billy, oh billy.

I just watched ‘One that Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and I love it.  I didn’t really know how to feel right after I watched the movie, and I had to take some quiet time to settle down my thoughts.  I felt a sense of hopelessness, but then a sense of hope.  I feel down and heavy hearted, but then I feel that there is light.  It was as if everything was conflicted, and I guess that is what a good movie makes people feel, right?

I connected with the character Billy at the very beginning, and I didn’t know why then.  (Perhaps, it’s because I love his hair?)  But now, upon finishing the movie, I know.  I feel for Billy, for he is stuck in his own cage, unwilling to step out.  But given the stuttering that he has, it is easy for him to get stuck because his words and his thoughts are constantly stuck in his throat and he can never get them out.  I could only imagine the frustration I would feel if I am him, and I would be afraid to voice out, or step out of my comfort zone too. 

McMurphy is right, when they are discussing about whether the guys are staying in the hospital voluntarily or not, that Billy is young, and his whole future is ahead of him, he “oughta be out in a convertible bird-doggin' chicks and bangin' beaver.”  But again, perhaps Billy represent the very much oppressed children, or even groups of people out there, that is stuck because there is no way out for them, out of their own labyrinth.  He feared authority; he feared his mother and Nurse Ratched.  But doesn't he see that he himself is in control of his life?  

When I was watching the part where Nurse Ratched asks Billy if he is ashamed for sleeping with the girl, I was hoping that Billy will be strong enough to stand strong to his oppressors.  Him staying strong and revolting against Ratched will mean something to me, and hearing him say he wasn’t ashamed (and he did not even stutter) is a relief.  I was praying in my heart that he will continue on, but the next moment he is kneeling on the floor begging Nurse Ratched not to tell his mother, and another moment more, he is dead. 

Billy is so close to freedom, so close to making it out when McMurphy invits him to leave together, but he just blows it and says he isn't ready.  I am torn between whether I should blame him or not for not taking this step.  This decision brings him right to his death in the end.  But he seems to fully understand what he is doing, that he knows he isn’t ready to leave yet and he knows that someday, he will be.  I blame people for the reckless and thoughtless decisions that they’ve made, but not those who are sure of themselves, sure of their decision, even if the decision does not work out the way it’s supposed to in the end.  I wonder if Billy blamed himself for not leaving when he decided to kill himself.  I hope he didn’t.  I hope his last thought would be about the night he had with Candy, or the life he had before he was admitted into the madhouse, or the life before everything turned bad for him.

 I have to admit that I feel so strongly for Billy’s character because I feel that I am somewhat similar to him in some ways and sometimes (not totally similar, thank goodness.  I am happy most of the time and in no way suicidal, so don’t worry).  I am shy and I do get afraid of things and of people sometimes, that I don’t dare to push myself a little further.  I am young, like Billy, perhaps even younger; and I don’t want to be stuck inside my own shell and end up lost in my own maze, never getting out.  I want to leave with McMurphy and get out of the madhouse, of my own madhouse even.  This is the thing I set to work on now, and I do hope one day I will be able to push through my own walls, and be at the place where I want myself to be.  I am getting nearer, I can feel it.