Cuckoo's Nest Final Project

Elias Lindgren

F Block

Mr. Dilworth

12/1/14

Cuckoo’s Nest Final Project

Bromden

“It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” – (Kesey 13)

“I’m way too little. I used to be big, but not no more.” – (Kesey 186)

“She’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em inna pens… one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest… O-U-T spells out… goose swoops down and plucks you out.” – (Kesey 239)

“that big red hand of McMurphy’s is reaching into the fog and dropping down and dragging the men up by their hands, dragging them blinking into the open.” – (Kesey 124)

“for an instant that lead goose was right in the center of that circle, bigger than the others, a black cross opening and closing, then he pulled his V out of sight into the sky and was no more.” – (Kesey 143)

These quotes are representative of Bromden’s very symbolic narration of the story. Rather than simply narrating events as they occur, Bromden recounts what are clearly just hallucinations of his, but hallucinations laden with potent, meaningful allegories for the messages in the story.

Chief Bromden, the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, sets the symbolic and motif-driven tone of the book by relating not just the facts of the story but also hallucinations that have a potent meaning to them. As Bromden says near the beginning of the story, “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen” (Kesey 13).  Bromden, being a patient in a mental hospital, is not always in touch with reality. Several times over the course of the story, Bromden recounts an event that clearly did not actually happen. However, most of these occurrences have important symbolic meanings. This meaning-based rather than fact-based account of the story is an important part of why this book a classic. Bromden’s symbol-laden narration is what makes this story so full of motifs, allegories, and subtle, layered meanings. The reader is often compelled to try to extract meaning from some delusion of Bromden’s. For example, Bromden’s account of the fog that occasionally permeates the ward is not, of course, actual fog that the staff pump throughout the hospital. Rather, it is a symbol of the relative safety that the patients like to hide in, rather than coming “out of the fog” and confronting Nurse Ratched about her abusive treatment of them. When McMurphy arrives at the ward, however, he begins forcing the men to stand up to the cruel nurse, or, as Bromden says, “reaching into the fog and dropping down and dragging the men up by their hands, dragging them blinking into the open.” This metaphorical fog is, however, described by Bromden as a real, literal fog permeating the ward. This, and many other hallucinations like it that Bromden describe as real, are what give the story its heavily symbolic nature.

Nurse Ratched

“In spite of its being smaller and tighter and more starched than her old uniforms, it could no longer conceal the fact that she was a woman.” (Kesey 269)

“She has a genius for indiscretion. Did you ever hear her… accuse me of anything? Yet it seems that I have been accused of… having nothing between my legs but a patch of hair!” (Kesey 60)

“A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.”  (Kesey 11)

“What worries me, Billy, is how your poor mother is going to take this.” – (Kesey 264)

“He isn’t extraordinary. He is simply a man and no more, and is subject to all the fears and all the cowardice and all the timidity that any other man is subject to. Given a few more days, I have a very strong feeling that he will prove this, to us as well as the rest of the patients.” (Kesey 136)

These quotes represent various aspects of the Nurse’s personality and meaning as a character. They show how she psychologically manipulates the patients, never explicitly saying anything negative about them but subtly playing with their minds and demeaning them. They also show the importance of her being a woman and demonstrate how her womanhood emasculates the patients due to the absolute power she has over them, and how she attempts to conceal her breasts to seem more masculine and thus increase her authority.

Nurse Ratched, the main antagonist of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, dominates the patients in the ward with psychological manipulation, tying in to the book’s theme of gender roles. The “Big Nurse,” as she is called, has total control of all the goings-on in her ward. She runs her ward in such an orderly fashion that it is likely a finely-tuned machine, so much so, in fact, that Bromden describes her control over the ward as a literal mechanical device. Nurse Ratched is, according to Bromden, an agent of “the Combine,” a gigantic machine that spans the entirety of the world and seeks to prevent people from being unique and individual. Nurse Ratched does her job for the Combine well, suppressing not only her patients’ individuality but also their freedoms, as she heavily restricts their allowed activities and allows them little say in ward policy. In so doing, she emasculates her exclusively male patients by taking total control of their every action despite her being female; she makes her patients feel as if they are “having nothing between my legs but a patch of hair!” (Kesey 60). In fact, it seems that she tries to hide her femininity, is almost ashamed of it, because it threatens to detract from her commanding persona and from her authority over the patients. In order to seem as male as possible, she tries to conceal her massive breasts. When, near the end of the book, McMurphy assaults Nurse Ratched, he tears off her uniform, leaving her bare-chested and making her breasts totally visible to all of the patients. This is an essential part of McMurphy’s victory over the Nurse; her breasts having been shown to all the patients, she “could no longer conceal the fact that she was a woman,” (Kesey 269) and she can no longer hold authority over her patients because her ability to emasculate them has been decreased significantly. This shows what an important role gender plays in this book, as the Nurse’s femininity and her attempts to conceal it are an important part of the nature of her authority over the patients.

McMurphy

“It’s my first day, and what I like to do is make a good impression straight off on the right man… who’s the bull goose loony around here?” (Kesey 22)

“I’m afraid that is exactly what the new patient is planning: to take over. He is what we call a “manipulator,” Miss Flinn, a man who will use everyone and everything to his own ends.” (Kesey 29)

“Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?” – (Kesey 237)

“Billy would have done what he did, and McMurphy would have heard about it and come back. Would have had to come back, because he could no more have sat around… and let the Big Nurse have the last move and get the last play, than he could have let her get on with it right under his nose. It was like he’d signed on for the whole game and there wasn’t any way of him breaking his contract.” (Kesey 260)

“He’d shown us what a little bravado and courage could accomplish, and we thought he’d taught us how to use it. All the way to the coast we had fun pretending to be brave. When people at a stop light would stare at us and our green uniforms we’d do just like he did, sit up straight and strong and tough-looking.” (Kesey 203)

These quotes exhibit multiple aspects of McMurphy’s personality and meaning to the story; they show how he is a natural leader to the other patients, helps them become more confident, and becomes so entangled in his efforts to help them that he reaches a point at which he cannot simply abandon them by escaping the ward. They also show what the Nurse’s opinion of McMurphy is, and demonstrates his similarities to Jesus.

R.P. McMurphy, the protagonist of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a saviour for the patients in the ward, delivering them from Nurse Ratched’s cruelty at the cost of his own life. From the moment McMurphy enters the ward, it is clear that he is totally different from the other patients. He is loud, boisterous, and a natural leader. Therefore, he quickly comes into conflict with Nurse Ratched, who sees him as a threat to the orderliness of her ward, deeming him a “‘manipulator...’ a man who will use everyone and everything to his own ends” (Kesey 29). McMurphy continues to fight against Nurse Ratched throughout the book, resisting her strict discipline and ignoring her overbearing ward policies. He also hugely increases the confidence of the other patients. As Bromden says,  “He’d shown us what a little bravado and courage could accomplish, and we thought he’d taught us how to use it” (Kesey 203). The patients rally under McMurphy’s banner, becoming more sure of themselves and often fighting back against the Nurse. However, they are entirely reliant on McMurphy to lead them and support them, and when this support is absent the patients are unable to stand up to the Nurse alone, such as when Cheswick demands his cigarettes but is not supported by McMurphy and therefore is defeated by the Nurse. McMurphy, however, soon returns to fighting back against Nurse Ratched, and finds himself at the point of no return in his efforts, “like he’d signed on for the whole game and there wasn’t any way of him breaking his contract” (Kesey 260). In the end, he is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the others, martyring himself and in the process freeing the other patients from the Nurse’s clutches.

Staff

o   Black Boys

-  “All three of them sulky and hating everything, the time of day, the place they’re at here, the people they got to work around.” (Kesey 1)

- “When she finally gets the three she wants—gets them one at a time over a number of years, weaving them into her plan and her network—she’s damn positive they hate enough to be capable.” (Kesey 18)

o   Catholic Nurse

-  “She figures it’s on account of working evenings among a whole wardful of people like me. It’s all our fault, and she’s going to get us for it if it’s the last thing she does.” (Kesey 143-144)

o   Dr. Spivey

-   “Doctor Spivey… is exactly like the rest of us, McMurphy, completely conscious of his inadequacy. He’s a frightened, desperate, ineffectual little rabbit, totally incapable of running this ward without our Miss Ratched’s help, and he knows it.” (Kesey  59)

-  “The doctor was informed that his resignation would be accepted, and he informed them that they would have to go the whole way and can him if they wanted him out.” (Kesey 268)

These quotes represent the the bitterness and cruelty of much of the staff, due to their insecurities and vulnerabilities, and how they have been hand-picked by the Nurse because of these traits. They also show how Dr. Spivey, on a deeper, more meaningful level than is evident on the story’s surface, resembles the patients more than the staff in his personality and his growth over the course of the story.

The various members of the hospital staff in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest have varying but very potent symbolic meanings to the story. Bromden explains near the beginning of the story that Nurse Ratched carefully selects her staff so that they are either bitter and cruel to the patients just like she is or too incompetent to stand up to her. Those in the former group include the black boys and the Catholic nurse. These characters are, like the patients, vulnerable and insecure. However, unlike the patients, who are made timid and unsure of themselves by their insecurities, these staff members are instead bitter and hateful, and take out their hatred on the patients. For example, the Catholic nurse, frustrated by her irremovable birthmark, subconsciously blames the patients for it, and “she’s going to get us for it if it’s the last thing she does” (Kesey 143-144). Staff members like these are seen by Bromden as agents of his imagined “Combine,” dedicated, like Nurse Ratched, to the suppression of individuality. As part of the Combine, they symbolize society’s tendency to frown upon the unique and different. However, not all the staff are hateful and cruel agents of the Combine, like the black boys and the Catholic nurse. Dr. Spivey is one particularly sympathetic staff member. Dr. Spivey is supposedly in charge of the ward, and Nurse Ratched’s superior. However, he is, like the patients, an “ineffectual little rabbit,” and is “totally incapable of running this ward without our Miss Ratched’s help.” (Harding,  59) Spivey’s progress throughout the story mirrors that of many of the patients; he is, at first, very frightened of the Nurse, and totally incapable of standing up to her; however, after some time, he begins to make suggest changes in ward policy, and after Nurse Ratched’s final defeat his confidence in himself has clearly grown considerably, as he resists suggestions that he resign from his post after Billy Bibbit’s death, saying that “they would have to go the whole way and can him if they wanted him out” (Kesey 268.) Spivey, in terms of his underlying meaning in the context of the story, is very much like the patients in his ward. He begins as a timid, incompetent “rabbit,” but over the course of the story becomes much more confident and sure of himself.

Patients

o   Billy Bibbit

-  “Sure! Sure, if we had the g-guts!” (Kesey 168)

-  “M-M-McMurphy! He did. And Harding! And the-the-the rest!” (Kesey 264)

o   Harding

-  “All of us in here are rabbits… We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place.” (Kesey 61)

-  “I got sick. It wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me- and the great voice of millions chanting, ‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different.”  (Kesey 257)

o   Cheswick

-  “Standing there by himself in the center of the day room like that he looked tiny. He looked at McMurphy and got no look back, and went down the line of Acutes looking for help. Each time a man looked away and refused to back him up, and the panic in his face doubled.” (Kesey 150)

These quotes represent the multitude symbolic meanings of the patients. They demonstrate Billy Bibbit’s role as biblical Judas, as well as his demonstration of the patients’ lack of “guts,” Cheswick’s representation of the patients’ reliance on McMurphy, and Harding’s importance to the book’s theme of society’s repression of uniqueness.

Many of the patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are complex and interesting characters whose traits are used to help convey one of the book’s numerous messages. At the beginning of the story, they are all weak and timid; as Harding says, “All of us in here are rabbits” (Kesey 61). Over the course of the story, however, the patients become much more confident due to McMurphy’s leadership and encouragement, eventually becoming free from the evil Nurse Ratched and ready to re-integrate into society. Over the course of the story, the patients’ actions, traits, and quotes tie in to various themes of the story. Cheswick, for example, primarily represents the patients’ dependence on McMurphy; he follows McMurphy into battle against Nurse Ratched more readily and eagerly than any of the other patients, but when McMurphy’s support is briefly withdrawn Cheswick finds himself unable to fight against Nurse Ratched on his own, and becomes so desperate when faced with this reality that he is driven to suicide. Billy Bibbit is often used to represent the weakness and frailty of the patients. He is more timid and fearful than anyone else in the ward. One of Billy’s most important moments in the book comes when McMurphy is outraged upon discovering that most of the patients in the ward are there voluntarily. Billy exclaims that the patients don’t leave the ward because they are too afraid of the outside, that they were bullied and made fun of out there, and that while they could leave the ward they simply don’t have the guts to. In terms of the book’s parallels with the New Testament, Billy represents Judas. When Nurse Ratched threatens to tell Billy’s mother that he slept with a prostitute, Billy betrays McMurphy by saying that the other patients forced him to sleep with Candy. He is so ashamed of himself for this that he commits suicide, as Judas did. Finally, Harding represents the theme of society’s repression of difference; Harding is in the ward because his homosexuality makes him different from other people, but he does not think that his homosexuality is what made him mentally ill; he says that “it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me- and the great voice of millions chanting, ‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’” In other words, Harding has been belittled and weakened by society’s rejection of him due to his difference. Clearly, the patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are not just characters; they are devices Kesey uses to convey the many subtle messages within the book to the reader.

McMurphy as Christ

“And McMurphy led the twelve of us to the sea.” (Kesey 203)

”I wash my hands of the whole deal.” (Kesey 232)

These quotes show how McMurphy resembles Christ in many ways. They demonstrate how he and the patients are like Christ and his apostles, and reference Pontius Pilate’s declaration that he had no role in Jesus’ death.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the protagonist, McMurphy, resembles Christ in many ways. Like Christ to the Jews, he is the saviour to the other patients in the ward, helping them become more confident and to fight back against Nurse Ratched. And, like Christ, he dies because of his efforts to help others, saving the other patients in the process. The book hints at McMurphy’s resemblance to Christ many times in the book; the cross-shaped EST table, the Disturbed patient muttering Pontius Pilate’s most famous quote, the fishing trip. McMurphy’s story and that of Christ parallel each other in too many ways to ignore, and clearly One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is meant to be a somewhat biblicial narrative.

McMurphy as Bromden’s goose

“She’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em inna pens… one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest… O-U-T spells out… goose swoops down and plucks you out.” – (Kesey 239)

“for an instant that lead goose was right in the center of that circle, bigger than the others, a black cross opening and closing, then he pulled his V out of sight into the sky and was no more.” – (Kesey 143)

These quotes show how McMurphy is represented as a goose in Bromden’s recollection of his grandmother’s nursery rhyme. This, among the book’s almost innumerable allegories and double meanings, stands out because the story’s title is derived from this particular motif, and because it sums up the premise of the story more succinctly and completely than any other motif in the book.

McMurphy is represented in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest not only as Christ, but by the goose in an old nursery rhyme that Bromden recalls during a hallucination of his. Bromden remembers his grandmother reciting a little song to him about a woman who catches hens and puts them in captivity, until a goose flies by and rescues the hens from their pens. This motif gets right at the heart of the story. The woman represents Nurse Ratched; the Hens she is putting in captivity represent the patients, who she is keeping in her ward through psychological abuse and belittlement. Finally, the goose represents McMurphy, who rescues the patients from the Nurse’s ward.

The machinery of the “Combine” as a representation of power

“I see her sit in the center of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants.” (Kesey 30)

“Whatever it was went haywire in the mechanism, they’ve just about got it fixed again.” (Kesey 156)

These quotes represent Bromden’s representation of the Nurse’s suppression of the patients’ individuality and freedom as a giant machine. The perfect uniformity that the Nurse strives to create in her ward resembles the clockwork perfection of a piece of machinery.

The suppression of individuality and freedom by both Nurse Ratched and by society as a whole in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is represented by Chief Bromden as a gigantic machine, called the “Combine.” The Combine, according to Bromden, is a mechanism that extends across the whole world, striving to prevent people from fighting against the system of society by making them just like everybody else. Nurse Ratched is an agent of the Combine; she takes those who are not conforming to society and try to force them into a strict, perfectly regular, almost clockwork routine in her ward. When McMurphy enters the ward and starts fighting against the Nurse’s mechanization of the goings-on in the ward, the mechanism goes haywire. This representation of society’s repression of difference and non-conformity as a clockwork mechanism succinctly represents the clockwork order that Nurse Ratched tries to instill in her ward, just as the rest of society/the Combine tries to make people operate like clockwork on the “outside.”

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Merry Christmas!