Holocaust of Fear

   Routine dominates our life in such a way that we are not aware of it. Each individual has its own specialized routine that is actually a variation of a central one. They are all part of a meticulous system that is in constant control.  In our case the system would be society, in Chief Broom`s case it’s the ward. He describes it as a “combine” and is not fully aware of its manipulation. The ward, like everything in society, has a strict routine enforced by a powerful figure to maintain the system`s control. The Chief as a victim uses the "fog" as an escape from the brutality of the system. 

   “So after the nurse gets her staff, efficiency locks the ward like a watchman's clock. Everything the guys think and say and do is all worked out months in advance, based on the little notes the nurse makes during the day. This is typed and fed into the machine I hear humming behind the steel door in the rear of the Nurses' Station. A number of Order Daily Cards are returned, punched with a pattern of little square holes. At the beginning of each day the properly dated OD card is inserted in a slot in the steel door and the walls hum up: Lights flash on in the dorm at six-thirty: the Acutes up out of bed quick as the black boys can prod them out, get them to work buffing the floor, emptying ash trays, polishing the scratch marks off the wall where one old fellow shorted out a day ago, went down in an awful twist of smoke and smell of burned rubber. The Wheelers swing dead log legs out on the floor and wait like seated statues for somebody to roll chairs in to them. The Vegetables piss the bed, activating an electric shock and buzzer, rolls them off on the tile where the black boys can hose them down and get them in clean greens. ... Six-forty-five the shavers buzz and the Acutes line up in alphabetical order at the mirrors, A, B, C, D.” (pg 28, Kesey)

    The whole ward functions around a routine just like the extermination camps did. Both groups wake up early, they shower and in the case of the ward shave, they perform their monotonous tasks, are punished for what the heads consider mistakes, and line up in a certain order. The Kapo is parallel to Nurse Ratched. Both of their jobs and intentions might look good to their respective societies, but in reality it is the opposite. Violence is a source for power.  Scary and true. Whenever an opposing view or threat to the stability emerges, violence is used. For the Jews it was either beatings or death. The patients are treated like nothing but patients. They live in a constant scare of fear oppressed by the thought of visiting The Shock Shop and becoming a “Vegetable”.

   Thus, these vulnerable beings create a way to isolate themselves from the tormenting environment. Our chief interprets this isolation as “fog”. He creates it as a curtain to protect himself from the reality of the world. Whenever he feels threatened, he submerges into this murky world of his. It is after all the only place where the domination of the Combine can’t get to him. The Chief shuts himself from the other people, specially Miss Ratched and the aides. He is closer to what he will  ever be of a comfort zone. This fog is not shaving cream in his eyes, or a drug, it is his own remedy for the reality of society. We blame society, but we still don’t do anything about it because society is actually us. The chief finds a temporary solution, but again it is only temporary.