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Chief Bromben narrates One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest. He is
an Indian long-term patient at the Oregon psychiatric ward that feigns deafness
and dumbness, which allows him to go unnoticed despite his massive size of 6ft
7inches. Bromben wakes up in the hospital paranoid about the illicit sexual
activities of the hospital’s black aides. They mock his meekness as they force him
to sweep the hallways: “‘Here’s the Chief. The soo-pah Chief, fellas. Ol’ Chief
Broom. Here you go, Chief Broom. ...’ Stick a mop in my hand and motion to the
spot they aim for me to clean today” (Kesey 7). This scene displays the
submission of the patients to the hospital’s workers.
Nurse Ratched enters and
Bromden makes an internal remark about her doll-inhuman-like appearance. He
speaks of the hospital and its employees as if it was all machinery: “I can
smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load” (Kesey
8). The aides anger Nurse Ratched and Bromben hallucinates about her becoming
as, “big as a tractor” (Kesey 8). The aides are ordered to shave Bromden. He
hides in a closet before they take him away. While being shaven he begins to
scream and hallucinate about “the fog”: “I can’t see six inches in front of me
through the fog and the only thing I can hear over the wail I’m making is the
Big Nurse whoop and charge up the hall while she crashes patients outta her way
with that wicker bag” (Kesey 9). The fog is a metaphor continuously used
throughout the book by Bromden to describe a lack of awareness or clarity.
Bromden is sedated and wakes up
in the Day Room. McMurphy, a new admission, arrives, disturbing the hospital’s
usual banality, and his visible confidence attracts the attention of all the
mental patients. He laughs at the silence his presence is greeted with and
Bromden remarks, “I realize all of a sudden it’s the first laugh I’ve heard in
years” (Kesey 11). McMurphy skips the admission routine despite the aides
efforts showing from early on his non-conformist attitude. He is a gambler that
put in a request to transfer from Pendleton Work Farm who quickly attempts to
take on a leadership position in the hospital. In the day room McMurphy goes
around and greets everyone, “just like he was a politician running for
something” (Kesey 16). He disregards the
clear division in the day room between the Acutes, patients regarded as curable,
and the Chronics, which Bromden describes as, “machines with flaws inside that
can’t be repaired” (Kesey 13). Bromden reveals he himself is a chronic. Most Acutes
that endure extreme amounts of brain shock treatments or undergo brain surgery end
up as Chronics.
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| McMurphy and Aides |
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| Nurse Ratched |
There was a patient named
Maxwell Taber who asked about his medication and was sent for electroshock
treatments as a result. After the treatments he was submissive. Taber is an
example of how sternly Nurse Ratched deals with unruly patients, it also
foreshadows how she will deal with an unruly McMurphy.
Bromden discusses his
conspiracy about the Combine. It is the establishment he believes is society as
a whole. Bromden sees the hospital as a facet or factory, as he calls it, of
this establishment that corrects non-conformity: “The ward is a factory for the
Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the
schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes
back out into society” (Kesey 25).
A group meeting is held where
Nurse Ratched displays the ways in which she manipulates and controls the
patients by turning them against each other at group meetings. They are
encouraged to “help” the other patients by discussing with a certain cruelty
another patient’s private problem. They do this to Harding by discussing his
troubled relationship with his wife.
McMurphy’s angers the nurse and
more of his past is then revealed as Nurse Ratched reads through his file. She
emphasizes his statutory rape of a fifteen year old girl. McMurphy displays he
is unaffected by then commenting on the girl’s sexual desire. During this
reading Ratched reveals an important piece of information that is yet another
testament to McMurphy’s possible sanity: “Don’t overlook the possibility that
this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of the work farm.’”
(Kesey 29).
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| Group Meeting |
After the meeting Harding
defends to McMurphy the Nurse’s practice of making patient’s private problems a
matter of group discussion by saying that it is beneficial to the patients.
McMurphy gets into an argument with Harding over this and says the practice is
shameful and the Nurse is not using it for the benefit of the patients but
rather as a “pecking party” to further weaken the strength and unity of them
all: “‘The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go
to peckin’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and
feathers…a peckin’ party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few
hours…’” (Kesey 35).
Through this argument Harding
comes to the realization that the Nurse is cruel and that her tyrannical
behavior is a part of her wolf-like nature and that their meekness is due to
their rabbit-like nature. Harding then states that it is the Nurse’s job to
ensure that the patients conform to their roles as rabbits. He warns that
retaliation against such a person is punished, using Bromden as an example
revealing that he has received excessive amounts of shock treatment and as a
result is docile and meek despite his stature.
McMurphy bets he will be able
to anger Nurse Ratched in a week to the point where she loses her calm
composure. He then states he feigned insanity to escape the work farm and the
Nurse is not ready to handle an intelligent man like him. At this point
McMurphy initiates what he clearly sees is a battle between him and the person
that controls his fate.
Bromden discusses his belief
that time moves at the speed set in the clock by Nurse Ratched. For Bromden he
feels as though time sometimes moves painfully slow or fast. He says he is able to escape it by being
submersed in the “fog” where there is no time: “the only time we get any let-up
from this time control is in the fog; then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s
lost in the fog, like everything else” (Kesey 46). However, Bromden hasn’t
experienced the fog since McMurphy’s arrival.
McMurphy’s con-artistry is
shown as he plays cards with patients, winning cigarettes but always allowing
the others to win them back. By doing this McMurphy is knowingly instilling a
sense of victory and ownership within the patients, sensations they rarely feel
under Nurse Ratched.
McMurphy insinuates to Bromden
that he knows he is not deaf.
After not taking his night
medication Bromden dreams the hospital as a slaughterhouse. Bromden’s
hallucinations, conspiracies, and dreams offer metaphors that provide insight
on the nature of the hospital, society, and oppression. In the slaughterhouse
dream Bromden is displaying his feeling that the hospital is dehumanizing and
oppressive in the way that it takes away a patient’s livelihoods.
McMurphy displays another act
of defiance as he sings loudly and requests to use toothpaste before it is
administered. When he is denied he uses soap instead. Nurse Ratched goes to
confront McMurphy and he steps out of the bathroom in only a towel. Nurse
Ratched is taken aback and chastises the aides for not giving McMurphy
something to wear.
This type of start to the day boosts
McMurphy’s confidence as his defiant acts continue throughout the day. McMurphy
asks Nurse Ratched to turn down the music in the room where they are playing
cards, then he asks if her to allow the patients to play cards in a different
room. She refuses both requests.
McMurphy is interviewed by the
Doctor and when they return they are both laughing. When the Doctor proposes
McMurphy’s earlier requests at a group meeting Nurse Ratched must contain her
agitation.
McMurphy asks Nurse Ratched to
let the patients watch the World Series even though it is not on in their
allotted TV period. Ratched refuses to alter the schedule to allow this.
McMurphy attempts to ignite democracy at a group meeting by putting the matter
up to vote but none of the other patients except Cheswick is willing to
challenge Nurse Ratched, as they are afraid of her power. Unsatisfied with the
lack of support McMurphy declares he will escape. McMurphy says he would do it
by lifting a cement control panel in the tub room and using it to break through
the windows. He isn’t able to but all the patients for a moment believes he
will. This moment is capable of unifying the patients and letting them feel a
glimmer of hope, which empowers them.
The fog machine is turned on
and Bromden explains how it lends a feeling of security for him. For Bromden
the fog is a numbing lack of awareness that takes him out of his painful
reality.
Bromden hears a discussion
about Old Rawler, a man who, while in the Disturbed ward, killed himself after
cutting off his testicles: “…Old Rawler. Cut both nuts off and bled to death” (Kesey
75). Bromden talks of how he is only awoken from the fog in the electroshock
room a few times every month.
After Nurse Ratched loses her
composure it is clear her grip over the patients has weakened as well. The
patients stare at her in her Nurse’s station.
Ratched struggles to attain her
former poise at a staff meeting she orders. Bromden states the fog has cleared
and he fears he is suspected of not really being deaf after the last group
meeting where he raised his hand to vote. He says this is a result of McMurphy’s
actions: “I’m just getting the full force of the dangers we let ourselves in
for when we let McMurphy lure us out of the fog” (Kesey 85).
Doctor Spivey starts the meeting,
as Nurse Ratched remains silent. The staff discusses how they believe McMurphy
should be placed in the disturbed ward because of his unusual non-conformity
and defiance: Ratched opposes this decision and states that McMurphy can be controlled,
as he is receptacle to intimidation like the others: “‘“I don’t agree that he
should be sent up to Disturbed, which would simply be an easy way of passing
our problem on [136] to another ward, and I don’t agree that he is some kind of
extraordinary being—some kind of ‘super’ psychopath’” (Kesey 89).
McMurphy is given the chore of
cleaning the latrines and he continues to annoy Nurse Ratched. Bromden is in
awe that the Combine, which metaphorically represents society, has not yet
beaten McMurphy into submission. At the group meetings the patients voice their
repressed objections to the rules.
All the patients are taken to
the hospital pool and McMurphy there learns that patients are only released at
the staff’s decision. McMurphy is taken aback by this information, as he
believed that he could leave when his time that was remaining on the work farm
was served. He begins to limit his insubordination towards Nurse Ratched as his
former feeling of security is taken away.
Cheswick brings up a complaint
at a group meeting and is not supported by McMurphy. He is sent to the
disturbed ward and upon returning he tells McMurphy he recognizes the reasons
of McMurphy’s recent obedience towards Nurse Ratched. Later that day Cheswick
drowns in the pool after getting his fingers stuck in the pool drain. It is
acknowledged by Bromden as a possible suicide.
Sefelt has an epileptic seizure
on the floor and McMurphy is left severely disturbed after witnessing the
scene. The recent traumatic events witnessed by McMurphy in conjunction with
the knowledge that he is imprisoned in the hospital, until released by the
staff he had antagonized, instills anxiety and panic within him : “His face has
commenced to take on that same haggard, puzzled look of pressure that the face
on the floor has” (Kesey 101).
Harding’s wife visits and their
marital troubles are clearly displayed through their brief conflict. Harding
asks McMurphy what he thought of her and McMurphy snaps stating: ““I’ve got
worries of my own without getting hooked with yours. So just quit!” (Kesey 104).
The Acutes are left stunned by his behavior. It is clear McMurphy is having a
difficult time facing his reality as he realizes with painful clarity that his
hopes for getting out of the hospital are slim especially with having
antagonized the staff in control of his fate. McMurphy at this point desperately
wants to abandon the leadership position he has taken on for the patients:
“Alla you! Quit bugging me, goddammit!” (Kesey 104).
Patients are sent for chest X
rays. McMurphy discovers that Nurse Ratched is at liberty of sending any
patient she wants to get a lobotomy or electro-shock therapy. McMurphy tells
the patients he now understands the reason behind their submissiveness to Nurse
Ratched was because she determined whether they could leave the hospital. He
also states he understands why they encouraged his rebellion in the face of
such oppression. Harding states that the only patients committed are McMurphy
and Scanlon. McMurphy is confounded as to why they would choose to stay and
Billy cries it is because he, as well as the others, are not as strong as
McMurphy: “You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here?... But did you ever have people
l-l-laughing at you? No, because you’re so b-big and so tough! Well, I’m not
big and tough. Well, I’m not big and tough” (Kesey 110).
Ratched states that her and the
Doctor have decided the patients should be punished for their protest against
the cleaning schedule as they did not show guilt: “‘We waited this long to say
anything, hoping that you men would take it upon yourselves to apologize for
the rebellious way you acted. But not a one of you has shown the slightest sign
of remorse’” (Kesey 113).
In response to this, after the
meeting, McMurphy says he wants his cigarettes and he then commences to punch
through the glass that encloses the Nurses’ Station: “He stopped in front of
her window and he said in his slowest, deepest drawl how he figured he could
use one of the smokes he bought this mornin’, then ran his hand through the
glass” (Kesey 114). This is the moment when McMurphy clearly reverts to his old
defiant ways. Doctor Spivey begins to assert himself more as well. The broken
glass is replaced with a piece of cardboard.
Nurse Ratched rejects
McMurphy’s proposal for an Accompanied Pass to go outside the ward. He wants to
leave the hospital with prostitute Candy Starr. After rejected McMurphy punches
through the replacement glass. The third time the glass is replaced Scanlon
breaks it with a basketball.
The Doctor allows McMurphy the
accompanied pass and the patients begin to sign up to go on the fishing trip,
which is what the pass would be used for. McMurphy’s aunts accompany those who
attend the fishing trip. McMurphy charges each patient that signs up $10 for
boat rental. Bromden fears people will realize he is not deaf and dumb if he
signs up and he recalls a time when he was young and three white men asked his
father to buy his tribe’s land. Bromden talked to them and they didn’t
acknowledge him at all. This memory hints at an internalized pain Bromden feels
that stems from being ignored and mistreated throughout his life: “And they get
back in the car and drive away, with me standing there wondering if they ever
even saw me” (Kesey 121).
An aide wakes up McMurphy and
Bromden and shares with McMurphy that he has been puzzled at the fact that a
penniless Bromden is able to attain gum. After he leaves McMurphy hands gum to
Bromden, and Bromden, without thinking, thanks him, blowing his cover: “And
before I realized what I was doing, I told him Thank you” (Kesey 122). McMurphy
shares that when he was young he picked beans and adults ignored him so he was
able to overhear all their conversations over the summer. He then told everyone
what they had said. McMurphy, by revealing this to Bromden conveys that he
relates and understands why Bromden would pretend to be deaf and dumb as it
allows him to go unnoticed and overhear more information.
McMurphy tells Bromden that he
will train him to regain his strength if he promises to become strong to the
point where he is able to lift the control panel in the tub room. He says he
will pay for Bromden to go on the fishing trip. He then tells him that the two
accompanying them on the fishing trip are not McMurphy’s aunts but prostitutes.
Candy appears at the hospital
the next day and her beauty mesmerizes the patients. The patients can’t all fit
into Candy’s car as Sandy did not show up and Nurse Ratched says she should
cancel the trip. However, Doctor Spivey decides to drive in place of Sandy
after being persuaded by McMurphy.
When everyone arrives at the
ward all the patients are happy but McMurphy seems to be in a state of
melancholy. They had passed McMurphy’s childhood home where an old dress hung
on a tree. It was from the time when McMurphy lost his virginity to a ten-year-old
girl who gave him her dress as a relic to remember the event. Bromden said when
they passed this site McMurphy looked, “dreadfully tired and strained and
frantic, like there wasn’t enough time left for something he had to do” (Kesey 143).
Nurse Ratched tries to turn the
other patients against McMurphy as a way to regain power by showing that
everyone’s bank account has been diminishing in finances except for McMurphy’s.
This attempt shows that Ratched
acknowledges McMurphy threatens her power, and since she is early on
characterized as a control freak and malicious this event also foreshadows
McMurphy’s grim future. The patients are swayed momentarily and begin to
question McMurphy however Harding defends him.
Bromden moves the control panel
after McMurphy asks him to try. He then bets with other patients that Bromden
can move the panel. When McMurphy wins Bromden refuses to accept a portion of
his winnings as he doesn’t like how it was won dishonestly.
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| McMurphy and Chief waiting for treatment |
A fight breaks out between
McMurphy and Bromden against the aides in an attempt to defend George who is
begging not to be sprayed with the aide’s cleaning salve. Nurse Ratched
subsequently sends them to the disturbed ward where a kind nurse talks to them
about how army nurses, such as Nurse Ratched, are accustomed to running
hospitals as if they were in the military: “‘A lot of it is, but not all. Army
nurses, trying to run an Army hospital. They are a little sick themselves’” (Kesey
154). Nurse Ratched threatens to send McMurphy to electroshock therapy unless
he admits wrongdoing. When he refuses he is sent to electro shock treatment
with Bromden. McMurphy doesn’t show fear and cooperates with ease: “‘Do I get a
crown of thorns?’” (Kesey 156). While Bromden, on the other hand, struggles
immensely in coping with his fear. Bromden experiences multiple flashbacks
during and after electro shock therapy. He is able to stay out of the fog for
the first time after electro shock treatment and because of this he is not
ordered to undergo more treatment. However, McMurphy is given multiple
treatments each week, which talks a toll on him though he tries to appear
indifferent.
Nurse Ratched brings McMurphy
back from the disturbed ward as she fears his absence is manifesting the
admiration the other patients hold for him. McMurphy is told to escape by the
patients but he refuses as he says Billy’s date is that night.
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| Candy and Billy |
Turkle, an aide, lets in Sandy
and Candy and they arrive with alcohol. The ward holds a party where joints are
smoked and cough syrup is drank with vodka. A patient has a seizure and Billy
and Candy sneak off into a separate room.
Morning nears and everyone
needs to start thinking of a plan to cover their tracks. Harding says McMurphy
should escape and tie up Turkle so it will look like the mess was a part of his
getaway. Therefore Turkle and the other patients won’t get into trouble.
McMurphy agrees with this plan and asks the others if they are going to escape
with him. Harding then reveals he feels he will soon be able to leave on his
own terms: “‘No, you don’t understand. I’ll be ready in a few weeks. But I want
to do it on my own, by myself, right out that front door, with all the
traditional red tape and complications. I want my wife to be here in a car at a
certain time to pick me up. I want them to know I was able to do it that way’”
(Kesey 169). This part of the book is especially significant as it shows how
McMurphy was capable of empowering other patients to take control of their
life. Harding also goes onto say that, while they may still be, “sick men in a
lot of ways” (Kesey 169) they are no longer weak rabbits; they are empowered,
strengthened, and it is due to McMurphy.
Turkle is supposed to wake
McMurphy and Sandy so that they may escape, however he falls asleep and the
aides find them in the morning.
Ratched discovers pieces of
evidence of the party’s occurrence and the patients are all amused, the Nurse
is angered. McMurphy refuses a chance to escape with Sandy as Turkle lets her
out.
The Nurse finds Billy and Candy
in bed together and she threatens to tell his mother. Billy begs her not too.
He is crying, stuttering, blaming McMurphy, Candy, and Harding for the
occurrence. He is sent to Doctor Spivey’s office.
Billy commits suicide by
cutting his throat. The Nurse blames McMurphy: “‘First Charles Cheswick and now
William Bibbit! I hope you’re finally satisfied. Playing with human
lives—gambling with human lives’” (Kesey 175). This finally drives McMurphy
over the edge. He goes to the Nurse Ratched in the Nurse’s station, smashes
through the glass, rips open her uniform, and strangles her. He is pried off of
her. In this moment all of McMurphy’s emotions have come to a head. His inner
conflict of feeling weak and defiant, fearful and hateful, they reflect
themselves in this scene. Chief describes the moment right after his final act
of defiance, “he let himself cry out: A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate
and surrendered defiance” (Kesey 175).
After this moment things are
not the same. Patients finally take control of their lives; they have gained
strength from McMurphy’s final sacrificial act against their tormentor, Nurse
Ratched. When Nurse Ratched returns from medical leave her former power is
never fully restored. McMurphy gets a lobotomy as a consequence for attacking
the Nurse and he is rendered a vegetable afterward. Bromden later that night
smothers McMurphy with a pillow as he knows he wouldn’t want to live a
testament to the Nurse’s power: “I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn’t have
left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it
for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what
can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that” (Kesey 177). Inspired by McMurphy Bromden breaks through a
barred window, which he then escapes from, with the control panel.
The strength it takes Bromden to free himself is the strength McMurphy sacrificed. McMurphy at the end of the book is immortalized in the lives he liberated and restored making him an almost Christ-like figure.
