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Paradox
Definition of Parody
A parody is a work that mimics the style of another work, artist, or genre in an exaggerated way, usually for comic effect. Parodies can take many forms, including fiction... read full definition
A parody is a work that mimics the style of another work, artist, or genre in an exaggerated way, usually for comic effect. Parodies can... read full definition
A parody is a work that mimics the style of another work, artist, or genre in an exaggerated way, usually... read full definition
Part Four
Explanation and Analysis—Battlefield Prayer:
In Part Four, during the nighttime party on the ward, Harding brings pills to Sefelt and Sandy after Sefelt has a seizure right next to her. He makes a speech that parodies a prayer on a battlefield and foreshadows a disastrous end to the party:
“Most merciful God, accept these two poor sinners into your arms. And keep the doors ajar for the coming of the rest of us, because you are witnessing the end, the absolute, irrevocable, fantastic end. [...] We shall be all of us shot at dawn. One hundred cc’s apiece. Miss Ratched shall line us all against the wall, where we’ll face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns! Thorazines! Libriums! Stelazines! And with a wave of her sword, blooie! Tranquilize all of us completely out of existence.”
In Harding's speech, the "cc's" of drugs are bullets. The men on the ward are prisoners of war, and Nurse Ratched is the enemy executioner who is going to line them up against a wall and shoot them all. Harding prays to God to take mercy on Sefelt and Sandy and to welcome the rest of them to heaven when they, too, are medicated out of their minds.
Harding's speech is humorous, but it also helps Kesey emphasize that his novel is about more than mental health. Some of the men, including Bromden, are on the ward because of trauma they endured in World War II. The Vietnam War was underway when Kesey wrote this novel. Along with other members of the 1960s counterculture, Kesey felt that the war abroad was wreaking havoc on American men's psyches; he also felt that war was continuing to be waged on them at home by a society that was more committed to capitalism than anything else. By having Harding parody a battlefield prayer, Kesey brings the battlefield into the psychiatric ward.
The speech also foreshadows the events of the morning. Throughout the night, the men are optimistic that McMurphy will escape, and some of them will eventually follow. Harding's humorous speech is more in line with what actually happens. Nurse Ratched discovers the aftermath of the party and drives Billy into a shame spiral that leads to his suicide. She punishes McMurphy severely, eventually sending him for an ice-pick lobotomy that leaves him unresponsive to his surroundings. This one night of revelry really is the "absolute, irrevocable, fantastic end" of McMurphy's disruptive time on the ward.
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