One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

This novel is set in a mental institution in Portland, Western United States, in the 1950s. Chief Bromden, an inmate, and `half American-Indian,’ pretending to be deaf and dumb, narrates the change wrought upon a sterile and neatly ordered establishment by Randle McMurphy, a gregarious conman who has been transferred to the sanatorium from a prison work farm.

McMurphy is up against `Big Nurse’ Ratched, a 50-year-old former army nurse and ruler of the institution. Providing the inmates order and insulation she gets in return conformity and control. The spell is broken for the first time when a `vote’ is taken about whether to watch a baseball game on TV. Ratched, opposed to the idea, finds that she has a revolt on her hands.

Voluntary residents most of them, the inmates have compromised their independence for security. First sceptical of McMurphy’s ability and willingness to confront the `Big Nurse’ and the established order, they sway this way and that before finally casting their lot with the rebel, who is committed to the place and can leave only at the discretion of the staff.

Confrontations become the norm, with each rebellion inviting subtle and overt reprisals. For a while, even while Ratched and McMurphy are having a go at each other, they try to maintain an outward appearance of courtesy, not wanting to cede the moral high-ground. For Ratched, this high-ground is the basis of her authority over those hiding what they think are dark secrets and for McMurphy, a defence against overt and severe reprisals that could be justified by the rule book.

The gloves come off when McMurphy and Chief Bromden beat up Ratched’s aides for needling one of the inmates. The `Big Nurse’ orders electric shock therapy for both as `treatment’ for aggressive behaviour.

The last straw is a party McMurphy organises for the inmates in the middle of the night, complete with booze, sex and marijuana. The semi-intoxicated lot are found in lying in a heap the next morning. Among the group and newly divested of his virginity is Billy Bibbit, mamma’s boy, mamma being a close friend of Ratched. Rather than confront mother with his guilt, Billy Bibbit takes his life.

Ratched promptly transfers the blame for his death on McMurphy, whose regard for the rule-book has now waned considerably. He lunges for the `Big Nurse’ and rips out the front of her dress. In return, Ratched lops off a portion of McMurphy’s brain considered responsible for aggressive and violent behaviour. The once proud and boisterous man is returned to his ward a vegetable.

Rather than allow the `Big Nurse’ a half-dead exhibit that could deter potential rebels, Chief Bromden suffocates McMurphy and escapes from the institution.

One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest confronts the insecurity and hypocrisy that is the basis of almost all human interactions. The expression of identity happens not from one’s self, but from the subjugation of the other. The half-Indian Bromden, dragged out of his roots by a dominant culture, best exemplifies this desire for control and domination. The mental asylum and its occupants are but a microcosm of society, especially American society of the 1950s.