one flew over the cukoos nest summary
... He makes the other patients uneasy with his boisterous behavior, described by Bromden as “when one ornery kid is raising too much hell with the teacher out of the room…McMurphy notices he’s making them uneasy, but he don’t let it slow him down” (17). ... ” " ClassicNote on One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Part One: Chapter One: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is narrated by Chief Bromden (also known as Chief Broom), a mute Indian known for mopping the mental institution where he is confined. ... One of the black boys finds him, and they start to shave him. ... Chief Bromden seems to believe that Nurse Ratched is ready to snap at the black boys at any moment, and her large breasts, the one incongruous part of her appearance, show that she is incapable of fully separating herself from normal human characteristics. ... Analysis: Randall Patrick McMurphy is the protagonist of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and is the antithesis of everything that Nurse Ratched represents. ... McMurphy goes around to the Acutes, asking which one is the craziest, the bull goose loony. ... Chief Bromden opens the critique of the mental institution in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to a larger societal critique. ... The purpose of this is to pit the patients against one another, thus fostering a sense of discord among the patients so that they remain submissive to her. ... McMurphy goes into the Nurses Station to complain, and one of the nurses, Miss Pilbow, tells him to stay back, since she is a Catholic (she thinks that McMurphy is a sex maniac). ... McMurphy realizes that Chief Bromden is not deaf, because he jumps whenever McMurphy claims that one of the black boys is coming for him. ... That night Chief Bromden sees the workers lifting up Blasctic, one of the Vegetables, onto a hook and slicing him open with a scalpel. ... Washington, one of the black boys, ordering him to get McMurphy a new set of clothes. ... The confrontation between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy centers around sexual grounds; one of the major themes of the novel is the contrast between liberated and repressed sexuality. ... Analysis: Although One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest can be construed as a parable pitting the counterculture (McMurphy) against the establishment (Ratched), to view the novel in these terms is too simplistic. ... Only once does he become angry: at one of the group meetings, he becomes angry at the other patients for acting too cagey and chicken-shit. ... Analysis: Kesey moves the social criticism in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest to a different level in this chapter by demonstrating that Nurse Ratched is not the only obstacle that McMurphy faces to effect social change. ... One of the patients, Old Rawler, kills himself. ... McMurphy brings up the World Series again, and Nurse Ratched reluctantly allows one more vote on the matter. ... McMurphy attempts to rouse at least one Chronic to vote for a schedule change, but none respond to anything he says. ... One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest in a very significant sense centers around the conflict between McMurphy, who represents this capability for choice, and Nurse Ratched, who does not allow persons to determine decisions for themselves. ... One doctor discusses the revolution minutes before, and says that McMurphy is no ordinary man that they are dealing with. Another doctor suggests that McMurphy may be simply a shrewd con man and not mentally ill, but another one says that McMurphy is sick, definitively a Potential Assaultive. ... One of the doctors, Gideon, finally decides that they are not dealing with an ordinary man, but Nurse Ratched tells him that he is very, very wrong. ... One doctor worries that this could take weeks, but she reminds them that they have weeks, for McMurphy is committed and his time in the hospital is entirely up to them. ... Kesey constructs One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest as a struggle between a number of conflicting values that McMurphy and Nurse Ratched represent, such as freedom, sexuality, rational choice for the former and authoritarianism, repression and determinism for the latter. Nurse Ratcheds willing perpetuation of the struggle indicates that she is herself aware of one of at least one of these conflicts. ... Chief Bromden awakes one night to find the ward clean and silent. ... He watches a dog sniffing around outside until Geever, one of the black boys, and the Catholic nurse put Chief Bromden back in bed. ... Chapter Twenty-One: Chief Bromden goes with the Acutes to the library. One of the black boys brings Hardings wife into the library. ... Although Harding says that they are witnessing the sunset of EST, Nurse Ratched is one of the few remaining advocates of it. ... McMurphy asks Sam, one of the black boys, if he can stop by the canteen to get cigarettes. ... One night McMurphy finds Chief Bromden awake and talks to him. ... Chief Bromden wants to touch McMurphy, not because hes "one of those queers," but because of who he is. ... The one question that remains is what will motivate Chief Bromden to undertake this action. ... McMurphy wakes up the others on the ward, trying to gather one more person to go on the trip. ... Only one of the two whores arrives, Candy, and does so late. She tells McMurphy that Sandra, the other one, went and got married. ... While McMurphy argues with the captain, a couple of men at the dock yell disparaging comments at Candy, asking whether she is one of the insane, or instead part of the cure for the insane men. ... McMurphy as a Christ figure in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and thus foreshadows future events. ... Billy is the only one who openly defends McMurphy, but after the meeting McMurphy asks Billy for money for Candys visit. ... Washington, one of the black boys, punches McMurphy, then McMurphy fights with all of the black boys. Chief Bromden picks one of the black boys off of McMurphy as they fight, and the two eventually are victorious The smallest black boy gets help from the Disturbed Ward, and they take McMurphy and Bromden away. ... However, Nurse Ratched undermines this by dividing the men from one another; she exposes McMurphy for his self-interested actions and manipulation. ... Chief Bromden thinks about how Billys mother visited, and when Billy asserted his age she asked "do I look like the mother of a thirty-one year old? ... Analysis: The final chapter of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest culminates in a pyrrhic victory for Nurse Ratched but an ultimate triumph for the martyred McMurphy. ... Once again the sexual connotations are strong, for when he attacks her he exposes her breasts, the one sign of her femininity.