Annie John 649are mocking him. We soon learn that this abuse is
not particular to the Chief and that the staff at one
time or another have mistreated all of the patients
on the ward. There is institutionally sanctioned rape,
with the orderlies habitually inducting new patients
onto the ward by abusing them. The Chief tells us
about Ellis and Ruckly, two patients that have been
irreparably damaged by electroshock therapy, and
about Mr. Taber, a former patient whose refusal to
endure the abuse dealt out by the staff led to his
being given a frontal lobotomy.
While the majority of the oppression in the
novel takes place on the ward as a direct result of
Big Nurse’s practices we are also presented with
examples outside of the hospital where oppression
has taken place; Billy Bibbit’s emotional develop-
ment as a young man has been repressed by an over-
protective mother while Harding has repressed his
homosexuality for fear of the negative repercussions
of “coming out” in a society that still frowns upon
being gay. The novel repeatedly provides us with
examples of minorities being criticized or treated
poorly by the majority within society, as Harding
notes: “the great voice of millions chanting ‘Shame.
Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with
someone different.” Chief Bromden is a pertinent
example of this. The Chief recollects his childhood
and the manner in which white society (including
his own mother) tried to oppress his father and the
tribe to which they belonged. Such is the effect of
white oppression that the Chief chooses to with-
draw from the world by pretending that he is deaf
and dumb.
Indeed, whether or not we choose to read the
hospital ward as a representative microcosm of wider
society, the novel seems to be heavily criticizing
what it believes is the repressive nature of postwar
America. This sentiment is made overt by Chief
Bromden’s belief in “The Combine,” a secret state-
sanctioned organization that is trying to engineer
society so that everyone looks the same, lives the
same lifestyle, and behaves in the same way.
McMurphy, the (anti-) hero of the story, comes
onto the ward to free the other patients from Big
Nurse’s oppressive regime. McMurphy, it seems, has
escaped the oppression of society if only due to his
refusal to be a part of it. The Chief notes: “logging,
gambling, running carnival wheels, travelling light-
footed and fast, keeping on the move so much that
the Combine never had a chance to get anything
installed.” However, as the novel progresses we learn
that McMurphy has also suffered from oppression.
Growing up, McMurphy was in and out of prison
and work farms for not conforming to society’s
rules. Furthermore, the novel implies that the total
reliance the other patients have in McMurphy’s sav-
ing them becomes an oppressive force, leaving the
character trapped into a course of action that will
eventually lead to his death.
McMurphy has been able to retain his “san-
ity” only through the realization that it is those in
authority who are in the wrong rather than him, and
he subsequently leads the other patients to freedom
by getting them to realize this too. Indeed, it is an
irony that by the end of the story we view many, if
not all, of the patients on the ward as being less “sick”
than those who have oppressed them for so long.
David SimmonskinCaiD, jamaiCa Annie John
(1985)
Kincaid’s text tells the coming-of-age story of Annie
John, whom we meet as a 10-year-old Antiguan
girl at the beginning of the novel. She will grow
up to become a strong-minded 17-year-old whom
we leave, at the end of the novel, as she is about to
move from her island to the “motherland” (England)
to get an education. Annie John is, from early on, a
successful student. She does very well in the colonial
school system and, as a young girl, strives to meet
the expectations of her surroundings, especially her
mother with whom she has a strong, loving relation-
ship. However, this relationship will erode as Annie
grows older and slowly separates from her mother,
who grows strange, even foreign, to Annie. The new
experiences Annie lives through outside the home
and her school, the freedom she finds away from her
mother and often without her knowing, the unset-
tling emotions Annie begins to feel for young girls
around her—all these events combine to further
wear away the mother-daughter relationship and to
unveil and confirm Annie’s strong desire for change
and difference, her longing for an “elsewhere.”