The individual and the system One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Many social issues and problems are explored in Ken's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Kesey. Perhaps the most obvious complaint against society is its treatment of the individual. This issue of the individual versus the system is a highly controversial topic that has caused great questions about the government and the methods used to treat people who are unable to conform to the government's standards. McMurphy is an individual who challenges and rebels against the rules of the system, rules and practices. He eventually teaches this practice of rebellion to other patients who begin to realize that their lives are being unfairly controlled by the mental institution. When McMurphy first arrives at the institution, all the other patients are afraid to express their thoughts to the Big Nurse. They are afraid to freely exercise their thoughts and believe that the Big Nurse will punish them if they question her authority. One patient, Harding, says, “All of us here are rabbits of different ages and grades…We need a good, strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place” (Kesey 62). This novel has a very strong theme of the government rejecting those who are considered nonconformists in modern society. The government then places these nonconformists in mental institutions so it doesn't have to deal with them. This is society's way of abandoning those with nonconformist attitudes so that they disappear from the world and are forgotten. According to one critic, oppressive, conformist, regulatory civilization is the suppressor of individual freedom (Barsness 433). "He (McMurphy) hadn't let his appearance rule his life one way or another, any more than he had let the Combine (character governance metaphor) shape him to fit where they wanted him to fit ..He won't let them twist it and make it" (Kesey 153). McMurphy is symbolized as the typical individual, while Big Nurse Ratched is symbolized as a member of the system, or the Combine. Bromden relates: "McMurphy doesn't know it, but he understood what I understood a long time ago, that it's not just the Big Nurse alone, but it's the whole Combination, the national Combination that is the really great force, and the nurse for them is just a high-ranking official" (181).