One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Summary

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was written by Ken Kesey in 1962, I have read up to page 145 or the end of Part 1. The narrator of the book is Chief Bromden, who is a long-term patient in Nurse Ratched’s, or Big Nurse, psychiatric ward. Chief Bromden pretends to be deaf and dumb, allowing him to listen to all the secrets and stories of his inmates. Bromden has been patient at the ward the longest ,second to the Big Nurse, since World War II. At the beginning of the story Bromden tells us the different names the patients have, like Acutes and the Chronics. Acutes are younger patients who doctors believe are sick enough to be fixed. Where he Chronics are divided into Walkers like Bromden, or Wheelers or Vegetables. Chronics are people who can
never be fixed. Some of the Chronics in the story came to the ward as an Acutes, but “got changed over.” Randle McMurphy is a new patient in the ward, his appearance shows a loud, brassy voice with confidence and an “iron-heeled walk”. In the ward no one laughs, they haven't heard a real laugh in years, until McMurphy comes in. McMurphy is a large redhead with a devilish grin, who swaggers around in a motorcycle cap and his dirty work- farm clothes, with his leather jacket over one arm. He introduces himself as a gambling fool, then asks to meet the “bull goose loony” so he can take over as the man in charge. He encounters Billy Bibbit, thirty-one-year-old baby-faced man with a severe stutter, then meets Dale Harding, the educated president of the Patients’ Council. Half way through Part 1, the Acutes gathered for a meeting to discuss their history with Big Nurse. As the Big Nurse started the meeting, the Acutes began stating, “I tried to take my little sister to bed.” or “I robbed a cash register in a service station.” they started to “one up each other” seeing who is/was the worst. While reading the first part of the book I was surprised that no one knew about Bromden. One thing I thought was amusing was when most of the Acutes were trying to one up each other. My overall favorite character is Billy Bibbit. To me he is just scared, I personally believe the real reason most of the Chronics and Acutes are in the hospital because they aren’t loved by anyone or just lost hope. The nurse’s in the ward, mostly Nurse Ratched, should have allowed the patients to feel and not but forbidden to do so. There wasn’t many words that I didn’t recognize. However, one word that stood out was cadaver, or corpse. This word was used to describe how Nurse Ratched tried to sedate one of the patients during his rampage. In part two of the book, Doctor Spivey, who is a morphine addict, and Nurse Ratched are gathered in a meeting to discuss McMurphy’s behavior. Doctor spivey decides that McMurphy is violent and should be sent to the Disturbed ward, but Ratched stated that he was an ordinary man, having the same fears and timidity as the others. Bromden is worried that everyone will realize he is not deaf because of McMurphy begging for him and others to vote for the television time to be changed for the afternoon. McMurphy is finally learning that Nurse Ratched can send anyone of the patients for lobotomy of electroshock therapy, even though they are both out-dated. He also learns that most of the patients are voluntarily there and they can check themselves out at any time.