FREE ESSAY ON ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST

Transformation:
Randle McMurphy & Patients
He waltzed into the ward and introduced himself to every patient as a gambling man with a
zest for women and cards. Randle P. McMurphy, a swaggering, gambling, boisterous
redheaded con man, arrived at the ward from the Pendleton Work Farm. He was sentenced to
six months at the prison work farm, but pretended to be insane in order to obtain a
transfer to the hospital because he thought it would be more comfortable than the work
farm. Bromden senses that there was something different about this new patient. After his
first experience with the excruciating routine of the Group Meeting, McMurphy tells the
patients that Nurse Ratchet is a genuine "ball-cutter." The other patients tell him that
there is no defying Nurse Ratched because, in their eyes, she is an all-powerful force.
True to his nature as a gambling man, McMurphy makes a bet with the other patients that
he can make Ratched lose her temper.
At first, the confrontation between Ratched and McMurphy provides some humorous
entertainment for the other patients. However, McMurphy's confrontation soon becomes
their confrontation as he draws them into the conflict by encouraging their rebellion.
The success of his bet hinges on a failed vote to change the television schedule so they
can watch the World Series. The Series was on television during the time allotted for
cleaning chores. McMurphy and the other patients staged a protest by sitting in front of
the blank television instead of doing their work. Nurse Ratched becomes hysterical and
screams at them to return to their chores. The struggle between Ratched and McMurphy
takes on the symbolic overtones of a mythological, comic battle.
McMurphy learns that involuntarily committed patients cannot leave the hospital without
staff approval. Therefore, he cannot leave at the end of his six months sentence, but
when Nurse Ratched says he can and he begins to submit to her authority. However, by this
time, he had become the leader for the other patients. Their sanity, their claim to
manhood lies in the balance. Cheswick, dismayed by McMurphy's surrender, commits
suicide.
Cheswick's suicide signals to McMurphy that he has unwittingly taken on the
responsibility of rehabilitating the other patients. However, after protecting Big George
from the cruelty of Ratched's aides, McMurphy is sent to Disturbed for electro-shock
therapy. The weight of his obligations to the other begins to wear away his strength and
his sanity. Nevertheless, McMurphy arranges a fishing trip for himself and nine other
patients. He guides them through the process of dealing with the hostility of the outside
world and sets the stage for Billy Bibbit to lose his virginity by arranging a data
between him and Candy Starr, a prostitute from Portland.
When the other patients sense that McMurphy is weakening, they urge him to escape. He
tells them he will leave early in the morning after Billy has his date. He arranges a
going away party for himself. While Billy finally enjoys the pleasure of sex with Candy,
McMurphy and the other patients smoke marijuana and drink. However, when the time comes,
McMurphy cannot bring himself to leave the hospital. Like the other patients, he has
become unable to deal with the outside world. In the morning, Nurse Ratched finds out
about their party and Billy's sexual encounter with Candy. When she threatens to tell
Billy's mother, Billy becomes hysterical and commits suicide by slashing his throat.
McMurphy attacks Ratched and rips open the front of her dress and tries to strangle her.
In retaliation, she has him lobotomized. However, she has lost her tyrannical power over
the ward. Her patients transfer to other wards or check themselves out of the hospital.
Before he escapes from the hospital, Bromden suffocates McMurphy so that he can die with
some dignity rather than living out his life as a vegetable.
Bromden's ultimate fate is ambiguous. He states that he leaves in the direction the dog
took earlier. In that scene, the dog seemed to be headed for a fatal collision with a
car. It is possible that Bromden is doomed. Alternately, Bromden's words might imply that
the battle with the Combine is unfinished, that Nurse Ratched was only one representative
of the much larger oppressive organization of modern society, and that if Bromden is to
become McMurphy's disciple, then he must carry on the legacy of resistance.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is its misogynist
elements. Women are largely concentrated at two personality extremes. Nurse Ratched,
Billy's mother, and Bromden's mother are dominating, castrating women. Candy and Sandy,
two prostitutes, are characterized as happy tools of masculine empowerment, as toys to be
passed around from man to man. Many of the patients have been driven into the ward
because of their relationships with domineering women. Kesey often seems to imply that
modern society's biggest problem is the combination of women and power. Ultimately,
McMurphy's success comes through male violence against women, providing Harding's earlier
predictions true. Unfortunately, the reliance on sexist tropes to represent the problems
of modern society weakens the overall impact of an otherwise powerful novel.