One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Book Review
December 2nd, 2005 . by QuintonOur Book Club choice for the month of November was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Our Book Club theme for these three books are crazy people that aren’t that crazy.
The novel was first published in 1962 and was developed while Kesey was still a graduate student at Stanford University. In 1975 it was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson. While the film was very much a success, it was heavily criticized by it’s author for changes in the screen adaptation. The main difference being that the novel is told from the first-person narration of a deaf and mute Indian named Chief Bromden, who isn’t really deaf or mute. Kesey also opposed the casting of Nicholson as McMurphy. Ken Kesey never saw the film.
The entirety of the book is set inside a mental institution and focuses on the introspective nature of Chief Bromden and his isolation from society, as well as the struggle between the authoritative Nurse Ratched and patient Randall McMurphy. McMurphy is sent to the hospital after being kicked out of other work farms and correctional facilities for being disruptive. But the other doctors and Nurse Ratched speculate is McMurphy is only pretending to be insane to get out of hard manual labor. McMurphy is the protagonist of the novel who enjoys gambling and sometimes brags that he is a psychopath. He is full of energy and mischief and a lack of control; and his character represents everything opposite Nurse Ratched. .
For being in a mental institution, McMurphy is quite well adjusted and holds clear thinking ability, unlike many of the other Acute patients in the ward. At one point in the book, McMurphy learns that unlike jail with a definite release date, he is committed to the institution until Nurse Ratched releases him. This news causes him do change his behavior due to the fact that being disruptive could hinder his chances of being released. Later McMurphy asks the other patients why they didn’t tell him this earlier. They reply that they forgot, since most of them are there voluntarily. McMurphy is astonished that they would choose to stay in a hospital full of Nurse Ratched’s rules instead of enjoying a life of girls, fast cars, and freedom. A young man with a speech impediment named Billy Bibbit becomes upset and screams furiously and says he’s too scared to leave. He begins crying and stuttering hard and the wounds on his hands begin bleeding. This scene made me wonder about choices we make in our own lives not because their easy, but because we’re afraid of change.
The novel presented many other scenarios between characters that symbolized the counter-culture era and beatnik movements of the fifties and sixties. I really enjoyed the style of writing that authors like Kesey, Kerouac, and Wolfe developed during that time. What did you think of making the Chief the narrator of the story? I like how his narration would drift between his consciousness and hallucinations of a fog. Which other patients on the ward caught your attention? In the book, McMurphy bragged that Nurse Ratched’s oppressive nature was pent up sexual frustration and could be easily cured by one night with him. Why do you really think Nurse Ratched treated her patients so severe and cold heartedly?
Nice review Quinton.
The first 100 pages were hard for me to read, because I was like what is this all about with the fog and wires? I liked the chief character. I really liked the narration from the point of the chief, and was sad that wasn’t in the movie. Inner monologues are usually hard to pull off in movies, though.
I thought Jack Nicholson was the perfect choice for McMurphy. I never believed him to be crazy, just mischievious.
I thought it was interesting the effect McMurphy had on the patients as opposed to the effect Nurse Ratched had on them . She controlled the patients, treating them like babies. The patients had grown to be spineless, like little scared animals. McMurphy took the guys on a fishing trip. Even though he broke a bunch of rules to do it, I think that catching the big fish did more to help the guys feel good about themselves than anything Nurse Ratched ever did. McMurphy helped the boys realize that they could get out there and live again.
I liked the stuttering Billy Bibbit character. This character was younger, and especially controlled by Nurse Ratched because she was friends with his mom. The scene Quinton was talking about with the bleeding, I think he got it a little wrong. Nurse Ratched busted him for being with a girl, and she was gonna tell his mom. He freaks out, goes into her office, finds something sharp, and slits his throat.
I was most shocked by the ending. The role the chief played at the end.
One other thing, I really liked in the movie seeing a young Christopher Lloyd and a young Danny Devito.
After reading the book, I was really suprised the didn’t include the Chief’s monologue in the movie, since it seems to add so much to the novel. I really liked his hallucinations of fog and wires and the combine.
The scene I was talking about with Billy Bibbit wasn’t when he was busted for being with a girl and he killed himself. It was before that, about half way thru the book. Earlier we learned that Billy asked a girl that he was in love with to marry him, and when she said no, Billy tried to kill himself. That’s why he had been admitted to the hospitol by his mother. Much later all the men are talking near the x-ray room and Harding reveals to McMurphy that most of the patients are not committed. That’s when McMurphy starts to rant at the other men and why they don’t leave the hospitol, but instead they choose to stay with Nurse Ratched’s rules. Billy starts to cry and rubs his eyes with his hands, and ends up opening up the wounds (apparently from his attempted suicide) and accedentally smears blood on his face.
In the movie, the scene is protrayed a bit differently, where McMurphy finds this out at a group session when Nurse Ratched tells him. Billy doesn’t
By the end of the novel, Nurse Ratched really freaked me out. Her character is so evil, and the Chief sometimes thought that the combine was everywhere, keeping the people scared, and Nurse Ratched was just another of the officers who kept all the people in their place.
I failed. I rented the book from the library and somehow lost it! I have renewed the book online (to buy me some time). I guess I will have to find it used somewhere and donate it to the library and hope they dont charge me for it.
Sommer:
At least you tried.
Quinton:
I didn’t anticipate such a dark ending. The whole time I was reading the book, I thought even though they were in an asylum, it was funny. McMurphy, although mischievous, had a positive effect on the mental health of the others.
A few days after I finished reading it, I was still bothered by it.
I feel that Mcmurphy was a savior just like some people interpret him to be. He was a great person who waned all the other men to strive for their best. He sacrificed himself so everyone could gain a sense of self.