Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Lobotomies
Click here to view an article about a small history of lobotomies. It takes a look at a specific doctor, Dr. Freeman, who performed over 25,000 lobotomies before he was outlawed to perform anyone. This reminded me of McMurphy's lobotomy at the end, as well as rationalized the patient's fear of what could happen to a person after a lobotomy had been performed. I now understand why the patients would follow the Nurse's every command, because she could schedule them to get one. Lobotomies are said to take a piece of a person's soul away. It is a good thing it is not practiced any longer. This article states that it became popular because people were so desperate to find a cure for severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia. It is a sad history for sure.
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The fact that doctors tried to "eliminate emotion and stabilize personality" by cutting out parts of peoples' nerves is both physically disturbing and morally wrong. The fact that this technique was ever practice is horrifying and sad.
ReplyDeleteLobotomy makes me think of amputation, but just of the brain. The article said that some lobotomies were successful. If so, did the Nurse have a lobotomy done on McMurphy to overpower him and make him useless or was she genuinely trying to help him? In class, we talked about the former, but I feel like this can be answered both ways. It very well may be true that she was frustrated of McMurphy and wanted to use her power to let out her frustration, but she also may have make McMurphy a more rational, calm person to help restore stability within his mind and the ward.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the nurse believed that a lobotomy would help McMurphy because she knew that he wasn't insane. She even knew the reason that he would attack her as he did at the end of the novel. She had just accused him of killing Billy and Cheswick but they were his friends. She couldn't kill him so she did the next best thing; she lobotomized him.
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