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A Voice of Your Own:
Sartre’s concept of Bad Faith
by Bridgette Jean Powers
The Chief’s deafness in Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest, provides a profound image of Sartre’s
concept of bad faith. Chief Bromden, a long time patient
of the Combine, with a strong and silent perspective,
recounts the events involving McMurphy, a new patient at
the mental institution. The notion of bad faith concerns
the true being of oneself and the attempt to deceive oneself
about that being--a form of self-deception that only
becomes more powerful when it is fixed by the eyes of
others. This idea of bad faith appears in many ways
throughout the novel, but is most explicitly portrayed
through the Chief’s “inability” to speak. This image of bad
faith also transcends the realm of literature by application
to the social and political condition of Native Americans in
the 1960s.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel written
by Ken Kesey, published in 1962, revolves around the
events that take place in a mental ward that is referred to
as the Combine. Chief Bromden, a patient at the Combine
for twenty years, provides an internal perspective of the
institution.
The Chief is the title given to Bromden
because he is the son of an American Indian chief, and his
heritage is deliberate on Kesey’s part because his situation
reflects that of his people, a people who cannot speak
because they are not heard; a people who cannot hear
because they are not spoken to. The personnel and
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patients of the mental ward all believe the Chief to be deaf
and mute, but it is apparent to the reader that this is not
so. Regardless of his actual physical condition, he still
acts according to their assumptions and leads a life of
silence. This quiet giant’s failure to act of his own accord
indicates his existence in bad faith.
Bad faith is a concept in existentialism developed by JeanPaul Sartre. Put simply, bad faith is a lie to oneself
(Sartre 148). Yet, this definition is more complex than it
appears. When one lies to another, it is an act of hiding
the truth; therefore, the liar must know the truth. Lying
is an act of deception. When the presence of another is
eliminated from the equation of lying, it becomes an act of
deceiving oneself. That act does not change when the
presence of another is eliminated; the liar is still aware of
the truth.
The individual is completely aware of his
intention to deceive himself.
This deception lies in
knowing that you are being what you are not (Sartre 148).
To understand Sartre’s concept of bad faith, it is
also vital to understand his idea of an individual’s facticity
and transcendence.
Facticity is made up one’s
environment, language, and past, while transcendence is
rising above facticity as always “beings in ‘situation’”
(Stanford).
Facticity signifies all of the concrete details
against the background of which human freedom exists
and is limited. Transcendence is the existence of our
“being-in-the-world” which is always being “projected”
toward our possibilities. In this way, Sartre utilizes
transcendence to describe the relation of the self to the
object oriented world, as well as our concrete relations
with others. These two aspects create our “situation,” and
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it is imperative that they are balanced. To be oneself
constantly without pretense would be the result of a
balance between one’s facticity and transcendence. Yet
“bad faith does not wish either to coordinate…[it] seeks to
affirm their identity while preserving their differences”
(Sartre 162). Bad faith desires to separate who we are and
who we are being. If we are being who we are not, we are
living in bad faith.
If one is living fully in their
transcendence, they are constantly running away from
who they are.
Sartre describes another form of duality relative to
bad faith, which is “being-for-itself,” and “being-for-others”
(164). This structure depends on what Sartre refers to as
the “look.” Unlike transcendence and facticity, it does not
merely involve the individual, but also the Other. Not only
are we our “being-in-the world,” but also our “being-inthe-midst-of-world” (Sartre 165). We are constantly living
in our own subjectivity, while also being the objects of the
Other’s subjectivity. When confronted by the “look” of the
Other, we become aware that they cannot separate
between our “appearance and being” (Sartre 165). This
also makes us become presently aware of our freedom and
of our own possibilities, and that there is a difference
between our appearance and being. Sartre uses the
example of a waiter. Observing the waiter, he appears to
be a little too excited about taking an order, “[h]e bends
forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes express an
interest a little too solicitous of the order of the customer. .
. .his gestures and even his voice seem to be mechanisms”
(Sartre 167). He is like an actor on a stage, playing “the
waiter.” He knows what it means to be a waiter. He
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understands that he must arrive at a certain time and
carry out the particular duties of a waiter to be a waiter.
But the man is not the waiter. This sort of being exists in
his transcendence, yet he represents himself as “the
waiter,” resulting in bad faith: he takes on the role of a
waiter by carrying out the “typical gestures” (Sartre 168).
The waiter “can not be he. . .[but] can only play at being
him” (Sartre 168). This structure is only enforced by the
“look.”
The eyes of the Other do not separate his
appearance from his being and expect him to act in a
certain manner. In a way, it fixes him in his position. Yet,
all he has to do to not be a waiter is to simply decide to go
back to sleep instead of getting up to go to work.
To exist in bad faith is not only present in the
realm of profession. Chief Bromden, in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest, provides a frightening image of bad faith
that controlled twenty years of his life. The Chief pretends
to be deaf and mute. It is obvious to the reader that
Bromden is not actually deaf because we have the
privilege of seeing his thoughts, but the rest of the
patients in the Combine, who cannot separate his
appearance from his being, are unaware that he is
anything but deaf and mute. In his transcendence, the
Chief, conscious of his deception, limits his possibilities to
those of a deaf man. Sartre expresses that those existing
in bad faith “must know the truth very exactly to conceal
it more carefully” (151). For this reason if there is a loud
noise, the Chief must resist from reacting to it.
The question arises as to why the Chief puts himself
through this, to exist as a deaf and mute man, when he
can actually speak and hear. Safety is one of the reasons
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that the Chief chooses to act this way. Bromden’s bad
faith can be compared to what he refers to as the fog, “[h]e
keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open
where we’d be easy to get at” (Kesey 112). Sartre sheds
light on what Bromden is feeling; “I am on a plane where
no reproach can touch me since what I really am is my
transcendence” (Sartre 164). It is less vulnerable to exist
in transcendence. It is easier to be what people think you
are, especially when it has been enforced for twenty years.
Initially, the Chief is not trying to fool anyone.
Actually, when he thinks about it, he realizes that it is
other people treating him like he is deaf and mute that
eventually cause him to be that way. It began when he
was ten-years old at his home on the Columbia River and
tried to communicate with visitors who had come to see
the Chief, Bromden’s father, to discuss an arrangement
about the land.
He made sure to speak in his most
proper English, but he still did not receive the reaction
that he expected. In fact, he did not receive a reaction at
all, as if he did not even say a word. The Chief continued
to receive this treatment when he was in the army, and
then finally when he reached the Combine.
When
Bromden comes to the mental institution, he does not
speak and does not appear to listen, so they assume that
he is unable to do either.
Another aspect that strengthens the bonds of
Bromden’s bad faith is that of the Other. He is completely
aware of his act, but fear keeps him on stage. When
confronted by the look of the Big Nurse, he is thrown into
the present moment. This “look” makes him realize that
he has the freedom to embrace his possibilities, or to act
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according to his mold; however, Bromden chooses the
latter. The look of the Big Nurse freezes the Chief, much
like the eyes in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock,” “[t]he eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase. .
.sprawling on a pin. . .wriggling on the wall.” The eyes of
the Big Nurse make him afraid to act any other way than
what he is in her eyes, even though it is what he is not.
A more specific example that takes place in the novel is
when Bromden hears something under his bed in the
middle of the night. When he peeks under the bed, to his
horror, it is one of the night crew scraping off chewing
gum. The Chief says, “I wanted to tell him to get away. .
.but I couldn’t even let on I heard” (Kesey 184). It is
important to take note that Bromden says that he couldn’t
let the worker know he had heard. While in actuality,
Bromden could do whatever he wanted. Just like “the
waiter,” Bromden has to carry out the “typical gestures”
of a deaf man; however, also like “the waiter,” it is just as
simple as turning off the alarm clock and going back to
sleep to be relieved of his “responsibilities.”
Although this look often results in fear of our
freedom, it still makes us aware of it. The “look” of
McMurphy has a very different effect on Bromden than
that of the Big Nurse.
When McMurphy initially
introduces himself, the Chief is terrified that he knows his
secret. He says he “puckered his lips and looked at my
face a long time” (Kesey 23). But instead of the icy stare of
the Nurse, McMurphy actually laughs when he meets
Bromden. Although Bromden still backs into the safety of
his transcendence by acting as something he is not, the
“looks” that he receives from McMurphy make him begin
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to think about his own possibilities as the novel
progresses.
When it comes to the attention of the Big Nurse
that some of the patients wish to watch the World Series,
she insists on following the ward’s policy which requires a
vote. When all of the Acutes raise their hands in favor of
McMurphy’s idea, the Big Nurse shoots them down and
tells them that they need a majority vote which would
mean that it would have to be from one of the Chronics. In
a state of desperation, McMurphy tries to get one of the
Chronics to raise their hand; eventually, his last hope
resides in the Chief. At this moment, Bromden is caught
between the “look” of the Big Nurse and that of
McMurphy. He can either take the easy way out and
maintain his bad faith, or embrace the freedom of his own
possibility. As his hand slowly rises, he believes that it is
McMurphy doing it, with “hidden wires hooked to it, lifting
it slow just to get me out of the fog” (Kesey 123). But
Bromden knows that is not the case.
It is rather
something he did of his own accord, “I lifted it myself”
(Kesey 123). Initially, he thinks that it is McMurphy doing
it for him, because it has been so long since he has done
something for himself.
Bromden startles himself by his actions, and it
causes him to think about things. While staring at
himself in the mirror one night, the Chief realizes that the
person he sees is not him at all. By staring at his
reflection, he sees how he appears to others and how he
represents himself. We know, just like Bromden, that
beneath his impassive surface, a turbulent ocean stirs.
When he looks in the mirror he says, “That ain’t me, that
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ain’t my face. . . .I was just being the way I looked, the
way people wanted” (Kesey 140). Bromden begins to
wonder how McMurphy can be who he is and not what he
looks like. Although seemingly difficult at first, the Chief
soon finds that it is easier than he ever thought. On the
same night that Bromden awakes to the aid under his bed
scraping off his chewing gum, he overcomes his bad faith
with merely two words. At first he is terrified by the idea
that he was seen peeking under the bed to see who was
beneath it, for if he knew someone was under his bed, it
would be apparent that he could hear. After the aid
leaves, McMurphy offers Bromden a piece of Juicy Fruit as
a gesture of kindness to replace his chewing gum. Here it
happens, at the same time effortless and painless, the
Chief steps out of his bad faith, he says, “before I realized
what I was doing. I told him Thank you” (Kesey 187).
Twenty years of silence is finally broken before he even
realizes it. When Bromden speaks, he embraces the
freedom from which he was hiding for twenty years.
Another level to the existence of Bromden in bad
faith that is unavoidable is the aspect of his heritage.
Bromden was half Native American and the son of a chief.
Kesey’s use of Bromden as the narrator provides a
powerful social image, which is by all means intentional.
Kesey provides Bromden with the floor to tell his story
from his point of view. At this point in American history,
Native American History is told in terms of the dominant
culture. The image of the Native American is only seen in
things such as Westerns. However, it is in the late 1960s,
several years after One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was
published, that the Native American voice begins to
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emerge into literature.
The late sixties marked the
beginning of what is considered the Native American
Renaissance. Just like Bromden, the Native people of the
American continent were in a sense “deaf and dumb.” In
the political realm, they were definitely not heard, nor
were they even spoken to. By being put into reservations,
they were physically put in the place society had allotted
for them.
And also just like Bromden, what people
thought of them is what they were. No one can hear their
story if they have no voice.
Only then could they
represent themselves instead of being defined by others.
Sartre’s concept of bad faith is applicable to
numerous elements of Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest, yet the Chief serves as a powerful image of what it
truly means to exist in bad faith, which is not having a
voice. While existing in bad faith, individuals are being
what they are not. It is a fear of the freedom of your own
possibilities, and in the same way, a fear of having a voice
of your own.
Works Cited
"Jean-Paul Sartre ." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Web. 07 May 2010.
<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/>.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York:
Penguin, 2002. Print.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Wade Baskin, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Essays in Existentialism. New York, NY: Carol Pub. Group,
1993. Print.