Aim: How do we explain the
relationship between caretakers and
patients in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest?
Do Now: How should the mentally
disturbed be treated?
“She ain’t peckin’ at your eyes. That’s
not what she’s peckin’ at.”
• What is Nurse Ratched pecking at? What idea is
McMurphy setting up here?
• Emasculation – to deprive a man of his his
masculinity, male strength
• What do you think about McMurphy’s
assessment of Nurse Ratched’s motives?
• Harding states, “We are vicitims of a matriarchy
here…” What does that mean? Is this what a
matriarchy is?
Can McMurphy get Nurse Ratched’s
goat?
• What bet does McMurphy make with the
other patients by the end of?
• According to Harding, what is the only way a
man can gain control over a woman?
• Why does he think McMurphy will fail?
• What will happen if McMurphy does fail?
“All I mean to do, miss, is to –”
“Stay back! Patients aren’t allowed to the
enter the – Oh, stay back, I’m a Catholic!”
• What does this moment show about the
patient vs. caretaker relationship in the ward?
Is there someone in the ward who is different?
• How might this be part of the problem with
the ward, with the treatment of those most in
need of help?
“Why you sure did give a jump when I told
you that coon was coming, Chief. I thought
somebody told me you was a deef.”
• Why does slowly discovering Chief Bromden’s
secret make McMurphy laugh?
• What do you make of Chief Bromden’s
experiences with the fog in the following
pages?
“What reason you suppose they have for
puttin’ something as harmless as a little
tube of toothpaste under lock and key?”
• How does McMurphy get the better of the
Orderly?
• What point is McMurphy trying to make?
• What reason does the ward have to putting
something as harmless under lock and key? What
does this further tell us about the ward? About the
larger world – macrocosm?
“I think for a fact that she’d rather he’d
of been stark naked under that towel
than had on those shorts.”
• What does Chief Bromden mean?
• What about his incident with McMurphy
made Nurse Ratched so mad?
• How is McMurphy solidified as hope coming
from the outside world?
“But I tried, though,” he says.
“Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much,
now didn’t I?”
• What is McMurphy referring to in this quote?
• Why does McMurphy begin to become
disappointed with the patients in the ward?
• However, what does this incident possibly
suggest about McMurphy’s plans to challenge
the ward?
“No. That’s not the truth. I lifted it
myself.”
• How does the Nurse try to undo McMurphy’s
seeming victory when he receives 20 votes?
• What are Bromden and the other men in the
ward doing in this moment?
• What has McMurphy become to the men of
the ward? When did this happen?
“If somebody’d of come in and took a look,
men watching a blank TV, a fifty year old
woman hollering and squealing at the back of
their heads about discipline and order and
recriminations, they’d of thought the whole
bunch as crazy as loons.”
• Great last line!
• How did Bromden’s memory with his father
foreshadow the events of the ward in this scene?
• Given that the TV is blank, have the patients
won? How so?