"Chief" Bromden, a schizophrenic ………… American man who pretends to be deaf and
…………so that everybody ignores him, narrates O ne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . The novel begins the morning that a new "Admission," Randle McMurphy, is introduced to an insane asylum where Chief is the longest-residing patient. McMurphy is larger than life, intelligent, and observant. He ………..the ward immediately by introducing friendly competition – gambling – and encourages the men to rebel against the ………… rules created and enforced by Nurse Ratched
(often referred to as "Big Nurse").
McMurphy places a bet with the other men on the ward that he can break Nurse Ratched without: a) getting sent to the Disturbed Ward, b) getting treated with …………….
therapy , or c) being lobotomized . Slowly, McMurphy undermines Nurse Ratched’s system of ……………..while remaining Mr. Nice Guy. She’s no fool, however. What McMurphy doesn’t understand is that
Nurse Ratched has a lot of control ov er the situation. Since he’s a patient in the asylum, she can keep him locked up as long as she wants. As long as he’s under her rule, she has the power to send him for electroshock therapy or a lobotomy. The question is simply whether she’ll
……………..her power against him or not. When McMurphy figures this out, he steps back and begins to behave – but not for long. Just when Nurse Ratched thinks she has the ……………………., McMurphy steps back up to the plate and challenges her authority again.
This time, though, he goes too far. He sneaks two ………………….into the ward, gets everybody drunk, and also breaks into the prescription drug cabinet.
After the incident, Nurse Ratched guilt-trips all the men back into her control. Speaking of going too far, Nurse Ratched goes way, way too far. She threatens one of the patients, Billy Bibbit, by saying she’ll tell his mother about his visit with a "cheap" woman. Bibbit……………, which demoralizes the other inmates. Bibbit suddenly ………………..suicide after reflecting on the shame that Big Nurse is about to bring down on his head. Of course, Nurse Ratched
………………..McMurphy for Bibbit’s death, which McMurphy doesn’t take so well. In fact, he’s so angry that he ………………..the glass over the nurse’s station for a second time. Then, in one of the biggest scenes in the novel, McMurphy tears Nurse Ratched's shirt off and
………………..her breasts. Why’s this move so important? Well, McMurphy has proved that the
Big Nurse is "only" a woman: in the 1960s women …………..the "weaker sex" by men, and therefore less powerful than men on the ward. McMurphy also Nurse Ratched physically,
…………….her badly.
The momentum of the crazy situation allows Nurse Ratched to send McMurphy upstairs for a …………………….. When McMurphy returns to the ward, he’s a vegetable. Chief realizes he can’t let McMurphy suffer for years in the prison of his body. That night, he
………………..McMurphy to death. Chief then escapes from the hospital after breaking a window. His getaway is only possible because of McMurphy, who previously …………….Chief how to lift a heavy ……………….in the tub-room and break the windows. Chief reaches the highway, where he catches a ride with a Mexican guy and heads to Canada and freedom.
Adapted from shmoop.com choking/ smothers/ prostitutes/ lobotomy/ control/ had taught/ panics/ panel/ utilize/ commits/ blames/ reveals/ Native/ dumb/ shatters/ electroshock/ upper hand/ petty/ stirs up/ were considered

Chapter Two Summary – McMurphy is introduced. Highlight the phrases which show this new admission’s character:
 Chief starts the new chapter by saying, "When the fog cleared," meaning when he becomes conscious again after the "shaving" incident.
 Anyway, Chief is now in the "Day Room." He doesn’t remember a thing that happened because they manage to get "those things they call pills" down him. He just knows that this time, they didn’t take him to the
Shock Room or the Seclusion Room because here he is in the Day
Room instead.
 Every morning after breakfast, the ward door starts opening. It opens and closes a thousand times a day.
 All of the patients sit in a line, putzing around with jigsaw puzzles and waiting to see who comes through the door.
 There’s nothing else to do.
 Sometimes, it’s a resident (young doctor in residency) who has come to see what they’re like Before Medication – called BM. Sometimes it’s a

 wife of a patient.
This morning, it’s an Admission (meaning a new guy). Everybody stops what they’re doing to watch.
Chief is buckled down to the chair and can’t get up. Most days, he sees
 a new Admission and sees how the orderlies mess with him.
But even though Chief can’t see this new Admission yet, he can tell the new guy isn’t ordinary. This Admission isn’t scared and isn’t submissive.
 He sounds big. He sounds brave. He finally comes over and says,
"Good morn in’, buddies."
 He doesn’t look like Chief’s dad – a full-blood Columbia Indian – but he sounds like him, with a voice that’s loud and full of hell.
 The new Admission stands there looking at them and laughs.

Everybody stares.
Then he introduces himself as McMurphy – a gambling fool.
 McMurphy starts messing with Cheswick, an inmate playing cards, while one of the orderlies circles him with a thermometer.
 McMurphy starts shaking hands and explaining how he’s ended up at the asylum – a hassle or two at the work farm and the courts decided he’s a psychopath. And he’s not going to argue with the court if it means
 no more farm work.
McMurphy says the court told him that "a psychopath’s a guy fights too much and fucks too much, but they ain’t wholly right, do you think? I mean, whoever heard tell of a man gettin’ too much poozle?" That’s a good introduction to McMurphy and an interesting new word for sex.

 Chief says that there are entire days lost to the fog. Most of the men don’t realize they’re caught in it, but Chief does. If McMurphy knows he’s lost in the fog, he doesn’t let on that it bothers him.

No matter what the nurses or orderlies do to McMurphy, he keeps his temper.
Occasionally, a stupid rule will make him mad, but he expresses his anger by being

 extra-polite until he sees how funny it is that the nurses treat the men like children. This is so absurd to him that he can’t help laughing.
One time he does lose control. Surprisingly, it’s not because of the orderlies or Big
Nurse; the problem is his fellow patients.

It happens at a group meeting. McMurphy had been getting the guys to bet on the World
Series and he asks Nurse Ratched if she can switch the cleaning schedule so the patients can watch the television in the afternoon. Of course, Nurse Ratched says rules are rules and the answer is a big fat "No."

McMurphy was expecting that response. What bugs him is that the Acutes just give in. In
Chief’s words, the men "sink back out of sight in little pockets of fog." In McMurphy’s
 words, the men are "too chicken-shit."

McMurphy tries to get them to speak up, considering that they have a little
"personal interest " in watching the games, meaning that they’ve bet money on it.
 Finally one of them says he’s just used to watching the 6 o’clock news. If switching the schedules would mess everything up as bad as Miss Ratched says …
McMurphy tries to take a vote. Cheswick is the only patient to vote with McMurphy.



Scanlon finally half-votes. Nobody else will raise a hand.
So Big Nurse continues on with the group meeting.
After the meeting, McMurphy’s so mad that he refuses to say a word to anybody.
Billy Bibbit that tries to explain to McMurphy that some of the men have been in the ward for five years, and most of them will still be there when McMurphy leaves. Finally, Billy gives up trying to explain.

McMurphy argues with a few of the guys for the rest of the afternoon. Nobody even wants gamble anymore because the angry McMurphy he took all their money in a few games. (He stopped letting them win.)
Harding points out that McMurphy has been with them for a week without overthrowing  the government.

Chief suddenly feels like a spy. He imagines the mop handle in his hands is made of metal and it’s hollow. Inside, there’s a miniature microphone allowing Big Nurse to listen in.


McMurphy manages to get half the Acutes to agree to vote with him if he brings up the issue of watching the baseball game again. He says he doesn’t understand why more won’t join him, especially Harding.
The Acutes try to explain that a baseball game isn’t worth getting on Nurse Ratched’s wrong side.

Feeling insulted, Frederickson tries to dare McMurphy to smash his way out of the ward through the window. But Cheswick tells McMurphy to forget it because the windows are made specially so that you can’t break them with a chair.
 McMurphy is seriously considering breaking out of the asylum. He suggests a table might be big enough to bash the window.


Cheswick says a table is no different than a chair.
McMurphy says he’ll have to think about it until he comes up with a plan to bust out.
Basically he says, "If you fellas don’t think I’ll break out, then you’ve got another thing coming."

Next, McMurphy asks if a bed would do the trick. Or a steel panel?
 Somebody says McMurphy can’t lift a steel panel, so the ever-competitive McMurphy
 bets them that he can.

He tries and strains r eally hard, but it’s true; McMurphy can’t lift the panel. He gives up.
McMurphy then looks at the guys and starts fumbling around for the IOUs he won in the last few days. He tries to sort them out, but his fingers are frozen. Finally, he just throws the whole bundle onto the floor – representing forty or fifty dollars from each guy – and
 he turns to walk out.
"But I tried, though," he says. "Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn’t I?"
 He walks out the door, leaving the IOUs behind for those who want them.



It’s the group meeting and Big Nurse asks if anybody has thought that McMurphy is imposing his desires on everybody else too much.
A patient named Scanlon sticks up for McMurphy, saying that there’s no harm in a vote or changing the cleaning schedule. He challenges the nurse, saying she probably wants to ship McMurphy off to the Disturbed ward just for asking for another vote.

McMurphy says he wants to see which of these "birds" has guts to stand up for what they want.


So they vote.
Chief can tell the first hand that goes up is McMurphy’s. Other hands come up through the fog. In fact, all twenty of them raise their hands in a vote against Nurse Ratched and against the way she’s been running the ward for so long.

But Big Nurse has her way. Though all twenty Acutes voted for him, there are a total of
 forty patients on the ward if you include the Chronics. So he failed to get a majority.
Nurse Ratched politely says, "I’m afraid the vote is closed." The tally for the Ratched-





McMurphy show-down is now McMurphy 2, Ratched 2. Or is it?
McMurphy is seriously mad but Nurse appeals to the doctor. Isn’t she being fair? And the doctor backs her up.
McMurphy gets more and more angry because she has been so unfair. Meanwhile,
Nurse Ratched suggests that they wrap up the group meeting early today due to
McMurphy’s disturbance.
McMurphy tries to get one of the Chronics named Ellis, to vote, bu t the man doesn’t raise his hand.
Now McMurphy’s standing in front of Chief, asking him to vote.
Big Nurse thinks she’s completely defeated McMurphy and is already packing up her



 papers.
For some reason, Chief is raises his hand. He tells the reader that McMurphy put a hex on him and his hand is raising of its own accord.
No. Chief corrects himself. He’s lifting his hand of his own accord.
McMurphy whoops and hollers. Cheswick adds a "Yippee."

Nurse Ratched says with a smile "The meeting was closed." As she turns and walks away, Chief sees that her neck is red and swelling, like she’s so mad she’s going to explode.
She doesn’t blow up right away, though. She waits in the Nurses’ Station behind the


 glass.
It’s game time and McMurphy turns on the television while Big Nurse’s face gets redder and redder.
Everybody’s watching what she’s going to do, even the orderlies and nurses.
Nurse Ratched, from behind the glass of the Nurses’ Station, flips a switch and turns the

TV off.
McMurphy pretends he doesn’t notice that the picture is gone. He just sits back, lights a cigarette, and acts like he’s watching the game.
 Big Nurse waits awhile and then she comes to the door and tells McMurphy that he’s
 supposed to be working with the other men on house chores during these hours. Her anger is showing. "I’m warning you!" she says.
Nurse Ratched is losing her cool and everyone’s watching. She’s a control freak and can’t help but say, "You are…under the jurisdiction of me…" Oops. Did she mean to say that? She corrects herself to say "the staff" instead of "me." But she keeps losing it, making a fist and using words like " control ."

Slowly, the men stop doing their house chores and sit down in front of the TV with
McMurphy.

Ratched complains and moans, and shrieks and shouts, but the men just sit in front of the TV and watch a perfectly blank screen.



The new battle score is definitely now McMurphy 3, Ratched 2.
Chief says that if somebody came in not knowing the situation, they’d think all of the men watching the TV were "crazy as loons."
 At the group meeting, she continues lecturing, claiming that the rules and regulations in the asylum are carefully thought out and for the good of the patients. The rules help those who couldn’t adjust to the rules in the Outside World.

Nurse Ra tched says that she’s taking away one of their privileges as punishment. After


 carefully thought, the staff has decided to take away the use of the tub room (the second day room the men have been playing cards in). Is this unfair, she asks?
One by one, each man looks at McMurphy. They look at him with a face full of hope.
He grins at everybody as Big Nurse starts to conclude the meeting.
Finally, Nurse Ratched looks over at McMurphy. He slaps both hands on his knees,




 stretches and yawns, and then walks across the day-room floor towards her.
The Big Nurse begins to look afraid. She hadn’t thought he’d actually do anything.
She looks around for the orderlies, but McMurphy stops before he reaches her. He says he thinks he could use one of those cigarettes he bought this morning. And then he smashes his hand through the glass into the Nurses’ Station.

He takes one out a pack of cigarettes and then returns to where the Big Nurse is sitting.
He tenderly brushes the slivers of broken glass from her hat and shoulders.
He apologizes to Nurse Ratched, claiming that he completely forgot there was glass dividing the day room from the Nurses’ Station.
Then he walks away, leaving her sitting there.
The noise in Chief’s head finally stops.





And they’re off.
Finally outside, everybody becomes nervous. McMurphy tries to make the men lighthearted by telling jokes.
At the gas station, the attendants realize that they’re from the hospital and try to manipulate them into buying more expensive gas and other items that they don’t need.
But McMurphy saves the day. Not only do they want regular gas, but they’re entitled to a discount since it’s a government-sponsored expedition. He tells the guys at the gas station that they’re hot off the criminal insane asylum ward and they’d better watch out.
See that Indian back there?
Chief stands up so they can see his size.



They end up completely intimidating the gas station attendants.
Harding suddenly realizes that mental illness contains a sort of power. The more insane

 a man becomes, the more powerful he can be. Like Hitler.
Chief sips a beer and feels good.
Chief muses in retrospect that the patients thought that McMurphy had taught them to be

 courageous and use it. Really, though, with McMurphy, the men were just pretending to be brave, not really being brave.
McMurphy knows that the men’s’ tough looks are all show.

On the Outside, Chief sees all that the Combine had been able to accomplish during the years he’s been inside the ward.
The group runs into a problem at the dock. The captain who was supposed to take them out said he needed a signed waiver clearing him with the authorities.




So McMurphy and the captain go to the phone to make a phone call and clear the situation up.
The dock workers by the boat on the dock start to tease the cute prostitute, asking her why she’d been put in the asylum. Then another jokes that she wasn’t committed to the asylum, she’s part of the cure.
The girl looks at the Acutes, wondering why they don’t defend her, but all their bravery had walked away with McMurphy (who’s busy on the phone).
McMurphy comes back saying it’s all set. Captain Block is still on the phone but they can
 get ready and then go as soon as he comes out.
And they shove off. The doctor is nervous and says, "Shouldn’t we wait for the captain to come out?" McMurphy replies that if they wait, the captain will come out and tell them that the number McMurphy gave him is just a flophouse in Portland – not the number for


 the asylum.

As they take off, the captain comes crashing down the dock towards them.
McMurphy and Candy, the prostitute, go off to the cabin to be alone, leaving George as captain and Harding as second in command.
At first everybody is excited about stealing the boat, but then they become really quiet.

Sefelt gets a bite on his fishing line, but Billy catches the first fish. Then Chief catches a huge fish that’s as big as a fence post.
Candy tries to fish and ends up flashing everybody because, although she has Billy’s jacket on, she doesn’t have her t-shirt on anymore. There’s so much commotion that
George takes his eye off where he’s going and runs right into a log, which stops the engine.

McMurphy just laughs at the whole scene. Chief decides that McMurphy knows that you

 have to just laugh at the things that hurt you.
Then everybody starts laughing – all the men and the doctor and Candy and even Chief.
Despite joining in on the laughter, Chief feels like he’s not completely a part of the group.
He’s somehow watching the situation from a distance.

They keep fishing and start cleaning fish (meaning chopping the fish up and getting rid of the head and guts and stuff). The doctor catches a 200-300 pound fish. They have so

 much extra weight in the boat now that it creaks and pitches all the way back to shore.
They’re three life-jackets short and Billy, Harding, and George volunteer to be the lifejacketless ones.
They sail through some pretty serious waters to reach shore, only to face the captain

 they ditched and a bunch of cops.
The doctor faces them and says that because they’re a legal, government-sponsored institution, they have to take it up with the proper authorities. Furthermore, if the captain really wants to make a case, he’ll have to explain why they were short 3 lifejackets on the boat.
So the cops leave and then McMurphy and the captain get into a shoving match. Once their spat is out of the way, the two of them go get more beer.

The men are just waiting for the dockhands to say something about Candy again, but
Chief says that the dockhands sensed they’re not the same scared men who sailed out of here earlier in the day. All the dockhands say is that Chief’s fish is the biggest halibut they’ve ever seen.

 Candy cuddles up to Billy o n the way back to the asylum and he says he’d like to take her out on a date. She says she’s free to come visit in two weeks. When Billy asks
McMurphy what time she should come, he says two o’clock in the morning on Saturday.
They’ll get some of the aides to let her in so she can visit Billy.
 When the men arrive back on the ward, the Acutes who hadn’t gone are curious about the trip.


Everybody’s herded into the day room, still in their pajamas, except for McMurphy and
Sandy, who look kind of dreamy and satisfied.
When the nurse calls to report Mr. Turkle’s resignation, Mr. Turkle and Sandy crawl out the window and leave. Everybody is still too drunk to do what they should do, which is lock the window after them.

One of the orderlies finds the unlocked window. He locks it, then goes to get the role
 calling sheet. Then he discovers that Billy Bibbit is missing.
That starts a storm of laughter as everybody remembers where Billy Bibbit is and why.
So the orderly goes in to tell the nurse that Billy is missing.
 Nurse Ratched comes back out and demands to know what’s going on and where Billy is. Nobody speaks.
 So she goes searching and soon she finds Billy and Candy, in the Seclusion Room.
She’s appalled and asks him how he could do this with such a cheap girl. And most of all, she’s worried about how Billy’s poor mother will take the news.
 That’s what gets to Billy. His mother. Billy stammers that Nurse Ratched doesn’t need to tell his mother, but Nurse Ratched reminds Billy that she and his mom are good friends.

Everybody stops laughing as they see Billy panic and begin to beg Nurse Ratched not to tell his mother. Freaking out, Billy tires to claim that the other men MADE him do it – they

 forced him.
Nurse Ratched leads him away, murmuring, "Poor boy, poor boy."


A lot of phone calls are made and when the doctor shows up, you can tell he already knows what the story is, and that Nurse Ratched blames Billy. But, she repeats the story for his benefit.
Nurse Ratched suggests that the doctor help Billy, who has been through a lot and is in a terrible state. The doctor follows her directions.
Scan lon tells McMurphy that they don’t blame him, they know where the blame lies. Chief
 reiterates the idea.
McMurphy relaxes and closes his eyes.



Then the doctor starts yelling and Nurse Ratched goes running. When she returns, she informs McMurphy that Billy has just cut his throat. She hopes he’s satisfied, she says, playing with lives. First Charles Cheswick (who drowned himself) and now poor William

Bibbit.

Slowly, McMurphy stands up and then he smashes through the glass door.
Nurse Ratched is terrified and screaming. She screams when McMurphy rips her uniform down the front, exposing her chest. All of the men see how big her breasts are as they swell out of her uniform.
Finally, the staff pries McMurphy off of Ratched’s neck and he cries, falling backward. It’s the sound of an animal trapped, but one who doesn’t care anymore if he dies.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

In the upcoming weeks, things at the ward change..

Sefelt and Frederickson sign out of the ward Against Medical Advice. Afterwards, three
 more men leave. Another six are transferred to another ward.
The asylum tries to push the doctor to resign, but he resists, saying they’ll have to investigate the situation and fire him if they want him to leave.
 Big Nurse is in the hospital for a week and, with her gone, a lot of the guys are able to change some of the ward’s policies.

When Nurse Ratched comes back, they all run out to meet her, to ask about McMurphy.
She jumps back when they approach and it’s clear that she’s still freaked out. It’s also clear that she can no longer hide the fact that she’s a woman. All of the men have seen her breasts and aren’t about to forget it.
 Because she can’t talk yet (after being choked by McMurphy), she writes that McMurphy



 will be back.
Harding rips up her note and tells her she is full of bulls---.
She tries to get the ward back under her control, but McMurphy’s memory is too strong.
She’s losing her power and losing her patients.
Chief doesn’t want to leave the ward until he knows for sure that McMurphy will be back.






Three weeks later, McMurphy does come back. Post-operative. He was given a lobotomy. They push him inside on a gurney and leave him near the Vegetables.
The Acutes discuss that they can’t be fooled – this isn’t McMurphy. Sure looks an awful l ot like him, though. But it can’t be him!
As the afternoon wears on, the swelling on McMurphy’s face starts to go down, so everyone has to admit that it’s really him after all.
That night, Chief waits until everybody is asleep and then he goes over to McMurphy.
He takes a pillow and he smothers McMurphy to death, even though McMurphy’s body fights for life.
Scanlon whispers to Chief to take it easy. And then he wants to know if it’s finished. Chief says yes.

Scanlon says that Nurse Ratched will know that McMurphy was killed, so Chief had better get out of the ward while he still can.
Chief makes fun of the idea of leaving, because he can’t just ask to be let out of the ward.
But Scanlon reminds him that McMurphy showed him how to escape it a few weeks back.

So Chief goes into the tub-room and lifts the control panel. He heaves it through the

 window.
And then he runs for it.
He catches a ride with a Mexican fellow going north and makes up a story about being a professional Indian wrestler that the syndicate had tried to lock up in a nuthouse. The guy gives him a jacket to cover his green uniform and gives Chief ten bucks to use for food while he hitchhikes to Canada.

 But Chief thinks he’ll stop at Columbia (the town he grew up in) on the way. He wants to see if any of the guys he used to know in the village are still around and not too drunk.
He wants to see the country near the gorge again.
 Mostly, he just wants to clear his mind. He’s been away – stuck in the asylum – for a long time.