One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Bromden shares his recollection of one Christmas when a man resembling Santa Claus entered the ward and six years later was released, “clean-shaven and skinny as a pole” (68). This memory transitions into Bromden discussing the passage of time in the ward. He believes that Ratched controls the time and that she speeds past enjoyable moments, then slows down or pauses on tedious moments. However, he notes little or no time manipulation—or fog production—since McMurphy’s arrival that morning. When Ratched goes home at the end of her shift, Bromden reports that the “machinery in the walls […] drops into a lower gear” (70).

The patients remain in the day room for the rest of the evening. Running a gambling table, McMurphy complains about the music playing through the speakers, thinking it is the radio. In fact, Ratched plays a tape on repeat throughout the day, which the inhabitants of the ward know so well that they hardly notice it. McMurphy considers complaining to the nurses, until Harding reminds him of his pledge to be non-combative through the duration of the bet.

Throughout the evening, McMurphy wins a large pile of cigarette packs, which they use as gambling chips (gambling with money is prohibited), but just before bedtime, he lets the other players win theirs back. As the patients file off to bed, they take another round of medications from the nurse on duty, whom Bromden refers to as the “birthmarked nurse” because of the prominent birthmark on her neck. Warned about McMurphy, the nurse is flustered at his approach and drops a pitcher on her foot. McMurphy reaches to pick up the pitcher. Fearing that he intends to grope her, she calls out that she’s Catholic. When she realizes her mistake, she blushes and closes the window, leaving Bromden and those behind him in line unmedicated for the night.

McMurphy takes the bed next to Bromden’s. As they prepare to sleep, McMurphy warns Bromden of an approaching aide. Observing Bromden’s reaction, McMurphy laughs and whispers, “I thought somebody told me you was deef” (75).

Without his medication, Bromden falls into a vivid dream or hallucination. He dreams that the dorm sinks deep into the earth, where he observes men working on machines as far as the eye can see. A few of the men remove Blastic, one of the ward’s chronic patients, hooking and hoisting him like a carcass. They gut him, revealing “rust and ashes” rather than organs (79). The public relations man appears, wearing a girdle and leading a tour through the factory. In the morning, the aides carry out Blastic, who died during the night.

The patients wake to the surprising sound of McMurphy singing in the shower. As Bromden enters the hallway, McMurphy emerges from the bathroom, wearing a cap and towel. He asks an aide, who is cleaning the baseboards, for toothpaste. Following ward policy, the aide refuses to provide toothpaste before 6:45 AM. McMurphy pokes fun at the policy and uses some of the aide’s soap instead of toothpaste. McMurphy’s attitude reminds Bromden of the way his father treated the white men who came to negotiate the purchase of tribal lands.

When Ratched arrives, the aide immediately alerts her to McMurphy’s insubordination. McMurphy reappears in the hallway, still in his towel. Ratched is angry and tells him to get dressed, but he informs her that his prison clothes were taken during the night. She tells him that he was given a uniform, but one of the aides admits that he forgot to provide it. The aide retrieves and offers clothes to McMurphy, who removes his towel, revealing gaudy underpants, and drapes it over Ratched’s shoulder. Furious, she barely composes herself as the other residents emerge from the dorm.

Confident that he can win his bet to subtly expose Ratched’s vulnerabilities, McMurphy enjoys a hearty breakfast, joking with staff and patients alike. He loses a bet about hitting the clock with a dab of butter, but he wins a bet about how long it will take the butter to slide down the wall.

In the day room, McMurphy resumes gambling. Frustrated at the noise level, he asks Ratched to turn down the music’s volume level, but she points out that some of the chronic patients would be unable to hear it. McMurphy then asks if he can move the card games to an adjacent room that is unused during the day, but Ratched tells him that the ward lacks the personnel to supervise both rooms. Defeated, McMurphy manages to contain his anger.

At eleven o’ clock, Spivey interviews McMurphy, as he does all new admissions. When they return, they are chatting like close friends. At the beginning of the group meeting that afternoon, Spivey raises the possibility of holding a carnival on the ward, an idea that he and McMurphy came up with during their interview. Charles Cheswick, a patient who alternates between moments of outspokenness and hesitation, is the only one brave enough to voice support for the idea. Ratched says that she will take up the idea in a staff meeting, implying that she will defeat it then. Spivey shares another idea devised during his interview with McMurphy: using the extra room as a separate game room. Primed by McMurphy, he provides a satisfactory answer to Ratched’s personnel objection. Just as Ratched is about to re-open the discussion of Harding’s marriage, McMurphy interrupts, pretending to have a question about a dream he had, and dominates the rest of the meeting.

Over the next three days, McMurphy and several others play a long-running game of Monopoly, exchanging pennies for the game’s fake bills. Despite McMurphy’s success, Bromden feels confident that Ratched will eventually beat him “for good” (100). Fog fills the air as Bromden’s optimism fades.

McMurphy continues to treat the staff politely and laugh off annoyances. He loses his cool just once, when he makes a request during a group meeting for the schedule to be adjusted so that the patients can watch an upcoming baseball World Series game. Ratched states her disapproval, but McMurphy demands a vote. Afraid to go against Ratched, none of the patients show their support except Cheswick, leaving McMurphy angry and disappointed.

Over the next few days, McMurphy is less generous than before and wins against anyone willing to gamble. On Thursday, the day before the baseball game, McMurphy considers breaking out of the hospital to watch the game elsewhere. The others express skepticism that he could break out through the windows, which are secured with a wire mesh. He suggests that he would throw the large control panel in the auxiliary room, a relic from an outdated form of therapy, through the window. He then bets the others that he can lift the panel, though it is obviously too large. When he strains but fails to move it, he returns the money he won over the last few days and tells the others that at least he tried.

While sweeping, Bromden hallucinates himself entering a picture on the wall of a man fly fishing in the mountains. He thinks about how much life in the hospital has improved, at least superficially. Later, Bromden hears reports that a noisy patient known as Rawler the Squawler, who was previously transferred upstairs to the so-called “Disturbed” ward, cut off his testicles and bled to death.

As the fog thickens, Bromden reflects that he and the other patients are reluctant to follow McMurphy because they feel safe in the fog. Bromden first encountered fog machines as a soldier in World War II, where the fog offered protection from enemy fire. When Bromden first noticed fog in the hospital, he tried to focus and navigate through it, but he found that doing so only led him back repeatedly to the “Shock Shop” where electroshock therapy is administered. Now, he prefers to remain still in the fog.

During Friday’s group meeting, the patients discuss Billy’s history. Born with a stutter, Billy confesses that he flunked out of college after dropping out of the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He fell in love with a girl and proposed to her, but she laughed when he got stuck on the word “marry.” As the meeting proceeds, Bromden hallucinates floating through the fog, passing the other patients, including Colonel Matterson (a chronic patient prone to giving nonsensical lectures), Pete, and Billy, each of whom he feels powerless to help. For a time, Bromden retreats into memory, but he emerges as McMurphy calls yet another vote to change the schedule so that they can watch the World Series. Despite all the acute patients voting in support of the change, Ratched declares the vote a failure since half of the ward, the chronic patients, refrain from voting. Desperate for one more vote, McMurphy appeals to the chronic patients in turn, finally reaching Bromden, who raises his hand. Shocked, Ratched declares that the meeting closed prior to Bromden’s vote and withdraws into the nurse’s station.

Claiming victory, McMurphy and the other patients hurry to complete their cleaning duties before the game. When the time arrives, McMurphy turns on the TV and begins to watch. After a few seconds, Ratched flips off the TV’s power from within the nurse’s station. Unfazed, McMurphy remains seated, staring into the blank screen. Ratched reminds him that he is under her “jurisdiction and control” and instructs him to go back to work (125). McMurphy doesn’t respond, and the other patients join him one by one in front of the screen as Ratched’s tirade continues.