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<title> Billy Bibbit, a man or a boy? </title>
Kesey's novel is set at a mental hospital in America in the 1960s. The ward, where most of the story takes place, is run by Mrs Ratched, a cold-hearted woman who rules the ward with an Iron hand. The story is told by a first person narrator, the half American-Indian chief Bromden, this kind or narration has of course influence on the story. We don't get the opportunity to se how Billy see and feel in certain matters. If the story would've been told differently we might have looked at him differently. Even though the story is told this way we sometimes get the feeling that chief Bromden can predict how Billy, and the other patients, is going to react when certain matters occur. For example when Bromden and McMurphy are to be treated with electric shocks, then it almost feels as it's McMurphy that tells the story, it feels as if it's his experience that we get, not Bromdens. (He must have been seated outside the room, and couldn't have noticed all that he tells us about). 
	 Billy never talks about his past and we're never told why he's in hospital, a guess might be that his mother can't accept that she has a different boy and that she got pregnant at young age. She might have implanted her own feelings of failure on her son, we see this in Billys way of dealing with problems and in his low self esteem. His mother has always treated him as a little boy. When Billy talks to his mother he says; "...mother, I'm th-th-thirty one years old" she laughs and says; "... Sweetheart does I look like the mother of a middle aged-man? While talking to his mother Billy lays his head in her lap, like children does when they've done something wrong and are ashamed about something. Not only his mother treats him like a little boy, even Mrs Ratched, pg 248; "...it's all right Billy, it's all right. No one else is going to harm you..." this is said in a soft soothing voice while she strokes his bowed head and says, "... poor little boy". This is the way that we comfort children, not middle age men.
	Billy has always been spoken to as a child and he sees himself as a less worth person. Bromden gives us the impression that Billy takes after the (rare) strong men on the ward. And this makes us realise that Billy might search for a male role model to identify with. There's nowhere stated anything about Billy having a father. He once gives a whistle to a beautiful girl, this is a normal reaction by "normal" people and by this action I think Billy is on his way in becoming an other person.
	Chief Bromden only talks a few times about Billy but on page 230 he states; "...you have to know about Billy Bibbit: in spite of him having wrinkles in his face and specks of grey in his hair, he still looked as a kid - like a jug-eared and freckled-faced and buck-toothed kid...". Then he change his mind and says that Billy is nothing like this, he's instead just as tall as any other man, not at all freckled or tooth-bucked. Again we get the feeling about how people sees Billy. 
	Billy once stand up and speaks out, he says that he also wants to run a normal life and have a girlfriend and a nice car. He doesn't use the word "one day" or, "when I get out of here", by the word he chooses I think that you can se that Billy don't have high thoughts of ever leaving the ward. Or at least Bromden don't think that Billy thinks so, again we get the feeling that Bromden knows a lot more about the characters than he conveys to us as readers. It feels almost as if Billys feelings that are conveyed and colour the narration. 
	At the end of the book there is a party, Billy and a girl called Candy ends up sleeping together. They get caught by Mrs Ratched, Billy again acts like a little kid, he takes the girl by her hand and "shows her" to Mrs Ratched, even though he knows that Mrs Ratched is going to have a row at him. At once she starts talking about shame and how devastated his mother is going to be when she's told. Billy starts to cry and he seems to be very afraid about what might happened and what the punishment for his bad behaviour will be. The scene ends with Billy committing suicide and the reason for this might lay in his feeling of shame. This time chief Bromden doesn't seem to be knowing what's going on, or at least he don't stop the terrible thing that is going on.
	Kesey's novel shows how peoples can use their power over "weaker" people. If you have great power and something the people you need to have control over need or are afraid of you can go as far as you want in your behaviour against those people. You can play with them as a girl plays with a marionette doll, pull one string and the doll will dance at your feet, pull another one, the string brake and the doll will loose the ground under his feet. Mrs Ratched has incredible much power and she uses it often, her patients are like marionette dolls, they just have to glance at her and her evil eyes will tell them everything.
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