cuckoo's nest

The fishing trip, on the surface, was a fun thing to do for the patients outside of the walls of the “loony-bin”. However, this trip had a greater impact on the patients than just a day of fun. Whether McMurphy intended to or not, he raised the morale and confidence of the patients, because of this little excursion. When the cars pulled up to the gas station, the locals treated the patients very rudely and also Candy Starr. This was not a foreign phenomenon to the patients, as they were treated very rudely at the hospital by Ratched and other aides. Nonetheless, this did not help the patients’ egos or overall mood to say the least. Once again, when the patients arrived at the fishing site, the other fisherman acted very rudely, and they had been denied access to a boat because of “improper paperwork.” However, once the men returned with a very impressive catch, they were treated completely different. “We were waiting for them to say something about the girl again, hoping for it, to tell the truth, but when one of them finally did say something, it wasn’t about the girl but about our fish being the biggest halibut he’d ever seen brought in on the Oregon coast.” (p. 215) This reaction definitely helped the men to feel a little more adequate, and a little less crazy, something they were not used to compared to the demeaning tactics used on them in the hospital.

If I was Dr. Spivey, I would definitely consider the fishing excursion to be therapeutic to the patients. If the overall mood and state of being of these patients could drastically change after a simple compliment, or positive remark from a total stranger, then getting outside of the hospital to do “normal” things could only further improve the health of the patients. I think that is was clear to Dr. Spivey, that besides the few mishaps at the beginning of the trip, in total, the trip was a positive experience for the patients and their well-being. Although Nurse Ratched might not like this, she would most likely notice the change in the patients having come back from the trip