Rose Garden Asylum
​Recognizing Our Patients as the Beautiful Roses They Are
Dale Harding
Class: Acute
Voluntary or Committed: Voluntary

An educated, intellectual man, Dale Harding seemed to be the most sane of the asylum. He was the president of the Patients Council and was the patient most obedient to Nurse Ratched.

Although he seemed calm and collected on the outside, there was something rotten hidden just beneath the surface. Although Harding was a married man, he could not stop his promiscuous wife from doing things he could not control himself. He felt ashamed that he could not please her, and himself at that. Although Harding denied it and inevitably lied to himself constantly about it, he was homosexual. He joined the asylum to avoid facing the fact and perhaps the reaction of others.

Harding was a man no one could crack the code of, until of course McMurphy entered the asylum. McMurphy could see the true Dale Harding hiding under the shell of a smart and stale heterosexual man.

With McMurphy's guidance and help, Harding no longer feels the need to hide his true self and reveals his rainbow peacock feathers! Through this burst of self-love and self-realization, Harding even gains the courage to stand up to Nurse Ratched.

After McMurphy was gone, Harding mustered up his new found bravery and marched straight up to Nurse Ratched and checked out of our asylum. He lived up to McMurphy's legacy.
What Would Dale Harding Say?

- "So you see my friend, it is somewhat as you stated: man has but one truly effective weapon against the juggernaut of modern matriarchy, but it certainly is not laughter. One weapon, and with every passing year in this hip, motivationally researched society, more and more people are discovering how to render that weapon useless and conquer those who have hitherto been conquerors" (Part 1).

- "No. You've got more to lose than I do, my friend" (Part 2).

- Harding is a flat, nervous man with a face that sometimes makes you think you seen him in movies, like it's a face too pretty to just be a guy on the street. He's got wide, thin shoulders and he curves them around his chest when he's trying to hide inside himself. He's got hands so long and white and dainty I think they carved each other out of soap, and sometimes they get loose and glide around in front of him free as two white birds until he notices them and traps them between his knees; it bothers him that he's got pretty hands" (Part 1).




