogether. Bibliography Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline & Punishment: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. (1975) (Film). Seidman, S. (2011). Contested Knowledge: Social Theory Today. Blackwell Publishing. Read More