Chapter summary for One flew over the Cuckoos Nest
Part One:
Chapter One:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is narrated by Chief Bromden (also known as Chief Broom), a mute Indian known for mopping the mental institution where he is confined. The black boys in white suits who work in the ward mock Chief Broom; they think that he is deaf and dumb and cannot hear them. Nurse Ratched (also known as Big Nurse) enters. Her lips and her fingernails are both a funny colour of orange, and she carries a woven wicker bag filled with pills, needles, wire and forceps. She moves with precise, automatic gestures. Her face is smooth and calculated, but she has large breasts that seem out of place. She orders the black boys to shave Chief Bromden, who quickly disappears. As he hides, he thinks about his father and the Columbia River. One of the black boys finds him, and they start to shave him. He hallucinates that there is an Air Raid and that the fog machine starts again.
Chapter Two:
When the fog clears, Chief Bromden realizes that he hasn't been taken to the 'Shock Shop' for electroshock treatment. An escort brings in another patient for admission. Nurse Ratched orders the new patient to get a shower. This patient, Randall Patrick McMurphy, jokes about how every place he goes, whether the courthouse or the jail, he has to have a shower. He introduces himself as a 'gambling fool' and takes out a pack of cards. He tells them that he has come from the Pendleton. Cheswick, another patient, gathers McMurphy's cards. McMurphy has red hair, and wears pants and a shirt from a work-farm, as well as a leather jacket. McMurphy brags that he's a psychopath.
Chapter Three:
The younger patients, known as Acutes because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed, practice arm wrestling. Billy Bibbit tries to roll a cigarette, while Martini walks around. The Chronics are in the hospital for good, whether Walkers, like Chief Broom, for Vegetables. Some of the Chronics were once Acutes, but got fouled up by electroshock therapy. Ruckly and Ellis are Chronics who were once Acute, but suffered greatly from shock treatment. Now Ruckly can only say "fffffuck da wife" in a low, disturbing tone. Colonel Matterson is the oldest chronic, a World War I veteran, but Chief Broom has been there the longest. McMurphy goes around to the Acutes, asking which one is the craziest, the bull goose loony. Billy Bibbit, a young man who stutters, introduces McMurphy to Harding, the president of the patient's council. Harding is a flat, nervous man, a college graduate. McMurphy tells Harding that there isn't room enough for two bull goose loonies, and McMurphy will be it. They compete to show their lunacy by claiming to vote for Eisenhower. McMurphy introduces himself to everybody, even the Chronics, and asks Chief Bromden what his story is. Harding tells McMurphy that Bromden is only half Indian, and that he's deaf and dumb. Nurse Ratched summons McMurphy, and tells him that he must take his admission shower, for everybody must follow the rules. He says that's what everyone tells him as soon as they figure he's about to do the exact opposite.
Chapter Four:
Nurse Ratched prepares hypodermic needles as a nurse asks her opinion of McMurphy. She claims McMurphy is a manipulator who will use everyone and everything to his own ends. She claims that sometimes a manipulator's own ends are the actual disruption of the ward. The nurse, Miss Flinn, asks what his motive would be, but Nurse Ratched reminds her that his is an insane asylum. Chief Bromden notes how Nurse Ratched his complete control of the staff of the ward, which he calls the Combine. Even the doctors are obedient to her. She chooses the black boys for their hate. The black boys soon come closer to Nurse Ratched's frequency and need no instructions. Each morning Nurse Ratched dispenses medications. Mr. Taber demands to know what is in his medication, but she refuses to say. Instead she says that there are means to take the medicine other than orally. The black boys force him to take the medicine. Chief Bromden claims that the ward is a place to fix mistakes made in the neighborhoods, the schools and the churches.
Chapter Five:
Nurse Ratched calls a meeting for the ward. She interrupts Pete Bancini, who complains that he is tired, and tells the black boys to quiet him. Nobody will look at Nurse Ratched except for McMurphy, who still has his cap and deck of cards. Nurse Ratched starts the meeting by examining Harding's problems. She reiterates how Harding is concerned about his well-endowed young wife and the attention she receives, as well as his own feelings of inferiority. Nurse Ratched asks for comments, and McMurphy raises his hand. He introduces himself as a Korea veteran dishonorably discharged for insubordination and convicted for statutory rape. McMurphy argues with Dr. Spivey about who was the aggressor in that case, him or the young girl. Dr. Spivey questions whether McMurphy is merely a sane man feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of farm work. Nurse Ratched tells McMurphy the theory of the Therapeutic Community, how a person has to learn to get along in a group before he will be able to function in a normal society. Bancini claims that he's tired once again. He is a fifty year old man who has been a Chronic all of his life; his brain was damaged during childbirth. Nurse Ratched orders the black boys to take him for treatment after he starts ranting and raving. After the meeting, McMurphy asks if the meeting procedure is always like a 'pecking party,' but Harding defends Nurse Ratched. He claims that she is a strict middle-aged lady, but no monster. McMurphy tells Harding that Ratched has him by the balls. Harding claims that Nurse Ratched is a 'veritable angel of mercy' who is 'unselfish as the wind' but finally admits that McMurphy is right, but nobody has come out and say it before. Harding relates how Dr. Spivey is exactly like the patients, afraid of Nurse Ratched, and is also addicted to Demerol. Harding compares the patients to rabbits who cannot adjust to their rabbithood and need a strong wolf like Nurse Ratched to teach them their place. McMurphy tells the men that they are not crazy at all. Harding relates the tools that Ratched uses to gain submission from the patients, including domination and even electroshock therapy (EST). McMurphy bets the patients that he can get Nurse Ratched to show some vulnerability within a week.
Chapter Six:
Bromden relates how Nurse Ratched can set the wall clock at whatever speed she chooses just by turning a dial in the door. She generally slows things down. The speakers on the ceiling are playing music loudly, so McMurphy complains to Harding, who explains that they hear music nearly all the time, and never the news because that might not be therapeutic. McMurphy goes into the Nurses' Station to complain, and one of the nurses, Miss Pilbow, tells him to stay back, since she is a Catholic (she thinks that McMurphy is a sex maniac). He is merely picking up a watering can that the nurse dropped. McMurphy realizes that Chief Bromden is not deaf, because he jumps whenever McMurphy claims that one of the black boys is coming for him.
Chapter Seven:
For the first time in a long while Chief Bromden goes to sleep without taking the little red capsule usually given to him. That night Chief Bromden sees the workers lifting up Blasctic, one of the Vegetables, onto a hook and slicing him open with a scalpel. No blood comes out, only glass, rust and ashes. Bromden thinks of waking up everyone, but thinks that the workers would do the same to him. Public Relation looks at Blastic and laughs as other strange things occur. Mr. Turkle pulls Bromden out of the fog, telling him that he was having a bad dream.
Chapter Eight:
The next morning, McMurphy is awake early, singing. Most of the people on the ward have not heard singing in years. Bromden wonders why the black boys let him make such news, but realizes that McMurphy is different. He may be as vulnerable, but the Combine didn't get to him. McMurphy asks for toothpaste to brush his teeth, but the black boy tells him that it's ward policy to have the toothpaste locked up, only to be used at a certain time. McMurphy mocks the black boys question "what would it be like if everybody was to brush their teeth whenever they felt like it?" Nurse Ratched arrives and the black boy tells him how Blastic died the night before and how McMurphy has been confrontational. Nurse Ratched hears McMurphy singing. He steps out of the shower in a towel and stands in front of her. She tells him he can't run around here in a towel, and he prepares to drop it (he had shorts on the entire time). He tells her that someone stole his clothes. She screams at Mr. Washington, one of the black boys, ordering him to get McMurphy a new set of clothes.
Chapter Nine:
McMurphy clowns around during breakfast, embarrassing Billy Bibbit by claiming that Billy is known as "Billy Club" Bibbit of the famous fourteen inches. McMurphy bets the other patients that he can fling a dab of butter in the center of the face of the clock. He appears to miss, but the butter slides down to the clock, hitting the face. McMurphy complains to Nurse Ratched about the music, but she tells him that he is being selfish, for there are older men who couldn't hear the radio at all if it were lower, and the music is all that they have. He suggests that the patients be allowed to take their card games someplace else, such as the room where the tables are stored, but she tells him that they do not have adequate personnel for two day rooms. McMurphy has an interview with the doctor, and during the daily meeting the doctor tells the patients that he and McMurphy went to the same high school, and were reminiscing about the school's carnivals. He suggests a similar carnival for the ward. The patients reluctantly like the idea. Nurse Ratched tells the doctor that an idea like this should be discussed in a staff meeting first. Dr. Spivey also mentions how McMurphy was concerned that the older fellows couldn't hear the radio. When Dr. Spivey mentioned that the younger men complained about the noise, McMurphy then suggested opening a second day room, a game room. Dr. Spivey believes that there is sufficient staff to cover two rooms. When they return to the normal business of the meeting, Nurse Ratched's hands seem to shake. Chief Bromden thinks that she shows weakness or worry, but realizes that this makes no difference, for she has the Combine behind her.
Chapter Ten:
McMurphy plays Monopoly with Harding, Martini, Scanlon and Cheswick. Martini hallucinates, thinking that he sees things on the board.
Chapter Eleven:
McMurphy keeps high-class manners around the nurses and black boys in spite of what they might say to him, in spite of every trick they pull to get him to lose his temper. McMurphy begins to see how funny the rules are. McMurphy will be safe as long as he can laugh. Only once does he become angry: at one of the group meetings, he becomes angry at the other patients for acting too cagey and 'chicken-shit.' McMurphy had wanted to change the schedule around so that the men could watch the World Series during the day and do the cleaning work at night. McMurphy expects the nurses to oppose him, but does not expect the Acutes to not say a thing. McMurphy attempts to round up a vote for a schedule change, but they fail to see the use in doing anything. He confronts Harding, for he believes his failure to support McMurphy indicates that he is afraid of Nurse Ratched. Billy Bibbit claims that nothing they could do will be of any use in the long run. McMurphy claims that he's going to break out of the institution by lifting up the control panel in the tub room and throwing it through the window. He tries to lift it, but it weighs far too much.
Chapters Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen:
Public Relation shows a visiting doctor the institution, and has him examine Chief Bromden. Public Relation claims that there would have to be something wrong with a man who would want to run away from a place as nice as this. The fog gets worse for Chief Bromden, who thinks that McMurphy cannot understand that the fog does keep the patients safe. One of the patients, Old Rawler, kills himself.
Chapter Fifteen:
Bromden relates how the fog machine operates. It is the same as the fog machines he saw during the war, which obscured the surroundings so that nobody could see anything in front of him. Bromden would get lost in the fog and always find himself at the same place. Chief Bromden waits for Nurse Ratched to fog them in again, for they are doing it more and more because McMurphy has nearly roused Cheswick and Harding to the point where they may actually stand up to the black boys. Nurse Ratched discusses with a doctor whether or not McMurphy should be on the ward, for he is upsetting the patients. During the therapeutic meeting, they try to talk about how Billy Bibbit's stutter came about. Billy tells about how he flunked out of college because he quit ROTC when he couldn't answer to his own name, and recalls that the first word that he stuttered was 'mama.' Bromden watches Colonel Matterson ramble on about how "the flag is America" and "the cross is Mexico." Billy continues to talk about his stuttering, telling about how he flubbed a proposal to a girl because he stuttered. Nurse Ratched tells him how his mother spoke about the girl to whom he proposed; this girl was quite beneath him. McMurphy brings up the World Series again, and Nurse Ratched reluctantly allows one more vote on the matter. McMurphy rouses all twenty Acutes to vote for him, but Nurse Ratched claims that this is insufficient, for none of the Chronics vote for him. McMurphy attempts to rouse at least one Chronic to vote for a schedule change, but none respond to anything he says. Finally McMurphy approaches Chief Bromden, who raises his hand. Unfortunately, Nurse Ratched claims that the vote was decided and the meeting is closed. An hour later, it is time for the Series; McMurphy stops work and turns on the television. Nurse Ratched becomes angry and turns off the television from the controls in the Nurses' Station, but McMurphy remains there. Finally Nurse Ratched approaches him and scolds him for not obeying her. Mr. Harding sits down beside McMurphy, and Cheswick, Scanlon, Billy Bibbit and the other Acutes join him. Chief Bromden himself joins them by the television.