Kevin O'Brien
VI Period 2
2/1/11
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
R.P. McMurphy is one of the two
protagonists in the book One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest, which was adapted to a motion picture. Though he doesn't
appear crazy as he seems, he turns out to be sly and dangerous. As soon as he
is instituted in a mental ward, he opens new doors to the other patients and
changes their lives for the common good. He is the spark in the war of control
between him and Nurse Ratched, the head nurse and the main antagonist of the
story. In both the book and movie, McMurphy's presence around the other
patients and the staff build the advantage he needs to win the fight. He made
an even bigger impact of change on the deaf narrator, Chief Bromden. He may
have met his demise in the end of it all, but that doesn't question the victory
he has achieved in this war.
Life in the main setting
of the story, a small mental ward, is normal to everyone else. Nurse Ratched
holds regular routines for her patients, the acutes argue with one another, the
chronics sit and vegetate for a long time, and there's no sign of happiness
whatsoever. As soon as McMurphy was transferred into the establishment, he
gains attention from almost every patient in the ward. He gives the ward
completely new options of having fun. To start, he begins his own card table
and gets his new followers playing Blackjack, when they were so used to playing
Pinochle. McMurphy gets people motivated and work together when he starts a
basketball team against the ward members. On an unexpected fishing trip,
without the guidance or permission of anyone in authority, the patients learn
from their new Christ-like character how to enjoy their freedom outside the
institution, no strings attached. Before escaping the hospital, McMurphy
decides to throw a party late at night to celebrate his finest hour. He lets
his friends drink and be merry while all the staff members are home, and while the
night orderly, Mr. Turkle, drinks himself to sleep. McMurphy's arrival turned
the calm relaxing mental home into a nonstop funhouse.
Although everyone is
impressed with the changes that McMurphy has to offer, Nurse Ratched will stop
at nothing to gain order in her ward. Her unfair techniques as a “rigged game”,
such as denying any of McMurphy's requests, keep him from gaining control of
the ward. But that doesn't stand in the way of his bet: to drive her crazy to
the point where she “won't know when to [crap] herself or wind her wristwatch.”
At one of the group's therapy sessions, McMurphy places a vote to see a game
during the World Series, which Miss Ratched denies. He decides to look at a
blank television, pretending to watch the game as everyone else joins him. This
upsets Ratched that she has to send him to Head Dr. Spivey. As she tries to
settle down a tempered Cheswick, McMurphy helps his friend reach is demands by
breaking into the nurse's desk and take out cigarettes for him, which forces
the nurse to send him and Cheswick to the disturbed ward. McMurphy's last stand
happens after Billy Bibbit is found dead in the doctor's office. He blames her
for Billy's death, and for that, he strangles her throat, damaging her vocal
chords, only to be sent for a lobotomy. It may not be in the book or the movie
that McMurphy won the fight in reality, but he still won the bet to loosen the
nurse's ratchets.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy came to the patients as
the Jesus Christ of the story. After so many weeks or months in the ward he
changed the behaviors of the patients forever. He helped Charlie Cheswick get
what he wants with the courage he always lacked. Cheswick used to act like a
child, playing gimp, and cried whenever he was upset or afraid of something
like speaking in front of a circle. Knowing McMurphy for a while, he suddenly asks
Miss Ratched questions he would never ask. He asked if the group could do
another vote for going to the baseball game, and he asked for his cigarettes,
which later sparks his temper tantrum. Another poor soul that McMurphy helps is
Billy Bibbit, a young shy patient with an extreme speech deficiency. He
holds the terrifying memory when he first tempted suicide over a girl he asked
to marry but said no. Like the other acutes, he is a voluntary patient and he
can leave when he wants to. The only problem for him is that he doesn't have
the urge to step outside the ward. To help drop Billy's fear of women, McMurphy
lets him sleep with Candy the night he was supposed to escape, by doing so,
Billy is unashamed of what he did. Unfortunately after being brought down by
Ratched's threat of calling his mother he boils and succeeds his second attempt
at suicide. McMurphy's impact on the few patients he interacted with show the
others that they are brave enough to walk out of the hospital, and not be
“crazier than any [jerk] on the street.”
Chief
Bromden is the second main protagonist in the story, and he serves as the main
narrator in the book. With a body big and strong, he appears deaf and dumb to
everyone in the ward, but he starts talking to McMurphy once he offers him
Juicy Fruit. In the beginning, Chief was always inactive and never wanted
attention from anyone. His new friend gets him involved with the other patients
in many situations, like being the last vote in the ongoing poll for the
baseball game, as well as playing basketball on McMurphy's team. He even planed
on escaping with McMurphy to Canada. After finding out that his savior for a
friend is now a mindless vegetable after his lobotomy, Chief could not escape
without him, nor could he let anyone know what happened to him. He sacrifices
McMurphy's life and grants both their freedom both spiritually and physically
by smashing the window with the fountain. McMurphy helped Chief see confidence
in him and helped him escape for the sake of his future.
R.P.
McMurphy had entered the ward as a prisoner, as well a sign of hope to the
patients. He left as a free-minded spirit and a hero to a society unsociable.
In a few weeks, he outsmarted a wicked dictator and her organized routines by
turning her patients into his disciples. Because of McMurphy, patients now play
blackjack, Nurse Ratched is nice to her patients and she talks to them without
her bewitching looks, and a docile half-Indian now runs amok in the real world,
hoping to find a place where he can live in peace. Unable to seek freedom as a
human, or a tool by God, he is able to win the war through death and through
the legacy he left in the ward.
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