Checking Out One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, is a classic novel about imprisonment, institutionalization, and the limits of the human mind. It is set in an asylum in Oregon and narrated by an inmate, the subdued half Native-American called Chief Bromden.
The action begins when a new inmate is introduced to the ruthlessly efficient workings of the asylum. Randle Patrick McMurphy faked mental disorder so that he could serve out his prison sentence in a mental car facility. He immediately antagonizes the head of the asylum, Nurse Ratched, a woman who rules the asylum, her assistants and the assistant doctors, with an iron fist.
In a matter of weeks, McMurphy has turned the cold order of the asylum upside down. He comments on Nurse Ratched’s figure, he organizes card games and gets the World Series played on the ward television. He teaches the men to stand up for themselves and to attempt to wrest control from Nurse Ratched. He even inspires Chief Bromden, previously thought mute, to speak. Even after the two have undergone electroconvulsive shock therapy together, McMurphy remains unfazed.
The final straw occurs when McMurphy bribes an orderly to overlook the arrival of a pair of prostitutes and liquor. He intends to allow a shy, stuttering inmate named Billy to lose his virginity without the knowledge of Nurse Ratched, but in the morning, the nurse comes in to find the ward in disorder, and Billy sleeping with a prostitute. When Billy answers the nurse without stuttering, she threatens to tell his mother what she saw. This leads directly to Billy’s suicide. When she blames McMurphy for Billy’s suicide, McMurphy attempts to strangle her, tearing at her clothes and exposing her breasts as he does so.
For this crime, McMurphy is removed to another ward, but Nurse Ratched’s power over the inmates is broken forever. The inmates begin to leave or are transferred, save for Chief Bromden and a few others, and they are the only ones to see McMurphy’s return. McMurphy has been lobotomized for the attack on Ratched and lives now only in a completely vegetative state. In a act of mercy, Chief Bromden smothers McMurphy with a pillow before escaping the ward forever.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the theme of insanity, and how valid that label might be. McMurphy is ostensibly in the ward because he tricked the court into sending him to a hospital instead of a prison; on the other hand he also acts recklessly and defies authority at every turn, even when he knows that lying low is the better option. On the other hand, Chief Bromden, who is a long-term inmate of the ward, seems perfectly reasoned and calm, even when mercy killing a man he considers his friend.
Similarly, the novel also deals with the theme of male reactions to female control. One thing that Kesey routinely brings up is the conflict and tension between the female Nurse Ratched and the male inmates. Nurse Ratched herself also represents control and censorious forces, while McMurphy also represents chaos and lawlessness.