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Westbrook
Ana Westbrook
Professor Emery
American Literature Since 1914
10 March 2020

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

- Bromden (reliable or unreliable?) claims Ratched can control time – how does she
supposedly do this?
o Bromden says that Ratched can control time because she is a robot.
- What is “the fog”?
o It’s something that can be disrupted by McMurphy.
- Bromden also has a nightmare about Blastic – what happens in his dream?
o He has a nightmare about being in a mechanical slaughterhouse and getting
gutted. Blastic is being worked on by scientists and when he gets operated on,
nuts and bolts fall out of his body. This reinforces his idea about everything being
connected to technology.
- What happens in reality?
o In reality, Blastic has died and is getting wheeled out of the asylum the next
morning.
- OR IS IT REALITY?!
- Why do you think McMurphy is able to figure out that Bromden isn’t actually deaf?
o McMurphy isn’t like the rest of the patients because he isn’t mentally insane.
- What is the result of that revelation?
o Bromden has a sense of relief and now has a friend that knows his secret.
- Group Therapy – What is the supposed purpose or benefit of these sessions?
o Preparing for life outside of the ward.
o Democracy training.
o Unburdening oneself.
- Do the sessions achieve these objectives?
o Yes, but only the objectives of Ratched.
- Recall how McMurphy described the therapy sessions.
- “A pecking party” – what do you think of that term?
o The group will go after one person who shows an injury. The rest of the group
will “peck” at them until they cave.
- This is a place where we might identify latent misogyny in the text.
- While Nurse Ratched is frightening, these criticisms specifically address her gender.
- She attempts to lessen her feminine appearance, but McMurphy still attacks her as a
woman.
- Since “pecking” is a passive aggressive type of nagging typically associated with women,
the criticism is clearly gendered.
- McMurphy also calls Ratched a “ball cutter” (but observes that both male and female
“ball cutters” exist).
- Harding later says, “we are all victims of a matriarchy”.
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Westbrook
- Ratched and the administrative supervisor are both women and in control.
- This relates a bit to what we learn about McMurphy – why is he even on the ward?
o McMurphy raped a woman (the woman was a teenager). He tells the doctor that
she was seventeen and she was completely compulsory, the reason why he had
to leave town was because she wanted him too much.
- So, since McMurphy can’t outright defeat Ratched, how does he go around her and get
what he wants?
o He goes to the doctor.
o He also changes the dynamic of the ward.
- Bromden also tells a story about McMurphy and Nurse Ratched – is this a fantasy, too?
What happens?
- If we think back to these events we’ve just mentioned, it paints a complex picture of
Bromden’s reliability. What do you think about his role as a narrator at this point?