Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Join me as I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the first time and try and make sense of this monumental novel

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The End!! Major Spoilers Ahead!! ;)

This last section of the book really was a whirlwind with so much happening in a completely unexpected way. I was especially caught off guard by Chief’s decision to kill his former hero, McMurphy, though I will discuss that passage a bit later on in this post because I think it warrants further examination. Kesey uses the last section of the book to essentially make a martyr out of McMurphy; his act of self-sacrifice is the last piece of the puzzle needed to free the patients in the ward from the tyranny of Nurse Ratched. Despite the fact that McMurphy had a largely positive impact on the patients in the ward, the reader is also forced to confront the casualties that occurred along the way in the form of Billy Bibbit and Charles Cheswick, both of which undermine the virtue of what McMurphy was trying to do. 

McMurphy’s attack on Nurse Ratched was essentially a death sentence but his sacrifice proves to be the final act that frees the patients. After McMurphy is subdued, Chief narrates “I hung around another couple of weeks...Everything was changing. Sefelt and Frederickson signed out together Against Medical Advice, and two days later another three Acutes left, and six more transferred to another ward” (319). From his first interaction with the patients in the ward, McMurphy had worked to get them to the point where they could comfortably return to society. Unlike the Nurse, he recognized that the Acutes were not truly crazy, and sheltering them from the outside world had only exacerbated the issues that they actually had. McMurphy’s ability to lend courage to those around him to stand up to the Nurse also extends beyond the Acutes in the ward; it seems as though he also had a profound impact on the doctor as well. At the start of the novel, the doctor cowers in the presence of Nurse Ratched but by the end, when the “doctor was informed that his resignation would be accepted...he informed them that they would have to go the whole way and can him if they wanted him out” (319). Even though the nurse essentially sucks the life out of McMurphy with the lobotomy she had performed on him, the damage has done. 

I remember being shocked by Chief’s decision in the movie to kill McMurphy but having read the book, I can understand his rationale at least a little bit better. There was none of what made McMurphy himself after the operation had been completed and his mission of freeing the patients had been completed. Because of this, Chief was maybe doing McMurphy a favor by ending what would have been a completely pointless life as a vegetable in the ward. That kind of life is certainly not what McMurphy would have wanted. I think that Kesey was trying to point the reader towards a couple of different greater significances in this last section but one of them is the idea that even our most revered heroes are still deeply flawed human beings. The nurse sums up many of these flaws when she says “First Charles Cheswick and now William Bibbit!...gambling with human lives--as if you thought yourself to be a God!”(318). McMurphy was directly responsible for the deaths of two innocent men, leaving the reader to contend with the question: was McMurphy a hero?

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The Combine

Throughout the novel, Chief makes mention of the Combine as an oppressive, controlling force that Nurse Ratched and all of the ward staff are a part of. He believes in a sort of conspiracy in which the Combine runs everything, stating early on in the novel that “it’s not just the Big Nurse by herself, but it’s the whole Combine, the nation-wide Combine that’s the really big force, and the nurse is just a high-ranking official for them”. The idea of the Combine appears throughout the novel and plays a role as one of the most important metaphors. Kesey uses the Combine as a metaphor for the oppressive aspects of society, a sentiment that falls directly in line with the countercultural sentiment that I examined during my preliminary research of the context of the book. 

Chief Bromden mentions the Combine quite a bit during the opening chapters of the novel, either explicitly or implicitly. When McMurphy first arrives, Chief comments on his brash character, saying “maybe...the Combine missed getting to him soon enough with controls. Maybe he growed up so wild...that the Combine never had a chance to get anything installed” (92). The part about the Combine not being able to change McMurphy’s wildness shows that the Combine is associated with order and uniformity. Those who do not initially have comply with the wishes of the Combine are forced to either by the mind-numbing abilities of electro-static shock therapy or by the installation of machinery in their brain. The fog machine, which I discussed more in-depth in my examination of Chief Bromden, is an example of an implicit reference to the Combine. The fog machine is operated by members of the hospital staff, who are essentially regarded as operatives for the Combine. The fog is meant to keep Chief complacent and thus easier to control. There certainly seems to be a connection between the Combine and the way that society keeps us complacent. Though I don’t necessarily agree with his assessment of society, Kesey seems to be comparing the Combine to the way that we are trapped in our jobs and controlled by the government. The people that are unable to fit into the strict constraints of society are isolated from everyone else and inhumane methods are used on them in an attempt to “rehabilitate”. Anyone who resists this order is labeled as dangerous by those in charge and because of this, McMurphy ends up with a target on his back. At the same time, he is showered with adoration by the other ward members because he represents standing up to the system.

Kesey’s metaphor of the Combine fits quite well with many of the broader ideals of the 1960s. He seems to be suggesting that we all need to break out of the constraints of society and uses the example of McMurphy to do this. I think there is some value to this idea; I feel I could also benefit from breaking at least partially out of the mold of society.

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Our Hero: R.P. McMurphy

In this section, Ken Kesey uses the disappearance of the fog from Chief’s vision and some of the actions of the other Acutes in the ward as a metaphor for how R.P. McMurphy has helped to free them from the oppression of Nurse Ratched. The fog, which I have discussed in my previous post looking at Chief Bromden as our narrator, represented some kind of mental issue then, which is reaffirmed by its disappearance when McMurphy begins to turn the patients against the Big Nurse.

Kesey is rather explicit with the metaphor of the fog; Chiefs says that “I was seeing lots of things different. I figured the fog machine had broke down in the walls when they turned it up too high for that meeting on Friday...For the first time in years I was seeing people with none of that black outline they used to have, and one night I was even able to see out the windows” (162). The fact that Chief hadn’t even been able to see out the windows ever demonstrates the incredible hold that Nurse Ratched had over his psyche, that is, until McMurphy showed up and undermined her control. For the first time in years, Chief is able to see the world as it is, and not as some hellish nightmare controlled by The Combine (which might deserve its own blog post). The effect that McMurphy has on the other patients besides Chief is apparent in the line “In the group meetings there were grips coming up that had been buried so long the things being griped about had already changed. Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn’t like” (167). Based on this, it is obvious that McMurphy has freed the other patients to some extent by standing up to the nurse himself. Instead of cowering in fear as they did at the first meeting that McMurphy was at, there is now a community effort to resist the nurse. Cheswick seems particularly impacted by McMurphy’s rebellious acts, because as soon as McMurphy retreats and stops trying to get under the Nurse’s skin, Cheswick has a breakdown and screams at the nurse “I want something done! Hear me? I want something done! Something! Something!” (173) which lands him in the Disturbed and unfortunately he drowns directly after, likely because of the “treatment” he received up there. The other patients are also deeply affected by McMurphy’s retreat; Chief writes that “the white tubes in the ceiling begin to pump their refrigerated light again” (173) and describes the other inmates as having “cancelled” faces. These reactions clearly demonstrate that McMurphy was a hero to all of them and I am curious as to whether he will resume that role or he will continue to play it safe as he is now.

In writing the character of McMurphy in the way that he did, it seems as though Ken Kesey was praising those who go against the status quo and rebel against society. This makes a lot of sense given what Kesey did in real life, travelling in a van testing out psychedelic drugs on unwitting participants. This sort of messaging is also in line with the broader countercultural movement of the time.

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Taking A Look At Chief Bromden

Even though I took a look last week at the characters of Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, I have neglected to take a closer look at our narrator Chief Bromden insofar. Part of the reason for this is that Chief, despite being the one telling the story, takes a side role in this story. Instead, McMurphy steals the spotlight and is the focus of the narration. It appears that this was an intentional decision by the author Ken Kesey in order to show Chief’s captivation (and perhaps even obsession) with McMurphy from the moment of his arrival in the ward. Chief Bromden doesn’t do a whole lot as he pretends to be deaf and dumb in order to avoid punishment at the hands of the black men; most of the time, he stands silent in the hallway and mops the floor. Chief’s character is unlike most real people in that much of what he sees is completely fabricated but he presents these things to the reader as fact. He is certainly an unreliable narrator and because of this, the reader must be on the lookout for inconsistencies; luckily, it is typically obvious when Chief is experiencing a hallucination. I attempted to draw a parallel between Chief and some specific person in the real world but I was unable to as he is so completely different from anyone that I have met or seen. If I had to pick a literary character to draw a connection to it would have to be Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby because of the unreliability he shares with Chief. This unreliability is exemplified in the scene with Mr. McKee, where it seems that Nick and he share an intimate moment but it is difficult to tell due to Nick’s erratic narration.

Even though Chief may not do much and has no dialogue with other characters (in order to maintain the appearance of being deaf and dumb), there are multiple points throughout the book in which Chief goes into vivid detail about his feverish hallucinations. In one particularly nightmarish scene, Chief describes how the ward assistants take one of the patients, pierce his foot with a hook, and leave him dangling from the ceiling. Chief then recounts how “the worker takes a scalpel and slices up the front of old Blastic with a clean swing and the old man stops thrashing around. I expect to be sick, but there’s no blood or innards falling out like I was looking to see--just a shower of rust and ashes, and now and again a piece of wire and glass” (88). It is clear to the reader that none of this actually happens, but what is quite curious is the part where Chief says that “two aides...and a young doctor lift old Blastic onto the stretcher and carry him out, covered with a sheet--handle him more careful than anybody ever handled him before in all his life” (90). Based on this, something really did happen that night but it was twisted in Chief’s brain to resemble some sort of nightmare and the reader is left to piece together what is real. By taking a closer look at Chief, I came to the realization that despite being the narrator, he takes on a far more minor role than McMurphy. And, as I mentioned previously, I found it interesting to compare Chief with another famously unreliable narrator, Nick Carraway. I am curious as to whether Chief will continue to remain on the sidelines so to speak as he did in the movie, or if he will take up a more active role in the plot. I think that Kesey may have been trying to allude to the oppressiveness of the ward Chief is in and mental hospitals in general with his characterization of Chief. Clearly, if Chief feels the need to pretend to be deaf and dumb in order to “fly under the radar” there is something wrong with the mental institution, which should have the goal of rehabilitation.

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The Battle Between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched

The arrival of R.P. McMurphy in the mental hospital marks the beginning of what could be the main conflict in the book, at least it appears to be that way at this early stage in the book (pages 1-70). McMurphy’s brashness clashes with Nurse Ratched’s obsession with order and routine and sets off a battle of wills between these two characters. Right when McMurphy arrives at the mental institution, the author makes an obvious effort to establish him as a rebel and an outlier among the other patients. Kesey uses the narrator’s voice to establish McMurphy’s unique characteristics, writing “The way he talks, his wink, his loud talk, his swagger all remind me of a car salesman or a stock auctioneer” (13). McMurphy could not be more different (at least outwardly) from the other patients who are quiet and submissive which immediately puts a target on McMurphy’s back. The light-hearted banter that McMurphy has with the other patients runs contrary to Nurse Ratched’s mission of rehabilitating the patients, and he even questions the necessity of being in the mental institution with the line “Now they tell me a psychopath’s a guy who fights too much and fucks too much, but they ain’t wholly right, do you think?” (14). This type of insubordination is incompatible with the level of control that the nurse demands. In one of the first interactions between the two, Nurse Ratched is very clear about the fact that “everyone...must follow the rules” (25) to which McMurphy replies “ya know--that is the ex-act thing somebody always tells me about the rules...just when they figure I’m about to do the dead opposite” (26). And, if the conflict emerging between the two wasn’t obvious enough, Kesey writes “He [McMurphy] grins. They both smile back and forth at each other, sizing each other up” (26). With the war between the two now begun, Kesey devotes additional time to providing motives for each character. In the case of Nurse Ratched, Chief tells the reader “the Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kilter or in the way ties her into a little white knot of tight-smiled fury” (28). McMurphy is a possible wrench in the system and Nurse Ratched knows it right away; she identifies McMurphy as a “manipulator” and confides in a hospital aide that she believes such a person “can influence the other patients and disrupt them to such an extent that it may take months to get everything running smooth once more” (27). McMurphy, on the other hand, tries to bait the other patients into revealing their true feelings about the nurse presumably so that he can get their support in his fight against her authority. After calling the nurse a “bitch and a buzzard and a ball-cutter” (61) and continuously attacking her actions, McMurphy is able to get Harding, one of the Acute patients, to admit that he thinks that the nurse is a bitch and not the good-hearted woman he claimed she was. It’s clear from this interaction that McMurphy has it out for Nurse Ratched and he will stop at nothing to undermine her authority. The conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched has amounted to nothing more than passive aggressiveness insofar but I don’t doubt that tensions will continue to rise as the book moves forward. I am curious to see whether the other patients choose to back McMurphy or if they will choose to remain under the watchful gaze of Nurse Ratched.

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First, We Need Some Context!

Hello everyone! I am ecstatic to start this reading journey with all of you but first, there are a couple of things that I need to explain! Before beginning the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I needed to understand the context. With previous novels that I’ve read in English class, it has always been beneficial to my understanding to establish at least some context and this situation was no different. I decided to read John Zubizarreta’s critical essay titled “The Disparity of Point of View in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in which he examines many of the discrepancies between the novel and the film adaptation. The novel, published in 1962 by Ken Kesey, shares many of its core ideals with that of the counter-culture movement in the 1960s and because of that the protagonist, Randle McMurphy, became somewhat of a symbol of the fight against conformity. The film adaptation, which premiered in 1975,  is described by Zubizarreta as “Very neat, very tidy, and very popular among the counter-culture crowd of the sixties”. Having seen the film just a few days ago for the first time, I must agree with Mr. Zubizarreta’s assessment; McMurphy’s defiance in the face of Nurse Ratched’s tyranny was certainly entertaining to watch and reminded me of another counter-culture icon, Holden Caulfield. While the two may be in very different situations and follow different story arcs, they both possess a certain disregard for authority that resonated with the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. What I found very interesting about Zubizarreta’s essay was that he suggested that the film, despite premiering in the 1970s, fit better with the counter-culture movement than the book. He writes that the book is “a different work altogether, narrated by an “obviously psychopathic “I,”” as Leslie A. Fiedler puts it, and composed more as if it is “dreamed or hallucinated rather than merely written””. Because of this, it seems to me that the book does not have the same clear-cut anti-authority message as the film but I am excited to examine this further as I read the book for myself. 

Another crucial bit of context that Zubizarreta mentions (albeit briefly) is that the author was experimenting with LSD at the time of writing. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Zubizarreta wrote that the book is dream-like in a sense. Kesey’s experiences with the hallucinogen likely influenced many of the decisions about the book, beginning with the choice to tell the story from the perspective of a schizophrenic patient, a choice that was curiously disregarded in the film adaptation. The film is told from a third-person perspective which ends up idolizing the antics of McMurphy; the book, however, takes what I would consider to be a more nuanced approach by using an unreliable narrator who hallucinates much of what happens. 

I’m glad that I took the time to find some context about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, otherwise, I never would have known that Kesey was doing LSD at the time or that the novel was written right during the counter-culture movement. I’m looking forward to seeing how this information presents itself in subtle ways while I’m reading!