One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
**Overview of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey**
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a novel that explores the dynamics of power and freedom within a mental institution. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden, a patient who pretends to be deaf and mute but possesses a deep awareness of his surroundings. The arrival of Randle Patrick McMurphy, a rebellious new inmate from prison, disrupts the oppressive routines enforced by Nurse Ratched, who embodies a mechanistic and authoritarian system. McMurphy's lively spirit motivates the other patients to challenge the status quo, ultimately leading to moments of camaraderie and self-discovery.
As McMurphy encourages the men to assert their individuality, the narrative delves into themes of mental illness, personal agency, and societal control. The Chief's gradual awakening and his friendship with McMurphy highlight the struggle against dehumanization and the search for identity. The novel culminates in dramatic events that reflect the devastating consequences of institutional power, as well as the resilience of the human spirit. Kesey's work invites readers to consider the complexities of conformity, rebellion, and the nature of sanity, making it a profound commentary on mental health and societal norms.
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
First published: 1962
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of plot: Fall, 1960
Locale: Oregon
Principal Characters
Chief Bromden , an Indian patientRandle P. McMurphy , a new patientNurse Ratched , the ward boss, also known as Big NurseBilly Bibbit andCharles Cheswick , longtime patients
The Story
Chief Bromden, thought by all to be deaf and unable to speak, hears the booming voice of a new patient, Randle Patrick McMurphy, a big, red-headed Irishman with scarred hands and a free laugh, who resists the aides’ pushing him around. McMurphy came from prison, having been banished for fighting. When McMurphy shakes the Chief’s hand it seems to swell and became big again, the first small step in McMurphy’s rescue of the Chief from his fog.
The Chief sees the ward as a repair shop for the Combine, the nationwide conspiracy that turns people into machines run by remote control. The asylum is the repair shop populated by two kinds of broken-down machines: the chronics and the acutes. The chronics are considered hopelessly insane; the acutes are considered to have hope of recovery. Nurse Ratched seeks to make her ward a smoothly running repair shop, so when McMurphy arrives, free from the controls of the Combine, he upsets the mechanistic routine. On his first day on the ward, McMurphy urges the patients to stand up against the Big Nurse, to show their guts by voting for something. He bets that he can make her crack within a week.
That week, McMurphy is eager to see the World Series on television; to do so requires a change in ward policy. Eventually he gets the patients to vote for the change, the deciding vote coming from the Chief, but the Big Nurse vetoes the result on a technicality. At game time, McMurphy and the other acutes sit down in front of a blank television and have a party, making believe they are watching the game. When the Big Nurse cannot get them to move, she loses control of herself. McMurphy wins his bet, showing that she is beatable.
Shortly thereafter, McMurphy discovers that as a committed patient he can be held indefinitely. To prevent that, he begins to cooperate, no longer standing up for the other patients. One day Cheswick looks to McMurphy for support in an argument, but the Irishman stays silent. The next day Cheswick drowns himself. McMurphy feels responsible for Cheswick’s death. The decisive blow against McMurphy’s self-interested stance comes when he learns that most of the acutes are not committed but are voluntary inmates. Their problems have more to do with how they see themselves than with clinical insanity. This realization changes McMurphy, bringing him back into the battle against the Big Nurse. First, he “accidentally” punches through her window to get his cigarettes, then, after it was replaced he does it again, apologizing profusely. After a month passes, McMurphy gets the Chief to speak again, bringing him closer to health and freedom. They talk about the Combine, how it turned the Chief’s father into an alcoholic by buying out their fishing village to make a dam. When his father shriveled, the Chief did, too.
The first of three final dramatic episodes in the story is the fishing trip, on which McMurphy and his twelve friends catch several huge fish. They come to see that they can be free, that a trip outside the machinelike asylum into the world of nature can be successful. The biggest step is their laughing binge, led by McMurphy, because laughter shows people are free. All the men become stronger, except McMurphy, because he is bearing the weight of their burdens, doling out his life for the others.
The next day, when the aides bully one of the fishing crew, McMurphy goes to his defense. That starts a fight in which the Chief joins. Later both are taken to the shock shop and blasted into unconsciousness by a jolt of electricity. Unlike on previous occasions, the Chief comes quickly out of the fog of the shock treatment. Since McMurphy made him big again, he does not need to hide from the world. After giving McMurphy three more shock treatments, the Big Nurse brings him back to the ward, threatening a lobotomy. All of McMurphy’s friends urge him to escape the next weekend when McMurphy’s friend Candy is coming for a visit. She brings another whore with her, helping the patients have an uproarious party filled with games, drunkenness, and sex. The orgy is a victory to the Chief; it shows that even at the center of the Combine people can be free.
McMurphy is supposed to escape at dawn but oversleeps. In the morning, the Big Nurse finds Billy Bibbit in bed with Candy. In front of all the other patients, the Big Nurse shames Billy, threatening to tell his possessive mother about his sexual experience. That drives Billy to kill himself, and Nurse Ratched blames McMurphy for it. Outraged by the accusation, McMurphy attacks the Big Nurse, tearing her dress open to expose her breasts, showing that she is really a woman, not a machine. The terror that the inmates see in her eyes forever diminishes her power over them. She finally loses the war.
Over the next few weeks, almost all the acutes leave the ward. The Chief stays, to counter the Big Nurse’s final move. Her gambit is a body on a gurney, a vegetable with black eyes (indicating that a lobotomy was performed), with the name Randle P. McMurphy attached to it. The Chief decides that McMurphy would never allow such proof of the nurse’s power to lie around the ward. So he smothers the vegetable. Then he lifts a huge control panel and throws it through the reinforced window screen. Escaping finally from the cuckoo’s nest, he returns to his free life, ready to tell McMurphy’s story.
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