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... level. Kesey constructs One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as a struggle between a number of conflicting values that Mc Murphy and Nurse Ratched represent, such as freedom, sexuality, rational choice for the former and authoritarianism, repression and determinism for the latter. Nurse Ratched's willing perpetuation of the struggle indicates that she is herself aware of one of at least one of these conflicts. The patients love that Mc Murphy "got the nurse's goat the way he said he would. " Mc Murphy becomes more bold and aggressive, even asking Nurse Ratched the measurements on those breasts she does her best to conceal. However, Nurse Ratched does not lose control again.
Bromden thinks that Mc Murphy may be strong enough to not be defeated by the Combine. Chief Bromden awakes one night to find the ward clean and silent. He gets up and walks over to the window and looks outside. For the first time he realizes how the hospital is out in the country. He watches a dog sniffing around outside until Gender, one of the black boys, and the Catholic nurse put Chief Bromden back in bed.
Chief Bromden thinks about how this nurse goes home and tries to scrub her birthmark away and feels guilty about how a good Catholic girl has these stains. Kesey deals with the theme of sexuality versus repression once again in this chapter, as demonstrated by Mc Murphy's question to Nurse Ratched about her breasts and the observations about the Catholic nurse. The observations about the Catholic nurse demonstrate the detrimental effects of such repression; unlike the tightly corseted Nurse Ratched, this nurse demonstrates an intense feeling of guilt about her sexuality. Kesey describes this almost entirely in metaphorical terms of "stains, " with obvious sexual connotations.
These various episodes indicate that the conflict between Mc Murphy and Nurse Ratched may exist primarily on sexual grounds of repression versus sensuality. Although Mc Murphy becomes more bold and seemingly authoritative in this chapter, Nurse Ratched remains calm and reassured, for she knows that she has control over the situation in the long term. She can determine what happens to Mc Murphy and whether or not he is ever released from the asylum, and thus can tolerate any short-term challenges to her power. Kesey demonstrates the change in Chief Bromden in this chapter, when the character awakes and watches the dog outside the window.
This shows that Chief Bromden is now more aware of the outside world. He can conceive of existence outside of the institution, as he could not before. Mc Murphy is the primary cause of this change. In the group meetings the other patients bring up longstanding gripes that they had not mentioned for so long. They complain about how the dorms are locked on the weekends, how they are not allowed to go to OT or PT alone, and how they do not have the right to have their own cigarettes.
Mc Murphy notes that Nurse Ratched acts as if she still holds all of the cards up her sleeve. Then, when the patients make their weekly trip to the pool, Mc Murphy learns that she in fact does. While in the pool Mc Murphy discusses with a lifeguard how the hospital is better than a jail, but the lifeguard tells him that, at least in jail a person has a definite release date. The lifeguard, who is a patient, tells Mc Murphy that he was picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct and has been in the institution for nearly nine years. The next day Mc Murphy surprises everyone by behaving well.
That afternoon, in the group meeting Cheswick complains about how he wants something done about the cigarettes, and whines that they are treating him like a child. Two black boys drag him away to the Disturbed Ward. Mc Murphy does not say a thing during the meeting; he has given in because it is the smart thing to do. The next time that the inmates go to the pool, Cheswick immediately dives in the pool after telling Mc Murphy that he wishes something had been done. He gets his fingers stuck in the grate at the bottom of the pool and drowns. Kesey indicates in this chapter the effect that Mc Murphy has had on the other men in the institution.
Because of Mc Murphy, these men begin to reassert their rights against Nurse Ratched. However, there is a critical difference between Cheswick's complaints and Mc Murphy's conscious rebellion, for Cheswick cannot modulate his complaints. He refuses cease his complaints even when it places him in danger. Although Kesey leaves the actual chronology of the events unclear, he indicates that the black boys took Cheswick to Disturbed to administer shock treatment. This in turn may have rendered Cheswick incoherent, with the subsequent effect that he makes the foolish error of getting his hands stuck in the grate in the swimming pool. Kesey also allows the strong possibility that Cheswick's action is suicidal, for his death occurs almost immediately after he jumps in the pool.
Cheswick's death demonstrates the more disturbing consequences of the clarity Mc Murphy instills in the other patients. The patients regain the ability to assert themselves and make choices, but they also must face the effects of these decisions. Mc Murphy shows himself to be a pragmatist in this chapter when he concedes to Nurse Ratched and follows her orders. Mc Murphy's rebelled against Nurse Ratched partially because he did not foresee that she could control his dismissal from the institution. This power, as earlier established, gave Nurse Ratched the confidence that she could 'break' Mc Murphy, and Mc Murphy's change in behavior in this chapter demonstrates that her confidence is well-founded. Sefelt, an epileptic, has a seizure during lunch because he refused to take his medication.
Sefelt has been giving his medication to Frederickson. Mc Murphy asks Frederickson why Sefelt refuses to take his medicine, Dilantin, and he answers that Dilantin makes one's gums rot. Sefelt must make a choice between having his gums rot or having seizures. A black boy removes two of Sefelt's teeth, as Scanlon mentions that you " re "damned if you do and damned if you don't. " In this chapter, Kesey emphasizes the difficulty of the choices that the patients must make.
Sefelt chooses not to take his medicine because it causes his gums to rot. However, because Sefelt refuses to take his medicine he has seizures, which cause him to lose his teeth. Sefelt's choice is thus essentially between bad teeth or bad gums. This illustrates the fatalist attitude of the novel, as exemplified by Scanlon's glib "damned if you do and damned if you don't" observation. The clean, calculated movement returns to the ward, as Nurse Ratched reassumes her complete control over the function and operation of the institution. This paragraph-long chapter marks the change in the ward after Mc Murphy gives up his struggle against Nurse Ratched.
She once again reasserts her control over the rest of the patients, for Mc Murphy knows that to oppose her is to ensure that he will never leave the ward. Chief Bromden goes with the Acutes to the library. One of the black boys brings Harding's wife into the library. She is as tall as he is and carries a black purse; her fingernails are blood red. Harding introduces Mc Murphy to his "counterpart and Nemesis. " Harding tells his wife, Vera, how Mc Murphy stood up to Nurse Ratched. She scolds her husband for making a mousy squeak when he laughs.
This comment makes Harding nervous and jumpy. Vera then asks for a cigarette, and Harding tells her how the cigarettes have been rationed. This causes a fight between Harding and his wife when she asks whether he ever does have enough. He asks her whether she is speaking symbolically. Mc Murphy offers her a cigarette, and she leans forward to take it so that everyone can see down her blouse. Vera complains that Harding's friends, "hot-today boys with the nice long hair combed so perfectly and the limp little wrists, " keep visiting the house to see him.
She suddenly decides to leave. Harding asks Mc Murphy what he thinks of her, and he replies that she has breasts as big as Nurse Ratched's. Mc Murphy gets angry when Harding asks for a more serious answer, telling him that he has worries of his own and he doesn't want to deal with Harding's. Later Mc Murphy admits that he has been suffering from bad dreams the past week.
The confrontation between Harding and his wife centers almost entirely around their sexual problems. Vera Harding serves as an interesting juxtaposition with Nurse Ratched; while Big Nurse is repressed and cold, Vera Harding is imposing in her sexuality. Her blood red fingernails are a complement and contrast to Nurse Ratched's icy orange polish. Vera Harding intimidates her husband with her sexuality, as when she leans over to get a cigarette so that the other patients can see down her blouse and complains about her husband's inadequacies, which he perceives to be a sexual metaphor. Vera additionally questions her husband's sexuality, as when she mentions the boys with "limp wrists" who visit their home. This seems to support the idea that Harding is a closeted homosexual, but Vera may be using this idea as a tactic to humiliate her husband by playing on his sexual anxieties.
Mc Murphy demonstrates some strain in this chapter; he seems to weary of acting as the leader and authority figure for the men on the ward when he refuses to give his appraisal of the problems between Harding and his wife. Mc Murphy is under some psychological strain, likely caused by worry that he will never be able to leave the institution. Several weeks after the patients voted on the World Series, the patients are taken to another building to get chest X-rays for TB. Mc Murphy sees a room that is unmarked, and asks Harding that is going on in there. He tells him that the room is the Shock Shop. Although Harding says that they are witnessing the sunset of EST, Nurse Ratched is one of the few remaining advocates of it.
Harding claims that EST isn't always used for punitive means, but rather is for a patient's own good. Harding relates the history of EST, how it came about when two psychiatrists were visiting a slaughterhouse and watched how a blow to the head would induce an epileptic convulsion in a cow, and concluded that if a seizure could be induced in non-epileptics, great benefits might result. Harding claims that the process is painless, but the jolt sets off a wild carnival of images. Harding also mentions lobotomy, which he calls "frontal lobe castration. " He says that if Ratched "can't cut below the belt she " ll do it above the eyes. " Mc Murphy says that if Nurse Ratched is truly the patients' problem, the solution is to throw her down and solve her sex worries. The other patients propose that Mc Murphy do the job. He asks the other patients why they didn't tell him that Nurse Ratched controls whether or not he can leave.
Harding says that he forgot that Mc Murphy was committed. Harding tells him that most of the patients are not committed, only Scanlon and some of the Chronic's. Mc Murphy asks why Billy is here if he's not committed, for he should be ought in a convertible, "bird-dogging girls. " Billy claims that he is too weak to leave, and likes it there, then begins to cry as the scars on his wrist open and begin to bleed. Kesey describes the processes of electroshock therapy and lobotomies in great detail in this chapter, thus foreshadowing their future use in the story. He makes the important point that it is Nurse Ratched who uses these methods and that it is not always for punitive means; nevertheless, this does allow the possibility that these methods can be used as punishment. Kesey also employs lobotomies as a metaphor for sexual crippling, as when Harding calls it "frontal lobe castration. " The conversation between Mc Murphy and Harding once again defines the opposition between Mc Murphy and Ratched on sexual terms.
Nurse Ratched can use lobotomies as the equivalent of castration, while Harding suggests sex as the cure for Nurse Ratched's repression and control. This emphasizes the role of Mc Murphy as a sexual liberator. Kesey once again engages in Freudian theories concerning Billy Bibbit, whose mother seems to control his actions, rendering him weak and, at least symbolically, impotent. Kesey even makes the link between Mrs. Bibbit and Nurse Ratched when Billy claims that the two women are close friends. Nurse Ratched thus serves as a symbolic mother-figure in the novel able to manipulate Billy Bibbit's weaknesses and insecurities.
This particular vulnerability will become important in future chapters. The theme of personal choice reappears in this chapter, as Mc Murphy realizes that most of the patients have made the choice to remain in the institution. Only he and a small number are actually committed; the others remain under Nurse Ratched's control out of fear or habit. This differentiates Mc Murphy from the other patients; he is sane because he has the ability to make rational choices, while the other patients are marked as insane by their refusal to make this choice. The other patients calm Billy as the patients return to the ward. Chief Bromden walks beside Mc Murphy, and can tell that he is afflicted with some great worry.
Mc Murphy asks Sam, one of the black boys, if he can stop by the canteen to get cigarettes. At the canteen, Mc Murphy buys several cartons. During the meeting that afternoon, Nurse Ratched brings up their behavior several weeks ago. She claims that she waited to long to deal with it to give the men a chance to apologize.
She claims that her discipline is entirely for their own good, and tells them that she is taking away tub room privileges. Mc Murphy doesn't say a thing. He stands up and walks with his normal swagger to the Nurses's tation and punches the glass to get his cigarettes. He sarcastically says that the glass was so clean that he completely forgot it was there. Nurse Ratched reasserts her control over the institution in this chapter, behaving as a mother figure who dominates the men in the chapter. She speaks to them in utterly condescending terms, even referring to them as "boys" and treating them as children who cannot accept any sense of responsibility.
Having treated these men with such great disrespect, Mc Murphy responds with a similar impudence. When he breaks the glass, this is the first completely aggressive action that he takes against Nurse Ratched. This brings the confrontation between the two characters to the fore, as Mc Murphy takes a stand for the rights of the patients while risking the possibility that he may never be released from the institution. Mc Murphy had things his way for a while after that incident. Nurse Ratched is in no hurry to retaliate, because she knows she can prolong the fight as long as she wishes. Mc Murphy gets together a basketball team and talks the doctor into letting him bring a ball back from the gym to get the team used to handling it.
Mc Murphy requests an Accompanied Pass; he wants to be accompanied by "a switch from Portland named Candy Starr. " When this request is turned down, Mc Murphy breaks the glass again. The other Acutes begin to follow Mc Murphy's lead in behaving aggressively. Martini even accidentally bounces the basketball into the window, breaking it a third time. Mc Murphy then decides that fishing is the thing to do. He requests a pass after telling the doctor he had some friends at the Siuslaw Bay at Florence who could take several patients deep-sea fishing. He would be accompanied by "two sweet old aunts from a little place outside of Oregon City. " Mc Murphy begins recruiting patients to go, but Nurse Ratched puts up clippings about wrecked boats and sudden storms on the coast.
Chief Bromden wants to go, but does not have the money and doesn't want Nurse Ratched to think that he can hear others. Chief Bromden remembers that he didn't start acting deaf; it was others who started acting as if he were too dumb to hear or see anything. Chief Bromden reminisces about his childhood, when men in Stetson hats who visit the Indian reservation where he lived. These men insulted the Indians in front of Bromden, but when he attempts to speak up they ignore him.
These men discuss how the chief married a woman from town and took her name, Bromden. One night Mc Murphy finds Chief Bromden awake and talks to him. He wonders where he gets his chewing gum, for Chief Bromden never visits the canteen, but realizes he chews already used gum. Mc Murphy gives Chief Bromden a new pack of Juicy Fruit, and tries to actually speak the words thank you. Mc Murphy tells Chief Bromden how he once had a job picking beans. Since he was the only kid, Mc Murphy never said a word, but he listened intently and, on the last day, revealed all that he heard and created a disturbance.
Mc Murphy wonders if Chief Bromden is doing the same thing, but he admits to Mc Murphy that he couldn't tell anyone off like Mc Murphy, because he isn't as big or as tough. Chief Bromden claims that his father was a full Chief, Tee Ah Millatoona (The Pine That Stands Tallest on the Mountain), but his mother was twice his size. Chief Bromden says that the Combine worked on his father for years, but his father fought it until his mother made him too little to fight anymore. Chief Bromden wants to touch Mc Murphy, not because he's "one of those queers, " but because of who he is. Mc Murphy offers to let Chief Bromden go on the fishing trip for free, then wonders if Chief Bromden could lift the control panel in the tub room, and suggests that he break out of the institution.
Mc Murphy becomes more bold in this chapter, erroneously believing that Nurse Ratched's failure to retaliate against him indicates that he has won, but Nurse Ratched refuses to respond to Mc Murphy's aggressive stance, confident that she will inevitably break him. Mc Murphy's behavior seems in fact a tactical error, for his aggression does not promote self-sufficiency among the patients but instead insubordination. Nurse Ratched essentially gives Mc Murphy this latitude to allow him to make a grievous error. Still, the conflict between the two characters remains on a muted level, as shown by Nurse Ratched's subtle undermining of the fishing trip by putting up clippings of news stories. Chief Bromden's stories about his childhood demonstrate that he, like Harding and Billy Bibbit, suffers to some degree from a domineering female figure. Like Billy Bibbit, Chief Bromden is intimidated by his mother, whom he describes as "twice as tall" as his father, who was himself a large man.
Chief Bromden indicates that his mother dominated both him and his father, contributing to the problems that both faced. It is from his father that Chief Bromden developed the idea of the Combine. The story that Chief Bromden tells Mc Murphy contributes a great deal to a psychological analysis of the character. He appears to be deaf and dumb primarily because he has been intimidated by others around him, whether callous inspectors or his domineering mother. Yet Chief Bromden reasserts himself once Mc Murphy shows him some degree of kindness and respect. Chief Bromden is perhaps the best example that Kesey gives of the beneficial effect that Mc Murphy has on the patients in the institution.
Kesey foreshadows later even when Mc Murphy discusses the control panel in the tub room. He gives Chief Bromden the idea that he might be able to lift the control panel and throw it through the window, allowing an escape. The one question that remains is what will motivate Chief Bromden to undertake this action. Chief Bromden eagerly awaits the deep-sea fishing trip.
He sees that Mc Murphy signed his name on the list; the black boys wonder who signed Chief Bromden's name, for they believe that Indians aren't able to read or write. Mc Murphy wakes up the others on the ward, trying to gather one more person to go on the trip. George Sorenson, a big, toothless old Swede with a compulsion about sanitation, agrees to go. He was once a fisherman.
Nurse Ratched arrives and attempts to scare the patients once more about the dangers on the ocean. Still, George remains resolved to go, and Mc Murphy even makes him 'captain. ' Only one of the two whores arrives, Candy, and does so late. She tells Mc Murphy that Sandra, the other one, went and got married. Nurse Ratched does not allow the men to leave, because they need another chaperone for so many patients. Dr.
Spivey agrees to accompany them. When the men stop for gas, the service-station man asks if they are from the asylum. The doctor tells him that they are a work crew, not inmates. The service-station man behaves rudely to the men, but Mc Murphy tells them that they are in fact criminally-insane inmates and are entitled to a government-sponsored discount. Harding realizes that mental illness has the aspect of power: the more insane a man is, the more powerful he can become.
Mc Murphy is able to laugh at incidents like these, even if the other patients are not. When they reach the docks, Mc Murphy argues with the captain who was supposed to take them out. He demands a signed waiver clearing him with the proper authorities. While Mc Murphy argues with the captain, a couple of men at the dock yell disparaging comments at Candy, asking whether she is one of the insane, or instead part of the cure for the insane men. Mc Murphy exits from the captain's office and tells the men to get on the boat and shove off. They take the boat while the captain is still on the phone.
Candy and Billy Bibbit fish together, and she nearly gets hurt, but everyone can laugh at the situation thanks to Mc Murphy. Dr. Spivey hooks the largest fish, but it takes several men to pull him in. When the men return to shore, the police wait for them. The doctor claims that they are a legal, government-sponsored expedition, and notes that there weren't enough life-jackets on the boat.
The captain thus decides not to press charges. The men who made disparaging comments to Candy say nothing when they return from fishing, for they sense a change; these are not the same bunch of "weak-knees from a nuthouse" as before. On the ride back to the institution, Candy falls asleep against Billy's chest. He later asks her for a date. Mc Murphy plans to sneak Candy into the ward on Saturday night so she can meet with Billy. Mc Murphy seems exhausted on the trip back to the institution.
He points out the house where he lived as a youth. He shows them a dress in the branch of a tree. The first girl that dragged Mc Murphy to bed wore that dress; he was about ten at the time. The conflict between Nurse Ratched and Mc Murphy recedes during this chapter to a different conflict between the institution patients and the rest of society.
Although Nurse Ratched does continue to oppose the trip, none of her tactics are particularly novel; her tactics in the first part of this chapter conform to her established character but reveal nothing new. Upon leaving the institution, Mc Murphy and the other patients face the suspicion and mockery of those who view them as completely insane. Mc Murphy proudly faces these objections through confrontation, celebrating their insanity as a means of intimidation. Kesey conceives of this chapter in terms of religious imagery.
Mc Murphy leaves the hospital with twelve followers, an allusion to the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, their task is deep-sea fishing, another Christian religious symbol; the fish is a prominent symbol of Christ. This positions R. P. Mc Murphy as a Christ figure in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and thus foreshadows future events. If Mc Murphy is a Christ figure, then he will face an impending crucifixion.
This chapter also sets up further plot developments, such as the developing intimacy between Candy Starr and Billy Bibbit. The fishing trip is a transformative event for the patients. To continue the religious allegory, it is a conversion for the men on the fishing trip, who return from their journey at sea changed men, now worthy of respect; the hecklers at the docks no longer mock the patients when they return from the fishing expedition. This transformation is in part due to the patients' removal from Nurse Ratched's control. Freed from her domineering policies, these men can achieve a sense of self-worth that she denies them. Nurse Ratched plans her next maneuver for the day after the fishing trip, just as Mc Murphy begins hustling for more changes in rules and such improvements as subscriptions to Playboy to replace the McCall's magazine that Public Relation orders.
She pastes up statements of the patients' financial doings over the past several months; these indicate that Mc Murphy has made money from the rest of the patients. Mc Murphy does not appear ashamed, however, and brags that he might be able to retire to Florida with the money he has made. The patients do wonder what scam Mc Murphy is trying to pull. Nurse Ratched has a meeting without Mc Murphy in which she indicates that Mc Murphy is trying to manipulate them.
She tells them that Mc Murphy is no martyr or saint, but rather a con artist. She questions the profit that Mc Murphy made on the fishing trip. Harding agrees that Nurse Ratched is correct, but asks why they should deny it, for they should give credit to Mc Murphy for his capitalist talent. Mc Murphy makes no pretense about his motives. Billy is the only one who openly defends Mc Murphy, but after the meeting Mc Murphy asks Billy for money for Candy's visit. Chief Bromden still believes that Mc Murphy is a "giant come out of the sky to save us from the Combine, " but even he begins to question Mc Murphy.
Mc Murphy has Chief Bromden move the control panel in the tub room to win the bet he had with the other patients, and gives Chief Bromden part of the profits. When Chief Bromden refuses to take the money, Mc Murphy confronts him about the cold treatment the patients are giving him. Chief Bromden tells him that the other patients are suspicious about how Mc Murphy is always winning things. Nurse Ratched orders a cautionary cleansing for the patients in which the men must line up nude against the tile of the shower room and be cleaned by the black boys. The black boys torment George Sorenson because he refuses soap and then refuses to bend over for a different cleaning treatment, but Mc Murphy defends Sorenson.
Washington, one of the black boys, punches Mc Murphy, then Mc Murphy fights with all of the black boys. Chief Bromden picks one of the black boys off of Mc Murphy as they fight, and the two eventually are victorious The smallest black boy gets help from the Disturbed Ward, and they take Mc Murphy and Bromden away. Having achieved the transformation of the men on the ward in the previous chapter, Mc Murphy asserts himself as the controlling force on the ward. The men are full converts to Mc Murphy's ethos, following his lead in behavior. However, Nurse Ratched undermines this by dividing the men from one another; she exposes Mc Murphy for his self-interested actions and manipulation.
Her criticism of Mc Murphy bolsters the religious allusions of the previous chapter: she claims that Mc Murphy is not a 'martyr' or a 'saint' but rather a manipulative con man. The irony of this situation is that she herself is manipulating the patients, while Mc Murphy has remained honest about his intentions and his entrepreneurial spirit. When Nurse Ratched orders the cleaning of the men on the ward, this demonstrates the lack of respect she has for the patients. The procedure is invasive and demeaning. It is a literal intrusion into the men's bodies, analogous to a de-serialized form of rape. If the men experienced a transformation from meek and easily dominated to more confident and respectable, Mc Murphy experiences an equally momentous shift in this chapter.
Mc Murphy assumes the role of selfless martyr in this chapter when he defends George Sorenson against the invasive cleaning procedures of the black boys. This is the first action that Mc Murphy undertakes that is not motivated by self-interest; he can gain nothing from defending Sorenson, unlike his other actions, which either benefited him monetarily or, in the case of his threats against Nurse Ratched, by building his reputation. There is a high-pitched machine-room clatter on the Disturbed Ward, as well as the singed smell of men going berserk. A tall bony man tells a black boy "I wash my hands of the whole deal. " A nurse treats Mc Murphy's and Bromden's wounds, and tells them that not every ward is like Nurse Ratched's.
The nurse claims that Nurse Ratched tries to run it like an Army hospital, and she feels that all single nurses should be fired after they reach thirty-five. The nurse admits that she sometimes wishes she could keep the men there instead of sending them back to Nurse Ratched. A different nurse gives them pills that knock them out. The next morning Nurse Ratched asks Mc Murphy if he is ashamed of what he did, and if he is he will not receive shock treatment. Mc Murphy refuses, and says that the "Chinese Commies" could have learned a few things from her.
As the doctors put graphite salve on Mc Murphy's temples, he asks if he gets a crown of thorns. As Chief Bromden receives shock treatment, he thinks about his parents. Afterwards Chief Bromden clears his head and regains lucidity quickly; this time he knows that he has Nurse Ratched beat. Christian symbolism dominates this chapter, which fully realizes the comparison between Mc Murphy and Jesus Christ. The comment "I wash my hands of the whole deal" is a direct allusion to Pontius Pilate, who made a similar comment upon ordering the crucifixion of Christ. Mc Murphy himself even realizes this comparison when he asks whether or not he gets a 'crown of thorns, ' another reference to the crucifixion.
The nurse with whom Mc Murphy speaks also gives a greater indication of Nurse Ratched's character. Kesey indulges in some degree of misogyny in this analysis of Nurse Ratched; a significant motivation for her behavior is the fact that she is a bitter, old spinster and has taken out her frustrations on the men on the ward. This returns to the contrast between the sexuality of Mc Murphy and the repression of Nurse Ratched; Kesey implies that, if Nurse Ratched were sexually satisfied, in fact satisfied at all with her personal life, she would allow greater freedom on her ward. Nurse Ratched does gain a victory over Mc Murphy in this chapter, but whatever victory she has will be short-lived. The shock treatment does not significantly affect Chief Bromden; he quickly regains a sense of lucidity afterward and returns to coherence. More importantly, the nurse who treats Mc Murphy's wounds makes the important point that other nurses are opposed to Nurse Ratched's behavior.
Although Nurse Ratched maintains a tight grip on her particular ward, she is vulnerable within the very institutional structure she uses against her patients. Mc Murphy receives three more treatments that week, even though Chief Bromden tries to talk Mc Murphy into complying with Nurse Ratched to get out of it. Mc Murphy jokes that she's merely "charging his battery" and the first woman who takes him on afterward will "light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars. " Chief Bromden leaves Disturbed at the end of the week. Harding congratulates Chief Bromden when he returns. There are rumors that Mc Murphy is not responding at all to the EST.
Nurse Ratched realizes that Mc Murphy is becoming legendary while he is out of the ward, so she plans to bring him back to the ward. The men believe that the best thing for Mc Murphy would be escape from the ward on Saturday night. During a meeting Nurse Ratched suggests 'an operation, ' and Mc Murphy jokes that she's considering castration. Chief Bromden describes how Billy Bibbit, although he looks young, is actually over thirty.
Chief Bromden thinks about how Billy's mother visited, and when Billy asserted his age she asked "do I look like the mother of a thirty-one year old?" At midnight, Mr. Turkle comes in for his shift, and Mc Murphy bribes him by offering Candy's services to him. Candy arrives with Sandy, the whore who had got married. Candy gives Mr. Turkle wine. Mc Murphy attempts to pick the lock to the drug room, while the other men look through the files in the Nurses's tation.
Harding gets pills for Sefelt and gives them to them as he imitates a religious ceremony, sprinkling them over Sefelt and Sandy. Harding claims that they are "doomed henceforth, " for Ratched will tranquilize them out of existence. Harding's speech makes the men realize the seriousness of what they are doing. Mr. Turkle unlocks the seclusion room for Billy and Candy. Harding ha
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Research essay sample on Mc Murphy Nurse Ratched
