One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Class Notes

You can download the pdf of the entire novel here: http://begin-english.ru/download/files/4/4/2/0/2565324178.pdf

These notes feature vital summary from the novel, my analysis and observations in italics, and reading questions that you must answer highlighted throughout.

-Chief Bromden is the narrator of the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. In order to understand the sometimes hallucinogenic nature of the novel, one must first understand that he suffers from schizophrenia and all that such a malady entails.

-What is schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is a “complex biochemical brain disorder [that] affects a person’s ability to determine what is reality and what is not. It is as though the brain sends perceptions along the wrong path, leading to the wrong conclusion. People with schizophrenia are affected by delusions (fixed false beliefs that can be terrifying to the person experiencing them), hallucinations (sensory experiences, such as hearing voices talking about them when there is no one there), social withdrawal and disturbed thinking (http://www.cmha.ca/mental-health/understanding-mental-illness/schizophrenia/).

At the beginning of [a schizophrenic] episode, people may feel that things around them seem different or strange. They may start to experience problems concentrating, thinking or communicating clearly, or taking part in their usual activities. At the height of the episode, people may experience breaks from reality called psychosis. These could be hallucinations (sensations, like voices, that aren’t real) and delusions (strong beliefs that aren’t true, like the belief that they have superpowers). Some people feel ‘flat’ or numb. They may also experience changes in mood, motivation, and the ability to complete tasks. After an episode, signs can continue for some time. People may feel restless, withdraw from others, or have a hard time concentrating (http://www.cmha.ca/mental_health/facts-about-schizophrenia/#.V-P1NPkrK00).

An important thing to understand, therefore, is that when Chief Bromden’s narration becomes surreal or fantastical, he is perceiving these things as reality and has no clue that he is hallucinating.

-All of this being said, writer Richard Gray has cautioned readers not to dismiss Bromden’s hallucinations as gibberish. When read closely, Gray suggests that there is a great deal of symbolism and truth that can be found in his visions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(novel)).

-You will quickly notice that Bromden refers to the Combine quite often. When Bromden uses this word he is referring to all of society, which he believes “is controlled by a large, mechanized system,” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(novel) ).

The Characters

Randle McMurphy: A rebellious convict sent from a normal prison. He is guilty of battery and gambling. He had also been charged with, but never convicted of, statutory rape. McMurphy is transferred from a prison work farm to the hospital, thinking it will be an easy way to serve out his sentence in comfort.

Chief Bromden: The novel's half-Native American narrator has been in the mental hospital since the end of World War II. Bromden pretends to be deaf and mute, and through this guise he becomes privy to many of the ward's dirtiest secrets. As a young man, the Chief was a high school football star, a college student, and a war hero. After seeing his father, a Native American chieftain, humiliated at the hands of the U.S. government and his (white) wife, Chief Bromden descends into clinical depression and begins hallucinating.

Staff

Nurse Mildred Ratched (also known as "Big Nurse"): The tyrannical head nurse of the mental institution, who exercises near-total control over those in her care, including her subordinates. She will not hesitate to restrict her patients' access to medication, amenities, and basic human necessities if it suits her whims.

The "Black Boys" Washington, Williams and Warren: Three black men who work as aides in the ward. Williams is a dwarf, his growth stunted after witnessing his mother being raped by white men. The Chief says Nurse Ratched hired them for their sadistic nature.

Dr. John Spivey: The ward doctor. Nurse Ratched drove off other doctors, but she kept Spivey because he always did as he was told.

Nurse Pilbow: The young night nurse. Her face, neck and chest are stained with a profound birthmark. She is a devout Catholic and has fear of sinning. She blames the patients for infecting her with their evil and takes it out on them.

Mr. Turkle: An elderly African American aide who works the late shift in the ward.

Acutes

The acutes are patients who officials believe can still be cured. With few exceptions, they are there voluntarily.

Billy Bibbit: A nervous, shy and boyish patient with an extreme speech impediment, Billy cuts himself and has attempted suicide numerous times.

Dale Harding: The unofficial leader of the patients before McMurphy arrives, he is an intelligent, good-looking man who’s ashamed of his repressed homosexuality. Harding’s beautiful yet malcontent wife is a source of shame for him.

George Sorensen: A man with hypochondria, he spends his days repeatedly washing his hands in the ward’s drinking fountain.

Charlie Cheswick: A loud-mouthed patient who always demands changes in the ward, but never has the courage to see anything through.

Danny Martini: A patient who suffers from severe hallucinations.

Scanlon: A patient obsessed with explosives and destruction.

Jim Sefelt and Bruce Fredrickson: Two epileptic patients. Sefelt refuses to take his anti-seizure medication, as it makes his teeth fall out. Fredrickson takes Sefelt’s medication and his own because he is terrified of the seizures, and loses teeth due to the resulting overdose.

Max Taber: An unruly patient who was released before McMurphy arrived. The Chief later describes how, after he questioned what was in his medication, Nurse Ratched had him “fixed.”

Chronics

The Chronics are patients who will never be cured. Many of the chronics are in vegetative states.

Ruckly: A hell-raising patient who challenges the rules until his lobotomy. After the lobotomy, he sits and stares at a picture of his wife, and occasionally screams profanities.

Ellis: Ellis was put in a vegetative state by electroshock therapy. He stands against the wall in a disturbing messianic position with arms outstretched.

Pete Bancini: Bancini suffered brain damage at birth but managed to hold down simple jobs, such as a switch operator on a lightly-used railroad branch line, until the switches were automated and he lost his job, after which he was institutionalized.

Rawler: A patient on the disturbed ward, above the main ward, who says nothing but “loo, loo, loo!” all day and tries to run up the walls.

Old Blastic: An old patient who is in a vegetative state.

The Lifeguard: An ex-professional football player, he still has the cleat marks on his forehead from the injury that scrambled his brains.

Colonel Matterson: The oldest patient in the ward, he suffers from severe senile dementia and cannot move without a wheelchair. He is a veteran of the First World War, and spends his days “explaining” objects through metaphor.

Other Characters

Candy: A prostitute.

Sandy: Another prostitute and friend of McMurphy.

Vera Harding: Dale Harding’s wife.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(novel) ).

Part 1

Chapter 1

-The hospital aids (The "Black Boys") and everybody else speaks openly in Bromden’s presence at all times because he has fooled them into thinking that he is “deaf and dumb,” (p.3).

-Bromden refers to himself as ‘cagey’ several times in this novel.

Full Definition of cagey:

1: hesitant about committing oneself

2a: wary of being trapped or deceived

(From: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cagey)

-Bromden believes that he can see into Nurse Ratched’s purse and reports that it contains “a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties today—wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard glitter, tiny pills that gleam like porcelain, needles, forceps, watchmakers’ pliers, rolls of copper wire...” (p. 4).

-Bromden observes that Nurse Ratched, because only he is there to witness, shifts into a different form that is kept secret from all others. “[H]er painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load. […] This time they let the hate build up too high and overloaded,” (p. 5). This passage is informative because it offers the reader a glimpse into how Bromden perceives the world. The banal and the surreal live side by side and he is unable to distinguish one from the other. However, a close read of the above hallucinatory episode reveals things that are symbolically true. Nurse Ratched, symbolically speaking, is depicted as a robotic, hateful being that hides her true form from much of the world. However, lingering just beneath the surface is her true, hateful self, ready to be unleashed when necessary.

-The chapter closes with Bromden attempting to hide from the aids who were instructed to shave him. In the few remaining sentences Bromden offers an explanation of what this novel will more or less be about: the story of a man named McMurphy. A story that “is too horrible to have really happened […] too awful to be the truth!” (p. 8) However, the reader is assured that the story is “the truth even if it didn’t happen,” (ibid). What do you think is meant by this contradictory statement? How can something be a true story if it never happened?

Chapter 2

-Because he gave the aids such trouble when they attempted to shave him, Bromden was taken to the Shock Shop for EST (Electroshock Therapy) (p. 9).

-McMurphy arrives and is immediately recognized as a unique admission for several reasons:

Due to the sound that the key makes upon entering the door (p. 10)
He does not walk down the hall scared and meek (p. 11)
When the aids attempt to intimidate McMurphy by forcibly bathing him and taking his rectal temperature he stands his ground and refuses
McMurphy speaks in a loud, boisterous manner, showing no signs of fear or discomfort
“He sounds like he’s way above them, talking down, like he’s sailing fifty yards overhead, hollering at those below on the ground,” (ibid)
He laughs (p. 12)
He treats the Acutes and Chronics like they “aren’t no different”—he treats the Chronics like people who mattered rather than shunning them (p. 22)

-McMurphy has shaggy red hair and long red sideburns, he’s got a broad build, he’s got a stitched laceration that runs across his face, causing him to look like a baseball. Bromden perceives everything about him to be big; his physique, his voice, his smile (p. 12).

-After hearing McMurphy laugh Bromden realizes that it is the first laughter he has heard in years (ibid). The characteristics that strike Bromden as unique offer the reader insight into the atmosphere of the hospital (psych. ward). The hospital is a scary, sad place that appears to invoke fear, paranoia and an overall sense of unease.

-McMurphy informs the patients that he is a ‘gambling fool’ and is there by choice in order to win their money (ibid).

-McMurphy continues to explain his transfer from prison to the psych ward, “[w]hat happened, you see, was I got in a couple of hassles at the work farm [...] and the court ruled that I’m a psychopath,” (p. 13). As he continues to elaborate, it seems at least possible that he was faking the symptoms of mental illness in order to be transferred away from the toils of prison labor.

-From now on, you should take notes on McMurphy’s behaviors and characteristics. By the end of the novel I want you to offer an in-depth and substantiated assessment of whether or not he is mentally ill in some way. If you do believe that he is mentally ill, I want you to offer a diagnosis.

Chapter 3

-Acutes= patients that doctors think can be “fixed” (p. 15). Acutes also regularly snitch on one another to the Head Nurse (ibid). This is significant because the men are not reporting one another’s transgressions, but rather the little personal secrets confessed in moments of excessive candor. Thus intimacy and interpersonal bonds are not possible in such a setting.

-Chronics= patients that doctors believe cannot be “fixed” (p. 15-16). Most patients are chronics, “machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired,” (p. 16). Bromden believes that some patients were essentially born chronics, while others were damaged at the hospital in the “brain-murdering room”, among other things (ibid). They are hated because they are viewed as a shameful reminder of civil society’s failures. In this case, the failure would entail generating a chronic to begin with, or failing to develop a cure for the chronic affliction.

-Ellis is a patient that the hospital turned into a chronic due to excessive EST (electroshock therapy). He is described as being nailed to the wall in a permanent, Christ-invoking crucifixion pose (ibid).

-Bromden recounts the story of an unruly patient named Ruckly whom he thinks the hospital made a mistake on (ibid). In actuality, the hospital lobotomized him due to his resistance to all of their methods of treatment. It’s just unfathomable to Bromden that treating a patient that way was intentional.

-Bromden has been at the hospital longer than anyone else, apart from Nurse Ratched (p. 18).

-After a quick assessment of his surroundings, McMurphy realizes that he is an Acute (ibid). McMurphy immediately makes a bid to be the leader of the patients and to run all gambling related activities (p. 19).

-Harding is the boss of the patients (p. 19). One of his defining characteristics is his “white and dainty” hands that appear as though “they carved each other out of soap,” (p. 20). These hands have a tendency to “glide around him free as two white birds,” (ibid).

-Harding is a boastful man who insists on reminding his fellow patients that a) his wife is a ‘sexy’ well-known actress, and b) he has graduated from college (ibid).

-McMurphy theorizes that “society persecutes a dedicated man” when explaining why so many take issue with his gambling (p. 22).

-Bromden shakes McMurphy’s hand and feels as though McMurphy was “transmitting his own blood into it. It rang with blood and power. It blowed up as big as his,” (p. 25). Basically, Chief Bromden feels as though something magical has occurred as a result of their contact—it instantly made him a bigger man.

-McMurphy conveys to Nurse Ratched that he intends to do the opposite of what she demands of him, thus initiating the Man versus Woman conflict that will transpire throughout the novel (p. 26).

Chapter 4

-Nurse Ratched explains that she believes McMurphy is a manipulator who will create disruptions in the hospital simply for the enjoyment of creating a stir (p. 27). Thus any stir for which he will be responsible will not be motivated by profound or meaningful intentions in her view.

-Bromden believes that Nurse Ratched ‘adjusts’ both the ‘Inside’ world (the hospital) and the ‘Outside’ world (society), essentially he views her as an all powerful overlord (p. 28). He also believes that Ratched exerts her control via a complex electronic network (p. 29).

-The ward is ruled over by a group of people who have no power anywhere else in the world. In the rest of society Nurse Ratched and the ‘Black Boys’ are part of an underclass at this point in history, especially in contrast to white men. However, the social order is entirely inverted on the ward, it is a woman and African American men who viciously impose their rule on a group primarily composed of Caucasian men.

-When Taber inquires about the precise medication that the nursing staff is insisting he consume, he is quickly threatened and no answers are offered (p. 33-34). The hospital is a coercive setting that denies transparency to the patients it treats.

-Throughout the chapter it is revealed that Taber is drugged several times before EST is administered to him. The staff is pleased with the results.

Chapter 5

-The chapter opens with Bromden speaking in literal and symbolic terms. The fog is undoubtedly a paranoid hallucination, but it also represents something more. Bromden says, “[o]ne of these days I’ll quit straining and […] lose myself completely in the fog,” (p. 42). In other words, he is still fighting his sickness and the dark forces at the hospital, but he can imagine a day when he might surrender and be lost forever, so to speak.

-Bromden remains intrigued by McMurphy, the unique new admission (ibid).

-In group therapy Nurse Ratched reads directly from McMurphy’s file and more of his personal biography is revealed (p. 45):

The correctional institution where he was a prisoner referred him to the mental hospital due to the suspicion that he might be mentally ill
He is 35 years old
Never married
Fought with distinction in the Korean war, was later dishonorably discharged due to insubordination
Was later arrested on multiple occasions for street fighting, bar fighting, assault and battery, disturbing the peace, gambling, statutory rape

McMurphy’s record thus reveals a pattern of defiance and antisocial behavior. Violence underlies just about everything he does, one might even note that it is present in gambling. After all, gambling is a competition among men to achieve supremacy of skill and intellect, with the losers potentially left ruined and dominated.

-With regard to the rape charge, McMurphy explains that the 15 year old lied about her age and was actually the aggressor. Despite his claim, the court suspected that she fled before trial due to intimidation (p. 45).

-Why would Nurse Ratched insist on addressing McMurphy by the wrong name? (There’s no chance it was an accident, since she does so even as she is reading his personal file)

-McMurphy recounts the story of his uncle whose girlfriend antagonistically insisted on mispronouncing his name. That all came to an end when he “stopped her good,” (p. 46). McMurphy recounts this story in order to indirectly threaten Nurse Ratched in group therapy.

-McMurphy continues to elaborate on his patient file, explaining to Dr. Spivey (while group therapy is still underway), “I am crazy,” (p. 47). In fact, he is so familiar with his case file that he directs the Dr. to passages that support his referral to the psych ward, “Mr. McMurphy has evidenced repeated […] outbreaks of passion that suggest the possible diagnosis of psychopath,” (p. 47). The case file, however, also cautions that McMurphy might simply be faking mental illness in order to escape the drudgery of prison.

-Bromden shares a recollection of group therapy, aka the ‘Therapeutic Community’. He recounts how Nurse Ratched, rather than using it as a tool for patient treatment, instead uses it as a sort of public confessional. The patients are compelled to share their darkest secrets and to betray one another’s trust (p. 50-51).

-Having observed part of his first group therapy session, McMurphy observes that they resemble a ‘pecking party’. When asked to elaborate, McMurphy explains that when “[t]he flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken […] they go to peckin’ at it […] till they rip the chicken to shreds,” (p. 57). He continues to explain that the blood ultimately gets on every chicken and the entire group ultimately destroys itself. This is a profound and insightful observation and McMurphy has arrived at it rather quickly. Among other things, it reveals that despite his shortcomings, McMurphy seems to read people and situations with quick precision.

-Harding argues that the group therapy session in which everyone took turns dissecting him had a therapeutic value (p. 58-59). Do you agree with his assessment or with McMurphy’s (that it was a pecking party (p. 57))?

-Harding offers his informal assessment of McMurphy; “I noticed your primitive brutality also this morning. Psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an unreasoning egomania,” (p. 59).

-As the exchange between Harding and McMurphy continues, Harding scoffs at McMurphy’s assertion that Nurse Ratched is somehow similar to a chicken pecking out the eyes of its flock. McMurphy clarifies, “[s]he ain’t peckin’ out your eyes,” rather her aim is focused below the belt because she is aiming “[r]ight at your balls […] she is a ball-cutter,” (p. 59-60). ‘Ball-cutters’, according to McMurphy, are “people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this […] is to weaken you by getting’ you where it hurts the worst,” (p. 60). In other words, Nurse Ratched, according to McMurphy’s assessment, gains and preserves her power over the male patients by stripping them of their masculinity. According to such an interpretation, the purpose of everything that occurs on this particular psych ward is not therapeutic, but is rather aimed at the preservation of order and power structure.

-From now on as you read I want you assess and gather information to support or disprove McMurphy’s assertion that Nurse Ratched is a ‘ball-cutter’.

-Harding has an entirely different view of Nurse Ratched, “our Miss Ratched is a veritable angel of mercy and why just everyone knows it. She’s unselfish as the wind, toiling thanklessly for the good of all,” (p. 61).

-Finally, Harding concedes that McMurphy is right about Nurse Ratched, “Oh the bitch, the bitch, the bitch […] You are right […] about all of it,” he continues, “[n]o one’s ever dared come out and say it before, but there’s not a man among us that doesn’t think it, that doesn’t feel just as you do about her […] somewhere down deep in his scared little soul,” (p. 62).

-Harding also explains that Nurse Ratched has just as much control over Dr. Spivey as she does over the patients (p. 62-63). Further, he insinuates that the Dr. has a Demerol addiction and the Nurse is aware that he steals it from the hospital’s supply. She leverages this knowledge against the Dr. according to Harding.

-According to Harding, who is referring to all of his fellow patients, “[w]e are victims of a matriarchy here,” (p. 63).

-Harding offers his Darwin-esque explanation of how the world (and the hospital) works, “This world…belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak,” (p. 64). Harding continues this explanation by referring to wolves as the strong and powerful among us and the rabbits as the weak and dominated. He observes that rabbits are able to survive because they do not “challenge the wolf to combat,” (ibid). The patients are of course the rabbits, while the Nurse is the wolf in this metaphor.

-Harding offers the observation that the men on the ward are rabbits who cannot adjust to their ‘rabbithood’(p. 64). In other words, these men cannot adjust to the fact that despite their being males within a patriarchy, they are not powerful or dominant. They are so distressed by what they are not that they cannot accept what they are. Thus they “need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach,” them their place (p. 64).

-McMurphy observes that the patients on the ward are “not crazier than the average asshole on the street,” (p. 65). Does this indicate that every man on the ward is sane or that everyone in the rest of the world is equally insane?

-Harding tells McMurphy that he too is a rabbit (p. 66-67). From now on as you read gather evidence that will allow you to convincingly argue that McMurphy is either a wolf or a rabbit.

-Harding explains to McMurphy that ‘The Shock Shop’ “is jargon for the EST machine, Electro Shock Therapy. A device that might be said to do the work of the sleeping pill, the electric chair, and the torture rack. It’s a clever little procedure, simple, quick, nearly painless it happens so fast, but no one ever wants another one. Ever,” (p. 69). Harding also suggests that the effects of EST cause long term damage to the recipients.

-Chief Bromden is said to have received over 200 shock treatments (ibid).

-McMurphy is taking a civil rights leader posture as he assesses the state of things in the hospital. He delivers a speech to the patients in which he urges them “to do something to show you still have some guts,” (p. 70).

-McMurphy also observes that he hasn’t “heard a real laugh since” he was first admitted to the hospital. He tells the men “when you lose your laugh you lose your footing,” (p. 70). The speech, however, takes an unfortunate turn when McMurphy shames the men for allowing a woman to be in control, essentially urging them to reclaim their rightful spot in the patriarchal structure of society.

-The dimensions of McMurphy’s impending conflict with Nurse Ratched take shape at this point in the novel. McMurphy, repulsed by Nurse Ratched’s oppressive, exploitative rule, makes a bet with his fellow patients. He promises that he can manipulate and upset Nurse Ratched within one week without physically aggressing her or even raising his voice. Essentially McMurphy believes that he can confront her using her tactics and win (p. 72-75).

-McMurphy declares his reasons for orchestrating his transfer to the ward; first, he learned that the patients have tons of unspent money thanks to the government checks they receive. Second, as he bluntly puts it, “I’m in this place because that’s the way I planned it, […] because it’s a better place than the work farm,” (p. 75).

Chapter 6

-Bromden perceives the Nurse as a demigod; she has the power to cure or kill, she has total control over the men on the ward, and he believes that she can control time itself (p. 76).

*Demigod= a being with partial or lesser divine status.

-Bromden believes that the fog he regularly hallucinates has disappeared due to McMurphy’s arrival (p. 78). Thus his arrival has literally triggered clarity on the ward—the men are seeing and thinking more clearly.

-There is an irritating music that is constantly playing on loop on the ward (p. 79).

-McMurphy’s secret to being a ‘top-notch’ con man is “being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he’s getting it,” (p. 81). Is McMurphy somehow perpetrating a con at the hospital?

-A student of literature once told McMurphy that he was a symbol (p.84). Kesey in this scene has established that the reader must henceforth view McMurphy as a symbol of some sort. As you continue to read you must begin to determine what he is intended to symbolize.

-McMurphy, being the con man that he is, has figured out Bromden’s con—he’s not deaf (p. 84).

Chapter 7

-Bromden describes the effects of the sleeping pills that the staff forces him to take each night, “you don’t just go to sleep; you’re paralyzed with sleep,” (p. 85). Bromden claims that he awoke several times over the years after having skipped the meds and discovered the staff “performing all kinds of horrible crimes on the” sleeping patients (ibid). It is impossible to determine whether this is a paranoid hallucination or whether Bromden did witness the patients being criminally victimized.

-This chapter offers the reader a firsthand glance into the nightmarish world of Bromden’s horrific paranoid thoughts and hallucinations. Bromden describes watching as a “worker drives [a] hook through the tendon back of the heel,” of a patient as he hangs upside down. A surgical procedure is then performed on him in the middle of the ward as the men sleep (p. 88). While this episode is informative because it offers the reader a glimpse of how Bromden experiences the world, it also serves as a reminder that his accounts and understandings should be heavily scrutinized.

-Bromden is tied to his bed every night at bed time (p. 90).

Chapter 8

-McMurphy begins the day by taking a shower and playfully singing. According to Bromden, the patients have not heard such a thing in years (p. 91).

-The orderlies and the patients alike perceive that McMurphy is exceptional and treat him as such on the ward (p. 93). It appears as though there is a hesitance to make him follow the rules. Is it because he is intimidating? Exceptional? What might the reason be?

-Throughout this chapter (p. 91-101) McMurphy embarks upon his ambition to ‘get the nurse’s goat’. He begins by objecting to the rule that patients are denied casual access to toothpaste. His objection escalated when he opted to brush his teeth with soap. Once Nurse Ratched arrives for her shift, McMurphy makes a point of complaining that the orderlies have taken his clothing and left him with nothing to wear. He then exposes his nearly nude body to the Nurse as part of the aforementioned intention. She has maintained her composure, but it is evident that McMurphy has already begun to aggravate her.

Chapter 9

-McMurphy continues to marvel at the conditions on the ward, cannot imagine leaving (p. 103).

-The moment McMurphy arrives the men stop snitching on each other, much to Nurse Ratched’s disappointment (p. 107).

-McMurphy and Dr. Spivey attended the same high school. McMurphy has found a ‘mark’ in the doctor and begins using the aforementioned to his advantage (p. 108).

-As the chapter opened McMurphy requested that the nurse lower the music that is constantly playing on loop on the ward. The nurse refused. After speaking with Dr. Spivey McMurphy, McMurphy has not only convinced him that there should be a carnival on the ward, but has manipulated him into adopting his idea that the men should play cards in the tub room (p. 110). McMurphy is so manipulative and intelligent that he is able to control the doctor.

-Bromden observes that Nurse Ratched “lost a battle […] but it’s a minor battle in a big war that she’s been winning and that she’ll go on winning […] just like the Combine, because she has all the power of the Combine behind her.” In order to truly beat her one must win every battle, a single loss will mean “she’s won for good. And eventually,” everyone loses (p. 113). In other words, a single mistake grants the Nurse the full authority that she needs to do whatever she wants to a given patient. Losing in the context of the ward means basically losing everything; your mind, your freedom, your life.

Chapter 10

-This brief chapter depicts the men playing a game of Monopoly that has spanned 3 days. It is a rather frustrating experience due to the mental state of multiple players; hallucinations, randomly invented rules, the eating of houses, etc. are all common occurrences.

Chapter 11

-An incident of major significance occurs at the end of this chapter. The MLB World Series is underway and McMurphy, like so many people at this time, hopes to watch it on TV. Doing so would require the men’s duty schedule to be turned on its head for the duration of the series. Nurse Ratched, of course, declines McMurphy’s request (p. 117-118). McMurphy, however, is most upset by the refusal of the patients to support him. In his mind they owe one another support, it’s part of how they stick together and remain unified against the Nurse. Thus their reaction is his mind is a betrayal.

-Why do the patients not offer their support to McMurphy in his bid to watch the World Series?

-McMurphy engages in a dialogue with the patients in order to understand why they did not offer him their support. Harding explains that a “baseball game isn’t worth the risk,” because the Nurse is able to make things ‘worse’ for the men (p. 121).

-“Nobody’s gonna convince me I can’t do something till I try it,” (p. 124).

-McMurphy makes a bet with his fellow patients. He claims that he will be able to lift an impossibly heavy object and throw it through a window. The patients eagerly bet against him and McMurphy inevitably fails. The episode culminates with him declaring that he at least tried rather than assuming he’d be a failure (p. 124-125).

-Why would McMurphy make a bet that he was certain to lose? What is the point?

-McMurphy was trying to teach the patients an important life lesson. The majority of the men seem resigned to the conclusion that they are defeated losers who will never succeed at anything. McMurphy, on the other hand, insists that it is unacceptable for the men to claim defeat before even trying. It appears as though he is trying to teach the men that one must believe in oneself at all times, even when failure may be inevitable. McMurphy’s intentions with the men emerge as perhaps more positive than many readers may have assumed at the outset of the novel. In addition to the aforementioned, it is important to note that McMurphy forgave the men of all their debts at the end of this chapter, each owing him substantially more than the 5$ they lost on this particular debt.

Chapter 12

-Bromden has a hallucination involving a painting on the ward. In his mind the frosty mountainous nature scene is animated and real; he can hear the water running, feel the chill from the snow, etc.

-Bromden also listens in as a doctor boasts that the conditions of the ward are such that a man would be insane if he ever wanted to leave (p. 126-127).

Chapter 13

-Bromden explains that McMurphy fails to understand that the patients ‘stay in the fog’ as a precautionary measure (p. 128). In other words, they never cause trouble as a form of self-preservation, it keeps them safe. Living in the fog means not being noticed, avoiding all risk.

Chapter 14

-Bromden recounts the story of Old Rawler, a man who killed himself via castration in full view of multiple witnesses. Bromden cannot understand why the man would commit suicide when “all the guy had to do was wait,” (p. 129). What does Bromden mean by that?

Chapter 15

-Bromden explains in greater depth how fog is produced (p. 130).

-Bromden suspects that the hospital has increased its production of fog since McMurphy’s arrival (p. 131-132).

-Bromden overhears a staff meeting in which Nurse Ratched suggests that McMurphy should be removed from the hospital because he is “upsetting the patients” (p. 133).

-Bromden believes that he is floating and notices a recent increase in the production of fog and says, “I’m so scared; I feel I’m going to float off someplace for good this time,” (p. 134).

-“I can see all that, and be hurt by it, the way I was hurt by seeing things in the Army, in the war. The way I was hurt by seeing what happened to Papa and the tribe. I thought I’d got over seeing those things and fretting over them,” (Bromden, p. 136).

-“You got to understand that as soon as a man goes to help somebody, he leaves himself wide open,” (Bromden, p. 137).

-Bromden describes a particularly brutal group therapy session in which Nurse Ratched insists on publicly discussing the most embarrassing details of Billy Bibbit’s life;

He started stuttering from his first moment of speech (p. 134)
His marriage proposal was rejected by a woman who laughed in his face due to his stutter (p. 136)
He flunked out of college when he quit the military—the stutter again being at fault (p. 133)

-Bromden’s father destroyed himself due to his heavy drinking (p. 138).

-Nurse Ratched proposes to the men that McMurphy would be better suited to a different ward—they object immediately (p. 139). Nurse Ratched was evidently certain that the men would follow her lead and agree that McMurphy should be moved. This is highly unethical, to begin, but beyond that, it marks her first major public loss to McMurphy. The power dynamic on the ward has shifted in McMurphy’s favor.

-McMurphy proposes a vote; he proposes that the television schedule should be temporarily altered during the World Series (p. 139). Many of the patients begin to vote not just in favor or McMurphy, “but against the Big Nurse […] against the way she’s talked and acted and beat them down for fears,” (p. 140).

-McMurphy’s vote initially seems victorious until the Nurse mentions afterword that the vegetative patients must vote as well or they are counted as against the proposed change (p. 140).

-McMurphy ultimately wins; he sits before the shut television refusing to move or return to his chores. As Nurse Ratched orders him back to work the other patients join him in protest. McMurphy, it can be said, has won his bet—the Nurse has lost total control as the men ignore her demand that they return to work (p. 144-145).

-What point are McMurphy and the patients attempting to make by sitting in front of the TV and refusing to move?

-Would it be reasonable to say that Nurse Ratched's authority has been exposed as an illusion?

Part 2

Chapter 16

-As the men pretend to watch the World Series on the shut television they sneak glances at Nurse Ratched. “For the first time she’s on the other side of the glass and getting a taste of how it feels to be watched when you wish more than anything else,” not to be (p. 149). This should serve as further evidence that McMurphy has indeed won his bet; the men are now engaged in open defiance of the Nurse. Further, she has become the observed, uncomfortable party as the tables have been turned.

-“We let McMurphy lure us out of the fog,” (Bromden, p. 150).

-Bromden is allowed to clean the staff room as the staff meetings are underway (p. 150-151). His hallucinations during these meetings entails him believing that he cleans “horrible things, poisons manufactured right out of skin pores and acids in the air strong enough to melt a man, (p. 151). If we consider the symbolic implications of the aforementioned hallucinations, Bromden is surrounded by toxic people who make horrific decisions about the patients they treat.

-Chief Bromden is cleaning the staff room as they meet to arrive at a unified opinion concerning “what should be done about Mr. McMurphy,” (p. 153).

-The doctors in the staff meeting behave in a manner that is quite similar to the group therapy sessions of the patients; they attack each other, ‘one up’ each other, and when one is perceived to be wrong they engage in the ‘pecking party’ that McMurphy earlier described (p. 153-156). Their attempts to diagnose McMurphy vary wildly and seem to convey a potential disdain that Ken Kesey may have for the mental health establishment. Some speculate that McMurphy is a closeted gay man, others suggested schizophrenia, and so forth. Their approach to diagnosis is unscientific, wildly speculative, and seems rooted, above all else, in competition. As the discussion continues, the well-being and treatment protocols of the patient himself are not discussed at all. The young doctors instead demonstrate concern only for their personal well-being and comfort above all else.

-The Big Nurse disagrees with all of the aforementioned assessments of McMurphy, “I don’t agree that he is some kind of extraordinary being—some kind of ‘super’ psychopath,” (p. 157). Ratched goes on to explain that instead of being sent to another ward (Disturbed Ward) he must remain so that he does not become a martyr and because she wants to disabuse everyone (patients and staff alike) of the notion that McMurphy is some type of extraordinary person (ibid).

-Nurse Ratched contends that McMurphy, “isn’t extraordinary. He is simply a man and no more, and is subject to all the fears and all the cowardice and all the timidity that any other man is subject to,” (p. 157). Is there anything exceptional about McMurphy or is he nothing more than a normal man as the Nurse contends?

-Nurse Ratched expresses some fairly ominous sentiments at the end of the chapter. First, she suggests that McMurphy will “back down the moment there is any real danger to him personally,” (p. ibid). This statement is disturbing because the Nurse conveys that the patients are in ‘real danger’ on the ward. Second, Ratched closes the chapter by reminding the doctors that they “have weeks, or months, or even years,” to treat McMurphy—meaning they have the authority to determine if and when he has been cured.

Chapter 17

-After his victory in uniting the patients to oppose the Nurse, McMurphy becomes increasingly and more demonstrably defiant on the ward (p. 159).

Chapter 18

-McMurphy’s protest has emboldened his fellow patients to openly complain about everything that has ever bothered them on the ward (p. 167).

-As the men begin to rebel, a thoughtful questioning of ward protocols emerges. One such question involves challenging the rules against being alone or sleeping in (ibid). Cheswick intelligently asks Nurse Ratched, “You mean it’s sick to want to be off by yourself?” (ibid). If you were initially inclined to see McMurphy as a conman villain, outcomes such as this may cause you to question such a stance. McMurphy, since his arrival, has attempted to restore humanity to the ward via laughter, singing, etc. McMurphy also instilled in the men the notion that one should not assume that failure will result before attempting to succeed first. Finally, McMurphy has brought the therapeutic value of the Nurse’s methods into question—are her ways truly aimed at making the men better?

-Do you think McMurphy’s arrival on the ward has had a positive impact on the patients? (They’ve stopped snitching, they’re thinking more critically, etc.)

-Bromden explains that once he was brave and able to do the things that now scare him. This, however, all changed when he saw his father, “start getting scared of things,” (p. 169). Once Bromden witnessed the tragic destruction of his father he became sick and fearful. You might look at his father as being emblematic of all Native people and Bromden being emblematic of what remains in the aftermath of their near total destruction (*There will be further elaboration about Bromden’s father shortly).

-McMurphy learns the truth of his situation at the hospital during a conversation with a lifeguard, “You’re sentenced in a jail, and you got a date ahead of when you know you’re gonna be turned loose,” (p. 170). In other words, the thing that distinguishes prison from the mental hospital is that they can keep a person committed indefinitely. Thus, the Nurse whom McMurphy has been agitating will have an authoritative say as to if or when McMurphy will be released (!).

-After McMurphy has learned the truth of his situation he becomes a model patient and stops antagonizing the Nurse (p. 172-173).

-Bromden begins to explain the similarity that he believes exists between McMurphy and his father. Bromden’s father attempted to resist the government’s attempt to buy indigenous land for far less than it was worth—this was his way of rebelling against the Combine. Both men rebelled and appear to have learned the severe cost of their respective rebellions (p. 174).

-At the end of the chapter Cheswick dies from drowning immediately after McMurphy seems to end his revolt and stops standing up for the patients (p. 174-175). One might look at Cheswick’s death as perhaps a suicide rather than an accident. Distraught that the hope McMurphy embodied was snuffed out—the hero, the fighter, (etc.) Cheswick killed himself.

Chapter 19

-Scanlon, it is discovered, takes Sefelt’s medication—triggering Sefelt to have seizures. Scanlon explains to McMurphy that while the medication prevents seizures, it rots one’s gums, prompting him to say, “Hell of a life. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Puts a man in one confounded bind, I’d say,” (p. 179). You might look at this incident as subtly conveying a major theme of this novel, the conundrum faced by McMurphy—to act and oppose the Nurse or to passively accept her intent to strip away one’s manhood and dignity. Either way he’s damned.

Chapter 20

-According to Bromden’s assessment, the momentarily interrupted processes of the ward have nearly been restored to their previous state of mechanized functionality (p. 181).

Chapter 21

-Harding’s wife visits him on the ward and is granted access due to openly flirting with the orderly. Harding refers to her as his, “counterpart and Nemesis,” (p. 183).

-Harding’s wife emasculates him in front of his fellow patients, “Dale, when are you going to learn to laugh instead of making that mousy little squeak?” (ibid).

-Harding is triggered by his wife’s public criticism to commence an openly patronizing, awkward conflict in full view of the patients in general and McMurphy in particular. She publicly attacked his masculinity so he retaliated by attacking her intellect (p. 184).

-Harding refuses to be chivalrous by sharing cigarettes with his wife, so she then asks McMurphy, “[c]an you handle a simple little thing like offering a girl a cigarette?” (p. 184). Since Dale refused to perform his husbandly duty, she seeks out a man to stand in for her inadequate husband. The subtext of the moment is so blatant that the implications cannot be denied.

-After Harding’s wife departs he seeks McMurphy’s opinion of her. It is evident to McMurphy that Harding hopes to be pitied and perceived as victimized in some way. “I know what you want me to think; you want me to feel sorry for you, to think she’s a real bitch. Well you didn’t make her feel like any queen either. […] I’ve got worries of my own without getting hooked in with all of yours. […] Alla you! Quit bugging me goddammit!” (p. 185) McMurphy refuses to indulge the emasculated sense of victimhood that Harding and the other patients seem to have. Instead, he calls them out on their manipulative self-pitying games. This incident also marks a continuation of McMurphy’s withdrawal from his fellow patients—a decision taken after he came to realize that his time at the psych ward would only come to an end once the nurse decided he was ‘well’ or ‘cured’.

-McMurphy apologizes to Harding soon after (p. 186).

Chapter 22

-The patients are being X-rayed for TB, but Bromden that their machinery is being scanned and maintained (p. 188).

-Harding explains EST (Electro-Shock Therapy) to McMurphy, it is a “free trip to the moon. No, on the second thought, it isn’t completely free. You pay for the service with brain cells instead of money, and everyone simply has billions of brain cells on deposit. You won’t miss a few,” (p. 189).

-Harding continues to explain that EST is completely painless, but “no one ever wants another one. You…change […] as if the jolt sets off a wild carnival wheel of images, emotions, memories,” (p. 190-191). Harding’s manner of describing EST is ominous and suggests an underlying horror. Something about the fact that people are manipulating and attacking the human brain with electricity in order to address an issue is unsettling.

-Harding and McMurphy then discuss lobotomy, “chopping away the brain. Frontal-lobe castration. I guess if she [Nurse Ratched] can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above the eyes,” (p. 191).

-McMurphy begins to doubt the Nurse is responsible for all the troubles on the ward, he thinks that there is “something bigger all this mess,” (p.192). If nurse Ratched is not to blame for all that is wrong on the ward, then what is? (Society/ the Combine, Human Nature, the psychological establishment?)

-McMurphy initially thinks the men have conned him into opposing Nurse Ratched and is astonished to learn that every one of them is at the hospital voluntarily (p. 193-194).

-McMurphy cannot understand why Billy Bibbit would voluntarily stay in an asylum. He contends that Billy could cope with the outside world if he chose to be more courageous. This triggers Billy to have a tearful outburst (p. 195). What is McMurphy failing to understand about his fellow patients?

Chapter 23

-Bromden can see that McMurphy is questioning many things about himself and his fellow patients. He is concerned by this because he feels that McMurphy is preoccupied by matters that should be none of his concern. Bromden’s metaphorical description likens McMurphy to a dog investigating an ominous black hole whose contents are both unknown and none of his business. It concerns him that it appears to be McMurphy’s flawed nature to interrogate matters that would best be avoided (p. 197).

-This chapter is comprised of a singular rising action; the atmosphere is pregnant with anticipation. Bromden can discern from McMurphy’s demeanor that he intends to do something. Initially it appears as though Bromden’s instinct might somehow be misguided because McMurphy has no reaction to the Big Nurse’s punishment of the men. The Nurse revokes tub room privileges to the men because 3 weeks prior they refused to do their duties, instead opting to pretend watching the World Series. After her announcement McMurphy speechlessly rises from his chair in group therapy, walks to the nurse’s station and rams his hand through the glass window as he reaches for his cigarettes. He feigns ignorance and in a mocking tone explains that the window was so clean that he did not even realize it was there (p. 197-201).

**The following section will offer an in depth, researched analysis of the scene in which McMurphy shattered the window.

-This incident occurs after weeks of inaction on McMurphy’s part. It seemed as though he had become meek and well behaved in order to ensure a timely departure from the hospital. The shattering of the glass is significant for several reasons;

First, it signifies a decisive action and stance. McMurphy spent weeks deliberating whether he would liberate himself or the patients. After his nightmare about the faces earlier in part two, after the suicide of Cheswick, and eye opening conversations with both Harding (about EST & lobotomy) and Billy (about the courage required to confront the real world), McMurphy has decided to sacrifice himself for the better of the men. The shattering of the glass thus represents an irreversible action, something that cannot be undone. McMurphy has declared war against the Nurse and has committed himself to her opposition.

Second, war against Nurse Ratched is really a war against the Combine (society as a whole). (Inspired in part by http://pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmCuckoo15.asp). “The glass of the nurse’s station represents the barrier between the individual and power—a barrier the patients are forbidden to cross, even though it appears more transparent than bars. McMurphy first crosses the barrier when he attempts it to turn down the music so he can think, but Nurse Ratched escorts him out, unwilling to tolerate independent thought. Later he shoves his hand through the glass, shattering the boundaries maintained by the authoritative state, with dire consequences,” (http://innisdale.ca/FilmAppreciation/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/One-Flew-over-the-Cuckoo%E2%80%99s-Nest-Analysis.pdf).

The shattering of the glass signifies a shattering of the notions Nurse Ratched and the patients alike had concerning her authority and power.

Finally, we might also look at the shattering of the glass as McMurphy shattering any remaining chance for freedom that may have existed.

-Read this impeccable analysis (WARNING: it contains spoilers!): http://innisdale.ca/FilmAppreciation/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/One-Flew-over-the-Cuckoo%E2%80%99s-Nest-Analysis.pdf

-This incident marks the end of Part 2 of the novel. The conflict between Ratched and McMurphy has been fully and decisively ignited. McMurphy has escalated his methods so that they are no longer psychological. The shattering of the glass signifies the conflict becoming physical.

Part 3

Chapter 24

-According to Bromden Nurse Ratched was aware that she suffered a symbolic loss when McMurphy shattered the window. However, Bromden also believes that Ratched is simply waiting for the right opportunity to strike back and time is on her side, so to speak (p. 205).

-McMurphy has organized the patients into a basketball team (p. 206-207).

-Ratched and McMurphy go back and forth as their conflict continues. The deeds so far are relatively insignificant jabs each takes at the other. McMurphy breaks the window again under laughable pretenses (p. 207). Despite pretending that everything was alright, “the strain was beginning to show in other ways,” (ibid).

-The other patients follow McMurphy’s example and join him in antagonizing Nurse Ratched and the other staff (p. 208);

Harding flirts with the nursing students
Billy has stopped snitching
Scanlon broke the window as well
Martini approached Nurse Ratched with the deflated ball that broke the window and asked her to repair it

The men, who Nurse Ratched worked so hard to emasculate, have rediscovered their manhood. These men have not just reconnected with masculinity, but with their humanity as well.

-McMurphy has been authorized to organize a fishing trip for 9 men on the ward. Nurse Ratched does her best to dissuade their interest (p. 208-209). Bromden wants to go but is concerned that he’ll expose himself as not being deaf if he does.

-Paradox; “I had to keep on acting deaf if I wanted to hear at all,” (p. 209).

-Bromden explains how he started acting as though he was deaf, “it wasn’t me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all,” (p. 210). The deaf act started when he was 10 years old and steadily increased as Bromden found that people either felt that he was not listening to them when they spoke, or that he was too stupid to grasp the meaning of their words. Essentially, since Bromden’s words and thoughts were deemed irrelevant by those around him, he decided to cease actively interacting with the world.

-“Papa says if you don’t watch it people will force you one way or the other, into what they think you should do, or into just being […] opposite out of spite,” (p. 210). In other words, a person must take a firm stance on who they are and what they believe or the world will make that choice for you.

-Bromden has a flashback about a time when he was 10 years old. A group of surveyors arrived at his family’s home with the intention of assessing the value of his family’s land. Their goal was ultimately to build a hydro dam on the terrain but Bromden’s father had to first consent to its sale. Bromden recalls attempting to speak to the white visitors and being ignored entirely—as though he did not exist. That incident marks a defining moment when Bromden decided to remain feign his inability to speak or hear--basically entering the fog (p. 210-215).

-Geever, one of the night attendants on the ward, scrapes Bromden’s old gum off the bottom of his bead as all of the men sleep. Bromden continually chews the same pieces of gum for years because he does not have money to buy more (p. 215-216). McMurphy notices and once Geever leaves offers gives Bromden a pack of gum. Bromden speaks for the first time in the novel (and for the first time in years) when he says “Thank you,” to McMurphy (p. 217).

-McMurphy informs Bromden that he is willing to listen if Bromden would like to speak. Bromden lays in silence for an extended period and concludes “that the only thing came to my mind was the kind of thing one man can’t say to another because it sounds wrong in words,” (p. 218). What do you think Bromden wanted to say to McMurphy?

-McMurphy understands Bromden because for a brief time he too was silent after discovering that the people around him had no interest in anything he was going to say. McMurphy differed because it all ultimately culminated in an outburst during which McMurphy exposed the truth of certain matters (p. 218-219).

-McMurphy asks Bromden if he intends to confront the people that upset him at some point. Bromden’s reply is puzzling (p. 219);

“No […] I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t tell them off? It’s easier than you think.”

“You’re …lot bigger, tougher’n I am,” I mumbled.

[…]

“Me? Are you kidding? Criminy, look at you: you stand a head taller’n any man on the ward […].”

“No. I’m way too little. I used to be big, but not no more. You’re twice the size of me.”

McMurphy is obviously not physically larger than Bromden. He fails to understand that Bromden is referring to bigness of spirit and character—his sense of self and his power are tremendously large. Bromden is a ‘small’ man because his manhood and mind have been steadily and systematically eroded over the years. When Bromden speaks of size even his hallucinations are metaphorical or perhaps supernatural in the sense that he is able to perceive one’s size based on their character.

-Bromden explains that those around his father perceived him to be a big man and thus pursued an agenda to destroy him as a result (p. 220-221). Bromden forecasts to McMurphy that the Combine will do the same to him is it did to his father. Again, the bigness being referred to is in reference to the size of his character, not his physical stature.

-By the time the Combine was finished with Bromden’s father he was little more than a shriveled, alcoholic shadow of his former self. “I see him put the bottle to his mouth he don’t suck out of it, it sucks out of him until he’s shrunk […],” (p. 221).

-Bromden is tempted to reach out and touch McMurphy for reasons that leave him somewhat confused until he realizes that he wants to “touch him because he is who he is,” (p. 222). Bromden wants to touch a person who reminds him of his father, an embodiment of strength and manhood and power. It appears to be partly a yearning for his father and partly a yearning to reconnect with the man he once was. It is thus important to note that Bromden does not touch McMurphy thus signifying that the aforementioned are beyond his grasp. His failure to touch McMurphy should also trigger the reader to question whether McMurphy is a hallucination keeping Bromden’s initial declaration in mind that the story featured in the novel is the truth even if it did not happen.

-McMurphy informs Bromden that the women accompanying the patients on his fishing trip are prostitutes (ibid). Bromden informs him that he cannot afford to go on the trip, so McMurphy makes a deal with him, “promise to lift” the console if I can “get you big as you used to be, “ (p. 223). McMurphy claims to have a secret method that he will use to make Bromden big again. By the end of the chapter he strips Bromden’s covers exposing an erection and jokes that he has made Bromden bigger already. Apart from being a joke, Bromden’s erection at the close of the chapter is a reference to him regaining part of his manhood and humanity.

Chapter 25

-Bromden is excited about the fishing trip that will be happening during this chapter. In part he is excited by the fact that two prostitutes will be chaperoning the men on their outing (p. 223). It should also be noted that the patients who have signed up to go on this trip have taken a stand. Nurse Ratched attempted to dissuade the men from going on the trip via cheap scare tactics, but the men opted instead to heed McMurphy’s encouragement.

-Bromden has started to get ‘bigger’. When two orderlies order him to mop, like usual, he refuses, telling himself, “The hell with that. A man going fishing with two whores from Portland don’t have to take that crap,” (ibid).

-As McMurphy wakes the patients who are about to leave on the fishing trip he speaks in a manner that is reminiscent of a pirate captain (p. 226). In some ways he may be a hustler and a criminal (pirate), but it is now evident that he has become their leader, thus successfully replacing Nurse Ratched in what might be called a ‘mutiny’ in another context.

-McMurphy discovers that fellow patient George Sorensen was a fisherman and becomes interested in his joining them on the fishing trip. George, however, has OCD and is initially resistant to going on the trip (p. 227-229).

-McMurphy persuades/convinces/manipulates George into joining the men on the fishing trip. He achieves this by suggesting that George was successfully intimidated by Nurse Ratched, by suggesting the patients would be safe if his expertise were available to them, by making him the ship Captain, by reducing his fee to 5$ (p. 229-230).

-The patients are pleasantly shocked to discover that the trip chaperone, Candy, is actually a prostitute. Bromden explains that this is in part due to the fact that Sandra is a real woman rather than a nurse (p. 230-231).

-Once Sandra arrives on the ward she is surrounded by 40 male patients who have hardly seen a woman in years. They stare as though she is a spectacle to behold while she awkwardly fidgets (p. 232).

-Billy Bibbit whistles at Candy and she takes it as a compliment (ibid). Candy’s arrival on the ward is significant for several reasons. First, her arrival shatters the barrier between the outside world and the insular world of the ward. Second, Candy is one of the few unspoken for women to visit these men from the outside—meaning, she is not a mother, sister, aunt, or someone’s wife. Candy is simply there to see them. Finally, as she stands and is the focus of intense staring and yearning, something important is happening. The male patients, who Nurse Ratched had attempted to castrate, still have a sex drive and a functioning libido. In other words, these patients are still men, they are still human—they are normal and well to a greater degree than they previously thought.

-There is only room for 5 men in the car Candy has brought. This means that half of the men cannot go on the trip according to Nurse Ratched. McMurphy also accidentally mentions that he is financially profiting from the trip (p. 233).

-It appears as though McMurphy will finally suffer a loss in his ongoing conflict with Ratched, “you’ve had more than your fair share of victories,” (ibid). This relatively minor passage depicts the Nurse openly admitting to the fact that she is in a conflict with McMurphy—rather than viewing him as a sick patient in need of care, she views him as an adversary to be conquered. Yet another glimpse at Ratched’s more sinister intentions on the ward.

-McMurphy and Candy quickly convince Dr. Spivey to join them on the fishing trip thus offering his car as part of the transit. McMurphy has yet another victory in this ongoing conflict with Nurse Ratched (p. 233-234).

-Now that we have read more explain how your view of Nurse Ratched and R.P. McMurphy, respectively, has changed or become more entrenched.

-The patients quickly begin to feel uncomfortable in the outside world. They are all wearing green uniforms that clearly identify them as mental patients and people are staring. Their initial instinct is to retreat back to the confines of the hospital (p. 234-235).

-When the cars initially stop at a gas station for a refill they are initially confronted by two attendants. The attendants begin speaking with Dr. Spivey who shamefully confirms their suspicion that the travelers are men from the asylum. The doctor’s embarrassment causes the patients to feel the same (p. 235-236).

-McMurphy reverses the scenario entirely by turning each man’s mental illness into a source of pride and as something worthy of respect (p. 237). Because of McMurphy all of the men begin to feel “cocky as fighting roosters and calling orders to the service-station guys,” (p. 238). Yet again McMurphy has restored each patient’s sense of pride and manhood. He has shown them that they are capable of rejoining the world if they simply alter their attitudes—perhaps they are not as sick as they have been convinced.

-The men’s shift in attitude is seen immediately. A passerby on a bicycle stops to ask the patients why they are all in green. Rather than sheepishly retreating or lying, Harding instead declares, “We are lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of mankind.” He continues by explaining his epiphany to McMurphy, “Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power […] perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become,” (p. 238). Not only do they have pride, but they also have power, they are able to see how their unique attributes can actually be a source of empowerment. This is the polar opposite of the implications conveyed about each man at the hospital and particularly in group therapy. This trip marks a new type of group therapy, one where the men bond, embrace their illness and develop pride.

-The patients continue to reconnect with life outside of the hospital. Bromden observes, “I had forgotten that there can be good sounds and tastes […] I […] started looking around me to see what else I had forgotten in twenty years,” (p. 239).

-“He’d [McMurphy] taught us what a little bravado and courage could accomplish, and we thought he’d taught us how to use it,” (ibid).

-“When people at a stop light would stare at us and our green uniforms we’d do just like he did, sit up straight and strong and tough-looking and put a big groin on our face and stare straight back at them,” (ibid).

*“McMurphy led the twelve of us toward the ocean,” (ibid). This line has a major significance that can easily be overlooked. Upon researching the matter, there appears to be links between this excerpt and the bible. For example, “Christ called and chose twelve men to bear witness to what he did and to spread the good news of the gospel to the entire world. After he was raised from the dead, Jesus told the eleven disciples (Judas had killed himself) that God had given him ALL power and authority in both earth and heaven (God's divine authority - Matthew 28:18) (http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible/12.html). Further, the number 12 “is considered a perfect number, in that it symbolizes God's power and authority,” (ibid).

The first reference is of particular interest because it is becoming increasingly clear that McMurphy is being depicted as a Christ like figure in the novel. McMurphy, like Christ, has 12 Apostles and shares a message that he believes will liberate those who choose to be his followers. By this point in the novel we also begin to see that McMurphy’s message is one of truth and salvation; don’t be ashamed of who you are, stand up for yourself, believe in yourself, always try and only concede to failure once you have actually failed, injustice, corruption and oppression are not to be tolerated, etc.

-As Bromden observes the world from the passenger seat of the car, his theory about the Combine is not altogether unfounded. He observes that everyone dresses alike, lives in identical homes, they all spill out of public transit after working all day at jobs that are more or less identical (p. 240). Society/ the Combine has bred people to closely resemble one another. Further, the more people differ, the more they are shunned and have difficulty finding a place where they belong. It is not unreasonable to feel as though there is something disconcerting about the urgent need to conform to a generic norm in every regard. Perhaps there is something about the Combine/ common societal conditions that makes people unwell, thus rendering mental illness a rational response to the aforementioned conditions.

-In your view are Bromden’s observations about society rational or are they a sign of his mental illness? Explain in detail offering concrete examples.

-The fishing trip almost fails yet again when it comes to light that McMurphy has failed to get various documents required for the rental of a boat. McMurphy distracts the Captain and essentially steals the boat that he had arranged to rent (p. 241-244).

-All of the men (patients), including Bromden, are excited to be fishing in the ‘open sea’ (p. 247). They are out in the ‘real’ world beyond the parameters of the hospital, and not only are they happy, they are normal, regular people. Notions of being sick, medicated, limited, and in need of therapy are nonexistent as they simply live in the moment for perhaps the first time in decades in some cases.

*If we return to the biblical analogy that suggests McMurphy is Jesus and the patients are the Apostles, then we might look at this trip as the Last Supper. First we see the emergence of the number 12 yet again; there are 12 men on the fishing trip just as there are 12 Apostles at the Last Supper, apart from Jesus. At the Last Supper Jesus predicts various betrayals and his ultimate demise. Jesus shares a last meal with the Apostles and notoriously tells them that they should drink wine because it is his blood and eat bread because it is his flesh. On the fishing expedition the men drink beer and catch fish—the food and drink components of the Last Supper (even Candy symbolizes Mary Magdalene). It will also mark the last occasion during which the men are in the presence of McMurphy, their savior, before his impending demise.

-After having a trip that one might call life altering for all concerned, the men return to shore and discover police waiting for them (p. 253).

Part 4

Chapter 26

-Nurse Ratched begins to plant seeds of doubt within each patient as to McMurphy’s true motivations. The insinuation is that everything he does, fishing trip included, is a con perpetrated solely for his financial benefit (p. 261-262).

-Ratched’s latest tactic appears to be working (p. 262).

-McMurphy continues to bring about changes on the ward; he arranges it so that the men have magazines that they find more appealing (pornography), he created and sent a petition to Washington objecting to the use of lobotomies and EST in mental hospitals (p. 262-263).

-Ratched most effectively triggers doubt about McMurphy in his absence; yet again triggering his motivations and suggesting that he is pretending to be mentally ill. She even suggests that he thinks of himself as “a saint or a martyr,” (p. 264).

-Yet again religious imagery emerges; just as Herod Antipas mocked Jesus for declaring that he was the son of god and a prophet, Nurse Ratched mocks McMurphy, whom she believes has delusions of sainthood, attempting to convince all that he is a false prophet.

-Harding directly opposes the Nurse in group therapy—a first for him. He reminds the men that they may have lost a great deal of money to McMurphy, but they did so knowingly and had fun doing it. He essentially offers rebuttals to the Ratched’s various attempts at re-instilling each man’s sense of victimhood (p. 266). It’s not that Harding attempts to paint McMurphy as a saint, he simply encourages each man to be honest and realistic about the role each of them has knowingly played.

-McMurphy observes that Bromden has grown, and Bromden agrees. In fact, McMurphy’s words alone trigger the growth in Bromden’s opinion (p. 267-268). What Bromden has actually regained is his inner strength and confidence.

-Because McMurphy was able to make Bromden grow Bromden must attempt to lift the panel, as per their agreement. Bromden successively lifts it (p. 268).

-McMurphy exploits Bromden; he uses his secret knowledge that Bromden can lift the panel in order to win a bet against all of the other patients. Bromden is upset and betrayed, and the other patients sense that they have been scammed too (p. 269).

-Bromden, on the verge of tears, confronts McMurphy and explains that he and the other patients felt as though his intentions with them went beyond just winning (p. 270).

-McMurphy’s reaction, on the other hand, suggests that Bromden is overlooking something (ibid). What does Bromden fail to realize? How do McMurphy’s intentions extend beyond winning?

-The Nurse arranged for all of the men who went on the fishing trip to have a special shower in order to wash anything away that they may have caught during their time in the presence of a prostitute (p. 270-271).

-In a scene of escalating intensity one of the orderlies attempts to force George to wash with the cleanser as well. George, due to his OCD, refuses. McMurphy is upset by this because he has empathy for George and because he senses the malicious intent of the orderlies. After shouting racial slurs at one of the orderlies the confrontation becomes physical. McMurphy ultimately wins the fight with an assist from Bromden who prevents the other orderlies from interfering (p. 271-275)

-It should be noted that just before the fight Bromden explains that the impending events of the shower would serve as evidence that “we’d all been wrong about McMurphy,” (p. 271). In other words, McMurphy defended George in a situation where he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. It was a selfless act motivated solely by the intention of defending a friend. McMurphy may be a hustler, but that’s not all he is.

-Elaborate in depth on the significance of McMurphy’s defense of George. What did he risk by standing up for what was right? What does it reveal about his character and motivations?

Chapter 27

-Bromden and McMurphy find themselves on another the Disturbed ward (p. 276-278).

-When the nurse on the new ward speaks to McMurphy she has some interesting comments about Nurse Ratched, “It’s not all like her ward […] Army nurses trying to run an army hospital. They are a little sick themselves,” (p. 278). This comment suggests that Nurse Ratched’s methods are not globally appreciated or respected. It also echoes the sentiment shared by many that Ratched is unwell herself.

-Nurse Ratched visits McMurphy and Bromden on Disturbed. She informs him that his fellow patients agreed that he should receive shock therapy unless he admits that his behavior was wrong (p. 281). McMurphy declines putting into motion his first EST treatment.

-To calm Bromden McMurphy volunteers to receive the treatment first, assuring him, “My skull’s too thick for them to hurt me. And if they can’t hurt me they can’t hurt you,” (p. 282).

-The crucifixion imagery is immediately invoked as McMurphy spreads his arms and lays upon the table for his EST treatment (p 282). In reference to the conductant dabbed upon his temples McMurphy says, “Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?” (p. 283) Kesey has offered the novel’s most direct assertion that McMurphy should be viewed as embodying or symbolizing Jesus Christ. Kesey is evidently conveying to readers that this so-called ‘treatment’ is in fact a punishment whose ultimate outcome will result in McMurphy becoming a martyr.

-After he receives EST Bromden has a flashback about his parents (283-285). Bromden’s flashback reveals insight into his schizophrenia and how it came to be. Bromden’s father was a Native person who lived in accordance with many traditional Native principles and traditions. His mother, however, was a white woman with nothing but disdain and outright hostility for the aforementioned. As such, Bromden not only witnessed his parents and their various values at war, these very aspects of his identity ended up at war within him. Because there was no resolution between the two spheres of his identity, the Native versus the Caucasian, Bromden ultimately ended up sick and tortured by an unresolved conflict residing at the center of his being.

-Bromden’s father forfeits a piece of his identity to adopting his wife’s last name in order to receive social security from the government (p. 285).

-During his flashback, which becomes increasingly stream of conscious, a childish rhyme emerges, “[…] three geese in a flock…one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest […] goose swoops down and plucks you out, (ibid).

-Bromden’s reverie then moves to his grandmother and her death (p. 286-287).

-At the end of the chapter Bromden awakes from his EST induced reverie and after summoning an aide concludes that he has beaten them (p. 288). Bromden feels that he has achieved a victory over the Nurse and the Combine because for the first time he has remained lucid and determined after an EST session. This is also evidence of the fact that McMurphy has indeed caused Bromden to grow stronger.

Chapter 28

-In an elaboration of the sentiment expressed at the end of the previous chapter, Bromden explains that he used to spend weeks in a stupor after EST. However, this time he came “fighting right out of it in less than a day,” and it ended up being “the last [EST] treatment they gave” him (p. 289). Why is Bromden so eager to emerge from the fog?

-McMurphy, on the other hand, endures three more EST treatments because he essentially refuses to concede defeat to the Nurse. McMurphy articulated his resistance to the Nurse in the language of martyrdom, explaining that he had ‘but one life to give for his country’ (ibid). It should be noted that this account makes no mention of the measure having any therapeutic value. Nurse Ratched appears to be using the mite of the medical establishment in order to settle a rivalry with a patient whom she does not even necessarily view as ill to begin with.

-After one of the aforementioned encounters McMurphy pinched Ratched’s posterior (p. 290).

-Because McMurphy was relocated to Disturbed in order to facilitate his frequent EST treatments. During his absence he has basically become a folk hero among the patients who have not seen him in months. He is rumored to have shrugged off EST treatments “like water, makin’ book with the technicians on how long he could keep his eyes open after” receiving treatment (p. 291).

-Bromden has started speaking with his fellow patients (yet another McMurphy miracle, he made a mute speak) and nobody makes a big over it (ibid).

-Nurse Ratched suggests in group therapy that McMurphy is not responsive to EST and more drastic measures may need to be taken (lobotomy perhaps) (ibid).

-Ratched is making plans to return McMurphy to the ward so that the men stop seeing him as a mythical folk hero. She wants them to see the drastic and visible impact of the EST (ibid).

-The patients decide that they must convince McMurphy to escape the ward and develop a plan (p. 291-292). They understand that neither Ratched nor McMurphy will surrender, which means that this conflict will end in his total destruction.

-The night of McMurphy’s planned escape he has arranged for Candy to visit Billy so that he can lose his virginity (p. 292).

-Despite being a man in his 30s, Billy Bibbit is nonetheless perceived as an awkward child by his peers. His mother and Ratched are close friends, she even works as a receptionist at the hospital. Whenever the patients go on outings, Billy’s mother insists on kissing him in public, despite his obvious discomfort and embarrassment (p. 294).

-The dynamic between Billy and his mother is uncomfortable and incestuous. She speaks to him and physically engages with him in a manner that is at once maternal and romantic (p. 294-295). One speculates as to whether she supports his being committed simply because it keeps him sequestered away from the women in the rest of the world. After she makes a kissing sound Bromden remarks that “she didn’t look like a mother of any kind,” (p. 295).

-McMurphy Bribes Turkle, the aide, to allow Candy to sneak onto the ward via a window. Turkle expects to be bribed with alcohol and sexual intercourse (p. 296).

-Candy arrives late but with Sandy (p. 297-298).

-Harding echoes the statement that Bromden made at the beginning of the novel (this story is the truth even if it didn’t happen) when he tells Candy, “These things are fantasies you lie awake at night dreaming up […]. You’re not really here. That wine isn’t real; none of this exists. Now, let’s go on from there,” (p. 298).

-Turkle’s supervisor arrives shortly after the illicit women have (p. 299).

-Once the ladies arrive, Bromden describes an atmosphere that is more or less carefree; the men share stories, they drink, they play games in the dark, the fact that they are in a hospital appease to be an afterthought (p. 302-303).

-Harding offers a prayer during the party that appears to foretell the fate that awaits the men in general and McMurphy in particular, “Most merciful God, accept these two sinners into your arms. And keep the doors ajar for the coming of the rest of us, because you are witnessing the end, the absolute, irrevocable, fantastic end. I’ve finally realized what is happening. It is our last fling. We are doomed henceforth. We must screw our courage to the sticking point and face up to our impending fate. We shall all of us be shot at dawn,” (p. 304). This prayer acknowledges that the men face an impending punishment that will result in a severe penalty, if not an execution.

-Bromden arrives at a profound realization because of this evening. “I had to keep reminding myself that it had truly happened, that we had made it happen. […] Maybe the Combine wasn’t all-powerful,” (p. 305). Bromden realizes that the power he imagined the Nurse to have was largely an illusion. Thus, if he ceases to see her as powerful she has no power. The party is a catalyst for this epiphany.

-As McMurphy prepares to escape he invites patients to join him. Harding declines because he intends to leave officially and properly. He seems to understand that leaving in this manner will serve as an affirmation of his being properly cured. Bromden declines because he intends to stay back a while to ensure that the ward does not return to its previous state in McMurphy’s absence (p. 307).

-Harding explains that Billy Bibbit, Sefelt and Fredrickson will stay behind because “They’re sick men in lots of ways,” but they’re no longer rabbits (ibid). In other words, they can begin to heal because they have reclaimed their humanity and their manhood.

-Harding explains how he came to be sick, “Guilt. Shame. Self-belittlement. I discovered at an early age that I was—shall I say different? It’s a better more general word than the other one. I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. […] it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voice of millions chanting, ‘Shame. Shame. Shame.’ It’s society’s way of dealing with someone different,” (p. 308). According to Harding, society makes those who are considered ‘different’ sick. It shames and judges until the different person either changes or is somehow eliminated.

-McMurphy decides to take a brief nap before his departure and over sleeps (p. 309). Many in the mental health care profession argue that there is no such thing as an ‘accident’. Whatever people do is done with intention, whether they consciously realize that fact or not. Sigmund Freud most famously argued the aforementioned and would have further argued that McMurphy had an unconscious desire to be caught by Nurse Ratched.

-Though it is not stated explicitly, it is understood that Billy and Candy find intimacy in the Seclusion Room where he loses his virginity to her while everyone else parties.

Chapter 29

-Bromden opens the chapter by informing the reader that the events and outcomes about to be depicted were inevitable (p. 310).

-Upon her return to the ward Nurse Ratched is enraged to discover the events of the previous evening. She becomes especially concerned with locating Billy Bibbit, who is initially unaccounted for (p. 312-313).

-Ratched discovers Billy in the Seclusion Room with Candy (p. 313). She immediately begins to shame him by first judging Candy, then declaring how she will have to report the incident to his mother (p. 314-315).

-The moment his mother is mentioned Billy is destroyed and begs Ratched not to report to his mother (p. 315).

-Billy in his desperate state begins to betray his friends one by one in an effort to avoid accountability (p. 315-316). This betrayal is the basis of yet another major similarity that exists between McMurphy and Jesus Christ. Jesus was betrayed by his best friend and it was this betrayal that brought about his execution. McMurphy, the savior of the men on the ward, has been betrayed by one of his closest friends there. McMurphy took a paternalistic interest in Billy and taught him how to be a man.

-Billy, after being left alone in Doctor Spivey’s office, cuts his own throat (p. 317). Judas felt such shame and remorse over his betrayal of Jesus that he hung himself. Billy, upon realizing his betrayal of McMurphy commits suicide as well.

-Bromden depicts Billy’s suicide as unsurprising and inevitable, just something that was ‘bound to happen’ (p. 317).

-Nurse Ratched blames McMurphy for both Cheswick and Billy’s suicides and accuses him of seeing himself as a God (p. 318). Yet another link to Jesus.

-Bromden recounts how he and the patients were so reliant upon McMurphy that he was forced into his next course of action. This entailed attacking Nurse Ratched by first ripping open her uniform and exposing her bare breasts, followed by his attempt to kill her via strangulation (p. 318-319). The attack on Ratched is symbolic because not only does it literally expose her, it exposes that she is human, no more, no less. Ratched is a fragile, mortal human being, not a robot, not an infallible dictator or a god. While he does not succeed in literally killing Nurse Ratched, McMurphy does succeed in killing the myth that she has spent years erecting and perfecting.

-After Billy’s suicide and McMurphy’s attack on Nurse Ratched, Sefelt, Fredrickson and three other acutes check out of the ward (p. 319).

-Dr. Spivey resigns, claiming responsibility for Billy’s death (ibid).

-Harding has taken on McMurphy’s persona of loud talking card dealer (ibid).

-Nurse Ratched, upon her return to the ward, informs the men that McMurphy will return as well (p. 320). The men are skeptical for a variety of reasons, including the fact that some accounts have essentially depicted him as an escaped folk hero.

-Nurse Ratched has lost her voice after McMurphy’s attack, “She couldn’t rule with her old power anymore,” (p. 321).

-McMurphy is returned to the ward with documents attached to his bed that indicates he has been lobotomized (ibid).

-The patients are in denial and refuse to acknowledge that the lobotomized man is indeed McMurphy (ibid). Nurse Ratched has returned McMurphy’s zombie like remains to the ward to serve as the ultimate threat to all other patients. She has attempted to appropriate that which he symbolized and to redefine what he means to the patients, but they refuse to accept the intended message.

-Bromden smothers McMurphy with a pillow. Scanlon understands why Bromden killed McMurphy, but advises him to flee the hospital in order to avoid possible consequences (p. 322-323).

-Scanlon reminds Bromden that McMurphy once told him how to escape the ward (by throwing the control panel through the window of the tub room). As he gets prepared to leave Bromden tries on McMurphy’s hat, which is too small, and he immediately feels shame for trying it on (p. 323).

-Bromden Successfully heaves the control panel through the window and escapes the hospital. He then decides to visit the reserve and home of his youth in search of old friends (p. 324-325). Bromden has achieved the ultimate empowerment at the end of the novel; he is no longer afraid of the world, he does not need others to determine that he is well or recovered, and he has decided to embrace his cultural heritage—something he felt quite negatively about at the outset of the novel.

* * *

Final Thoughts

-Ken Kesey appears to have had many ideas in mind when he wrote the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The most immediate and direct being that it was meant to serve as a critique of the mental health care establishment. He depicted mental health care as something presided over by people who were alternately vindictive or indifferent. Further, Kesey seems to have been questioning the actual value of so many common place treatments in the field of mental health. His implied conclusion is that treatments such as EST, group therapy, or lobotomy are largely punitive and are undertaken as a means of attaining the control of the patients rather than guiding them towards wellness.

-Ken Kesey also seems to have suggested in this novel that it is society that makes people become sick. In certain instances sickness is a reaction to traumatic or deplorable circumstances. In other instances sickness is induced by the majority judging and shunning certain traits and tendencies in others.

-McMurphy is a complex character because viewing him through a certain lens might cause one to view him as a Jesus like or Jesus inspired character. Another interpretation is that McMurphy might be intended to serve as an allegory for readers. In this circumstance the allegory offers one an interpretation of what society does to those who are too strong, or perhaps it offers insight into the consequences of challenging the views, values and stances of mainstream society. Such an interpretation suggests that the world is a place where McMurphy like individuals will not be permitted to exist or survive for very long before they are committed, imprisoned or killed.

-As for the Jesus Christ links, it is not my impression that Kesey intended for this novel to have a religious undertone or message. Rather, I think he was making the point that at any time in history, when a liberator has emerged with a message that was threatening to the ruling class, they have destroyed the messenger in an effort to destroy the message itself. McMurphy is an example of history repeating itself as part of a pattern that humanity has been locked into since Jesus and beyond. However, the hopeful aspect of this pattern is the fact that despite the most vicious efforts of the ruling class, they have never managed to destroy the ideas that they despise, just isolated individuals.

Westmount High School

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