McMurphy and a few of the other men on the ward try to find something to throw to bust out the window. They think about a chair, a table, a bed, and then they get the idea to throw the "big control panel with all the handles and cranks" (page 119) out the window. McMurphy tries to convince the others that he will be capable of lifting and throwing it, but they have the scepticism.
"He steps up to the panel and lifts Billy Bibbit down off it and spits in his big callused palms and slaps them together, rolls his shoulders...His arms commence to swell, and the veins squeeze up to the surface... His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift... Then his breath explodes out of him, and he falls back limp against the wall" (pages 120-121). This is the one thing that we have seen McMurphy fail at. The control panel symbolizes the combine. No matter how hard he tries to fight the combine itself, or how it tries to change the men on the ward, he will not be successful. All the other men know he will not be successful too, but they have a little bit of hope that he will be able to do it, and that's why they decide to place the bets afterall.
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2 comments:
This was the first time that McMurphy tried to overthrow the combine. He had to get to it through the control panel in one fell swoop as opposed to manipulating all of the people around him. McMurphy did fail, yes, but he says on page 121, "But I tried, though... Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now didn't I." This goes back to Max's comment about the combine not yet affecting him. He's not afraid to make mistakes, he's willing to explore all of his options and if he fails, he fails but he will improve the next time. He knows that his faults make him a better person, where as the other patients are ashamed of their faults and are constantly trying to fix and alter their lives to conform to society. They just don't see that if they all tried together, they would be much more effective. McMurphy can't overturn the combine singlehandedly. He needs all of the men on his side too; everyone needs to pull their own weight and then they can prevail in the end.
I think that the message that is portrayed in that part is really complicated. One hand I would agree with the comment posted, that Mac trying to beat the combine was not a failure. He did at least try and maybe taught the other patients a little something about not giving up. On the other had though, I would have to say that it is more realistic that this failure had a negative impact upon the patients. They know much more about what theirs (and Mac's) odds are in overcoming the combine. They all knew what was going to happen simply because of their longtime past experience with failures. It seems that anyone who comes close to success, winds up defeated forever, or even worse, an acute as a result of Shocking or brain-work. Mac's failure, at least in the eye's of the other men, qualifies as this and I don't think it can be looked at as a success as a result of that.
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