One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Nurse Ratched enacts a new plan to discredit McMurphy. First, she posts a statement showing the financial transactions of each patient, which reveals that McMurphy’s holdings increased while everyone else’s decreased. Later, during a group meeting that she allows McMurphy to miss for a phone call, she offers the men a chance to discuss McMurphy “in the absence of his dominating presence” (227). At first, they discuss the good things McMurphy did for the ward. After a while, they begin to wonder about him. At one point, she interjects to suggest that McMurphy is “crazy like a fox” and that he “isn’t one to run a risk without a reason” (228). Pointing to his earnings from gambling and the fishing trip, she invites the patients to recognize his selfish motives. She then switches to another subject.

Later that day, several patients return to the topic of McMurphy’s motives. Harding defends McMurphy as a capitalistic con man who is not ashamed of himself or his motives. Billy points out that not everything McMurphy did, such as teaching him to dance, made him money. That night, Billy’s view shifts when McMurphy asks him to send some money to Candy before her upcoming visit, including funds for her to buy alcohol. Even Bromden feels betrayed when McMurphy uses him to win a bet against the other patients that no single person could move the huge control panel in the tub room, shortly after he saw Bromden do it privately. When McMurphy offers Bromden a portion of his winnings, Bromden refuses. McMurphy asks why he and the others are upset. Bromden explains that they think McMurphy only cares about “winning things” (233).

As a result of their conversation, Bromden claims significant responsibility for what happens next. Later that day, Ratched assigns those who attended the fishing trip to take a special sanitizing shower. When it’s George’s turn to be sprayed, the aide taunts him, knowing that George has a phobia of all such substances. McMurphy comes to George’s defense and gets into a fight with the aide. When a second aide joins the fight, Bromden comes to McMurphy’s defense.

Bromden and McMurphy are transferred to the Disturbed ward. When they appear, no one pays much attention to them. “I wash my hands of the whole deal,” says one patient as he passes them (238). McMurphy introduces himself as a gambler and tells the story of their fight. The ward’s nurse tends to their wounds and treats them kindly. “It’s not all like her ward,” she says (240), referring to Ratched. She suggests that Ratched’s background as a single, middle-aged former army nurse affects the way she runs her ward. That night, Bromden wakes up when one of the patients screams at him. Bromden wonders how McMurphy sleeps, since he must have many faces calling to him.

The next day, the nurse offers Bromden and McMurphy anesthetic drugs, but both refuse them. Bromden infers that they are scheduled to receive electroshock therapy. Ratched offers McMurphy a chance to apologize for his actions. In return, she promises to cancel the treatment. He refuses. Moments later, Bromden and McMurphy are escorted to the main building. Bromden, who has undergone shock therapy before, begins to panic. The phrase “Air raid” repeats in his mind. He watches as McMurphy willingly takes his place at the cross-shaped table and asks the attendants whether he’ll receive a “crown of thorns” (244). McMurphy stiffens as the machine shocks him. They wheel him out, then turn to Bromden, who struggles as they clamp him down. As he receives repeated shocks, his mind races through memories from his childhood, including a nursery rhyme containing the line, “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” (246). When he regains consciousness in the seclusion room later, he finds that he can shake off the fog in less than a day, much more quickly than in the past.

Ratched visits McMurphy after his session. Finding his attitude unchanged, she sends him back three more times that week. McMurphy pretends not to care, but Bromden spots a weary look on his face. Upon Bromden’s release from the Disturbed ward, the patients greet him as a hero and ask about McMurphy. He tells them about McMurphy’s resilience and humor, even making up some stories. Ratched realizes that with McMurphy away, the patients lionize him even more, so she returns him to the ward.

Knowing that Ratched will continue to persecute McMurphy, Bromden and a few other patients devise a plan for him to escape from the ward. The day he returns, they tell him of their plan, but he reminds them of Billy’s date with Candy that night. McMurphy decides to throw a going-away party at the same time. At the group meeting that day, Ratched suggests possibly adjusting McMurphy’s treatment to include an operation. He brushes off the suggestion with jokes.

In the evening, McMurphy requests a dose of vitamins, which he plans to give Billy just before Candy’s visit. Bromden explains that Billy gives off the impression that he is a kid, even though he is in his thirties. Billy’s mother, a close friend of Ratched, works as a receptionist in the hospital. Bromden once overheard Billy, who is a virgin, telling her of his plans to marry and attend college. She told him that he still had plenty of time to do those things and asked, “Do I look like the mother of a middle-aged man?” (254).

At midnight, Mr. Turkle begins a shift as the only aide on the ward. Following his previous arrangement with McMurphy, Turkle promises to let Candy in through a window, in exchange for a drink. Waiting for Candy to arrive, Turkle and McMurphy smoke marijuana and tell stories.

Somewhat later than expected, Candy arrives with her friend Sandy. Both are drunk. For a while, everyone chats awkwardly in a group. They are surprised to hear a key turn in the lock down the hall. They conceal themselves in the bathroom and listen as the nighttime supervisor enters and calls out for Mr. Turkle. He leaves the bathroom and tries to provide a satisfactory reason for having certain lights on and others off. Hearing him falter, Harding leaves the bathroom and offers another explanation. Somewhat frightened by Harding, the supervisor leaves.

Turkle, the patients, and their visitors resume partying. With Turkle’s drunken approval, they enter the nurse’s station and break into the drug cabinet in search of cough syrup, with which they spike the alcohol. Several patients review their records. Looking at Billy’s file, Candy tells him, “You don’t look like you have all these things” (260). McMurphy and Turkle laugh as they imagine what it would be like to have sex with the birthmarked nurse, suggesting that her religious and medical background would interfere. Turning off the lights, a few of the patients play games with the wheelchairs in the hallway.

While Sandy goes to the bathroom, Sefelt guards the door from one of the chronic patients who keeps leaving the dorm. Afterwards, Sefelt and Sandy dance. When Sefelt has a seizure, he calls for medication, while Sandy watches in awe. Harding returns with pills, which he sprinkles over Sefelt and Sandy while he makes a speech prophesying doom in the morning.

Shortly after four o’ clock, Billy and Candy go to the seclusion room to have sex. A few patients go to bed; the others return to the day room, intending to clean up, but they are too drunk to think clearly. Harding suggests that McMurphy escape the hospital with Sandy and Candy, leaving the patients to blame him for making the mess. McMurphy agrees and invites Harding and Bromden to come with him. They decline, wanting to look after the other patients and plan their own exits. McMurphy, trying to make sense of the hospital, asks Harding why it is the way it is. Harding explains that his sense of shame for being gay pushed him over the edge but adds that there is another cause of madness in men like McMurphy: “Us,” he says, pointing to the others.

McMurphy plans to sleep for an hour before leaving. He oversleeps, and the aides discover him in bed with Sandy the next morning. Ratched gathers the patients in the day room while she and the staff uncover evidence of the previous night’s activities. Sandy and Turkle, who is fired, manage to slip away, but McMurphy remains behind, too hungover to move.

One of the aides realizes that Billy is missing. Ratched leads a door-by-door search of the ward until she finds Billy in the seclusion room with Candy, whom he introduces without a stutter. Ratched expresses her disappointment, but Billy remains unfazed until she mentions his mother. At the mention of his mother, Billy’s stutter returns. Blaming McMurphy and Candy, he begs Ratched not to tell his mother what happened. She leads him away.

Spivey arrives and Ratched asks him to visit Billy. As he enters his office, Spivey cries out, finding that Billy cut his throat. Ratched immediately confronts McMurphy, blaming him for Cheswick and Billy’s deaths. After she returns to the nurse’s station, McMurphy rises and breaks the glass door. He then rips open Ratched’s uniform, revealing her breasts, and begins to strangle her. McMurphy gives a single desperate cry as the medical staff pry him away from Ratched.

Over the next few days, several patients check out of the hospital against the doctor’s recommendation or transfer to other wards. When Ratched returns a week later, she has bruises and bandages. Harding asks her what happened to McMurphy. Unable to speak, she writes a note saying that he will return. Although McMurphy’s influence is still felt everywhere, Ratched struggles to restore order in the ward. Harding checks out, and soon only three patients who went on the fishing trip are left, including Bromden.

Three weeks after McMurphy attacked Ratched, the aides wheel him in on a gurney and position him next to the chronic patients. McMurphy's face is expressionless, and his chart reveals that he underwent a lobotomy. Realizing that Ratched intends to use McMurphy as an example of the dangers of disobedience, Bromden does what he thinks McMurphy would want him to do: He strangles McMurphy in his bed that night. Scanlon, one of the remaining patients who went on the fishing trip, urges Bromden to leave before Ratched can retaliate. Bromden wonders how to get out, and Scanlon reminds him of McMurphy’s speculation that the control panel would be big enough to break through the wire mesh. Bromden lifts the panel, tosses it through the window, and then runs away in the same direction he saw the dog go weeks earlier. He hitches a ride and makes plans to visit the Columbia River gorge on his way to Canada.