One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Summary And Analysis

The story is narrated by Chief Bromden, a patient in the psychiatric hospital, who has hallucinations as well as delusions. He acts though he is deaf wanting to have very little attention, but since the workers actually believe, sometime they’ll have him do their work (ex. mop for them). The narrator first starts off the story by explaining the main characters are and difference between the patients. He first talks about Nurse Ratched, the leader of the whole hospital, and how anything she says goes. He then talks about the difference in the patients, Acutes are the ones who can be cured and Chronics are the ones who can’t. One day, a man name McMurphy transfers to the same psychiatric hospital as Bromden, and that was the start of how

But since all the patients look up to him as their leader of the rebellion, he’s not allowed to do so. Being the leader of the group, he took him and a few others on a fishing trip where he teaches them to be masculine and powerful without his help. He also tries to set up a date for Billy Bibbit with a prostitute. McMurphy reignites the rebellion by getting into a fight with the aides to defend a fellow patient. Since Bromden had also helped in the fight, the both them had been sent to the disturbed ward. As hard as McMurphy tries to stay strong and look heroic, it’s evident that he’s become weak from the electroshock therapy. The patients try to get McMurphy to leave but he wants to stay since he had promised Billy Bibbit he’d get him a date, which he fulfills. Once it is fulfilled though, Nurse Ratched finds out and threatens to tell Billy’s mother making him commit suicide. As for McMurphy, he attempts to strangle Nurse Ratched but because of that, Nurse Ratched has him get a procedure done but he returns back to the ward as a vegetable. Bromden seeing the state that McMuphy was in, suffocated him so he’d be able to die with some dignity. Bromden escapes through a window at the very