This Only Hurts for a While... Like So Many Things

Violence has been a staple of literature since man first put ink to paper, or whatever passed for paper in prehistory. For thousands of years and literally countless works of literature, violence has been expressed in a myriad of ways, each unique in terms of both manner and circumstance. However, Thomas Foster claims that, despite all the different methods of expressing violence in literature, all violent acts found in writing fall into one of two categories: violence created by the character or violence created by the author.

I believe I have found an example of both in Ken Kessey's masterpiece One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it takes place in a mental institution under the control of an overbearing and iron-fisted nurse. A man named McMurphy, who just so happens to be the only one committed to the hospital by the courts, decides to defy the nurse, and hilarity and hijinks (sometimes not hilarious) ensue. As for the violence, McMurphy and the nurse are constantly at odds, naturally. After a night of debauchery instigated by McMurphy, a patient named Billy, who retains an unhealthy need for his mother's approval, is found by the nurse with one of the women brought by McMurphy. The nurse, so as to assert her power over the ward, tells Billy that she is going to tell his mother of what he's done, and that she will be very dissappointed. This throws Billy into dispair and drives him to suicide. McMurphy loses control and attacks the nurse, attempting to strangle her before the orderlies drag him off. Character-created violence.

This act of violence furthers the plot so that the author-created violence can emerge. McMurphy, after attacking the nurse in revenge for Billy, is deemed dangerous. He is taken away for several days and returned to the ward, lobotomized and robbed of all voluntary brain function. This essentially kills McMurphy, at least as a character. The effect of this act of author-created violence would have been to show the futility of rebellion, had it ended the story. It unexpectedly serves as a catalyst for one final act of violence, perpetrated by the narrator of the story. The narrator smothers McMurphy with a pillow before any of the other patients see him, freeing McMurphy of his lobotomized state and denying the nurse her victory.