Commentary- The meeting

In this scene of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey the power struggle between nurse Rachet and McMurphy gets taken to a new level of rivalry. The passage marks the end of Part II in the novel. The scenes that have been leading up to this passages were McMurphy and the Nurse playing out cards in order to determine who has power in the ward. The nurse plays her last ace with the certainty to break McMurphy; however she does not succeed, since McMurphy shows who really has power by putting his fist through the glass window. Consequently the passage is driven by the themes of Power and Manipulation and Gambling in regards to the most important themes. However Be a Man, Perspective vs. Perspective and self interest vs. Self sacrifice also mark crucial themes in the passages. In addition to the themes the text is driven by the characters of the Nurse and McMurphy and through the rivalry that exists between them. This is supported by the use of imagery by the chief and the diction of McMurphy and the nurse.

Of the three most important major themes in the novel two are present in this passage, power and manipulation as well as gambling. Before this passage the nurse was in power on account of the fact that McMurphy learned that he was a committed case. In this passage the nurse intends to make a final demonstration of her power in order to break McMurphy resistance. She seems to succeed as McMurphy does not protest against the fact that she want to take the tub room privilege away that he had fought for. The fact that McMurphy first does not react and then after she finished smashes the glass in a casual way “I’m sorry, ma’am, he said. Gwad but I am. That window glass was so spick and span I com-pletely forgot it was there.” (p.172). This way he shows the inmates of the ward that the nurse holds no power over him. “This was supposed to be her final victory over him, supposed to establish her rule once and for all. But here he comes and he’s big as a house”. This mentions the motif of Big vs. Little and whenever somebody is big it is a sign of self-confidence and power. The passage shifts from the nurse holding the power to complete power of McMurphy.

Gambling is almost equally important to Power and Manipulation, as the struggle for power is often referred to as a game of poker between the nurse and McMurphy. While the nurse plays her last ace in this round McMurphy can top it and still has the chief as an ace. The imagery used by the chief to describe McMurphy's behaviour is filled with references to “card games during the day” McMurphy is a gambler with every piece of his body and he knows when to lean back and when to play the good cards and therefore does not instantly respond to the nurses announcement but waits for better effect. His bluffing leads the nurse into an impression of victory which makes his countering an absolute statement of success.

The other themes, to be a Man, Perspective vs. Perspective and Self interest vs. self sacrifice all feed into the two bigger themes or are effects of them. To be a Man is connected to the motif of big vs. little as McMurphy stands up to smash the window and to stand his ground. “The Big nurse was sitting” and for the fact that he is standing that puts him over the big nurse. Also he reaches down to brush off the scattered glass of her, which is parallel structure to the smashed victory. His action, considering the fact that he is committed might seem rather insane to a person speaking from a perspective outside the ward, for him as a gambler however it is the best move he could make, something unexpected that put him into power again which features his long term plan of escape. Keeping that desire of escape in mind it is obvious that he does not do this as an action of self sacrifice but out of self interest, since his plan works only as long as he is in control of the ward.
Besides the theme the character of the nurse and McMurphy are utterly important. On one hand side there is McMurphy, the true American that is suppressed by the nurse. His will to fight is the reason of existence for this passage which is filled by typical McMurphy behaviour and language. On one hand side there is the gambler in him which inspires the calm waiting until the nurse has finished as well as his language that is colloquial but polite, witness to his uneducated character but still intelligent. On the other hand there is the nurse whose character is the need to stay in power. Her goal is to keep this her ward which results in the power struggle between her and McMurphy. The passage is also mainly made up of her speaking, not directly accusing the acutes but passively putting them down through language. She talks down to them by naming them “boys” and the use of numerous rhetoric questions, as if she had to make sure they understood correctly. She stresses that it is only the best for the patience “entirely for your own good” and how much she regrets this step. This way she marks the Acutes and indirectly McMurphy as the bad person and puts all fault of the taking away of privileges off herself.

Collapse Precis

The concept of the report is that it is possible to learn from previously successful or unsuccessful societies to ensure the success of the own society. According to Jared Diamond, the author of Collapse- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed his argument is structured the way a boa constrictor would look like if it had swallowed two very large sheep. The First sheep is a modern lengthy example of Montana followed by a row of shorter chapters that increase in length as they deal with more and more complex scenarios. This includes the examinations of the Easter Islands, the Pitcairn islands, the Anasazi, the Maya, the Viking expansion, New Guinea, Japan, Rwanda, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as well as China and Australia. All these societies vary considerably not only in location, but also in their cultural structure. However all of these societies failed or succeeded for five specific reasons: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbours and friendly trade partners and most significantly the society’s response to the environmental problems. Some societies made poor decisions in these categories, sometimes they did not have control over the conditions, but in the case of collapse the society always carries a certain part of the responsibility. When starting the book the author thought of it a book about the effects climate change had on societies but soon realised that the set of factors above almost always contributed. The collapse or success of a society is a complex study that employs broad spectra of the sciences to extract information about societies that have vanished for hundreds of years.
As this is a very impersonal topic as societies consist of numerous people that then vanish into anonymity, he starts off by relating the effects of the five factors he established to personal friends of his or to the fates of individual he met during his research. The first chapter, one of the longest in the book, has the same effect. As this piece is written of an American point of view, he assumes Montana to be an example that relates to the readers, as many might have been there or live under similar conditions. Also this is a modern example which indicates the importance for the present times. He interweaves many personal stories, including his own, to show how real the problems are. This includes acid leaking from mines, forest fires, destruction of eco-zones, air and water pollution as well as soil erosion and economic problems. He gives the views on the problems of multiple sides, for example the opinion of a logger and an environmentalist on the topic of over logging in Montana. Although Montana seems as if it was a beautiful place without problems, Jared Diamond makes clear that it is a beautiful place with problems. He suggests solutions and points out flaws in the planning and the reasons of position, all backed up with expert opinion and scientific proof. He makes a well educated impression, but most importantly he states: “Hence as you read this book, and as you consider environmental problems posed mostly in impersonal terms, please think of the problems of those other societies as viewed by individual people like Stan Falkow,.....”

Chapter two deals with the rise and collapse of the Easter Island and the gives detailed history, ranging from settlement to tribe rivalry, as far as historians and scientists have put it together for the reader to understand the situation. The Easter Islands had a culture but with the creation of the statues overstressed the resources of the island. It became deforested, which made it victim to soil erosion as was found out from pollen samples on the island ranging a few hundred years back. For the five factors environmental damage, hostile encounter and reaction to environmental problems led to the collapse of the Easter Island society. Very similar is the case of the Pitcairn Islands except the element of trading partners and the fading away of these connections played a significant role.

The next two chapters deal with the collapse of the Anaszi and the Maya. He again gives detailed background on the History so the reader understands the mentality of the society and then with the backup of the research of pollen scientists, archaeologists and the methods of carbon tracking explains one by one the factors that helped the downfall. This included deforestation, overpopulation, structural problems in the society, soil erosion and droughts and hostile encounters which mean that all but the trading partners played a role in the downfall. He shows incredible profound knowledge about the methods the scientists applies and links the results to modern societies.

The topic of the Viking expansion is even more complex which includes the settlements of the Faeroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland and Vinland which is in Canada. He analyses the fate of each settlement, of a success on the Faeroe Islands and in Iceland due to relative close distance to main land and the failure of the Vinland colonies. He also stresses the importance of the Greenland settlement. Iceland only managed its problems after an extreme case of deforestation and had to change the society’s base to fish and not sheep. In Greenland the problem was that the Vikings continued their life style they were used from home, which however was not suitable for Greenland’s sensible environment. They also refused to eat fish as bone analysis show. They were unwilling to adapt and carried on, which worked for a few generations but soon led to the complete collapse. Furthermore there was a decline in trading which was important for iron and wood and without the trading ships the Viking settlement was in constant decline. On the other hand there was a successful society on Greenland, the Inuit, who had adapted to the environment eve farther north than the Vikings. The Vikings refused to learn from the Inuit and as a result the Inuit succeeded while the Vikings failed. The five points all play a role. There was a climate change, as the Vikings arrived in a series of mild years, which they falsely assumed to be normal conditions and therefore behaved wrong when the cold season came. There was hostile encounter however very little, the decline in trade and the lack of adaption.

The next chapters deal with modern societies ranging from the bottom up reform of New Guinea which prevented a collapse of the society to a top down reform in Japan which made Japan one of the most successful countries on earth. These two success stories are followed by the disaster of the Rwandan genocide and the environmental problems of deforestation and soil erosion in China and Australia. These societies are all significantly more complex than for example the Easter Islands, considering the phenomenon of ethnic hatred in Rwanda and the size of China. This size carries the problem of overpopulation but also great power to react quickly and effectively and affect a large number of people such as the one child policy (which was debateable but still affected many) The ecosystem in Australia is very fragile and the Australian way of treating it was very much affected by the British ancestors. Other examples are Haiti and the Dominican Republic who live on the same island but due to slight variations in geography but also History are very different today. One example is the death penalty on logging in the Dominican Republic that was enforced for decades. All these societies still exist today and might overcome their problems by looking at the past and learn of the mistakes of others.

Another problem are the business models of many oil, logging and sea food companies in modern days which can cause great problems in the areas they operate. Many of these business models need to change otherwise this could lead to future catastrophes that affect not only one society but the whole globe. The societies need to learn from the past, considered the factors that caused the downfall of the Easter Islands, the Maya or the Vikings to overcome current problems such as overpopulation and climate destabilisation.