| Synopsis |
Certainly Ken Kesey’s opus, this remarkable story is replete with social commentary and political satire. The establishment vs. free thought. The duel goes all 15 rounds and is as brutal as it is honest. The setting is a ‘modern’ antiseptic, though in truth, barbaric insane-asylum where electro-shock therapy and frontal lobotomy’s are still common place. The dark topics are very readable thanks only to the frequent hilarity of Kesey’s characters.
The story is told by the narration of “Chief” Bromden, a commited patient of the ward who has convinced everyone (including the staff and faculty) that he is deaf and dumb. In the end, Chief proves to be an intent listener and an eloquent speaker. Bromden’s own story of being moved off his family’s reservation, and the general moral apathy that surrounded him serves to equip him as narrator with much insight and wisdom.
The story begins on the day a new patient is admitted: R. P. McMurphy. McMurphy is a tall, pale, red head with a charisma that rivals Santa Clause himself. Everyone likes McMurphy, almost immediately. He immediately makes himself at home, as if the idea of being committed into an insane asylum is tantamount to being admitted into Harvard, or winning the lottery.
McMurhpy is a transfer from a local prison where he was put after being convicted of what amounts to (from inference, it’s never described completely) assault (on many occasions), and sex with a minor. McMurhphy however doesn’t seem ‘evil.’ In fact, the reader likes him and is rooting for him almost from the get-go. His charisma, through the brilliant writing of Kesey is addictive; the reader believes right along with McMurchphy that the assaults were little more than small scuffles common to bars, and the girl in question certainly looked and presented herself as much older. In other words, McMurphy doesn’t deserve the treatment he receives, as bad as it gets, his ‘crimes’ diminish to the point of non-existence: they never happened.
The patients in the ward play an important role in the story. There’s Harding, an adult man who, before McMurphy’s arrival was the ‘leader’ of the ward. He is well educated, well spoken (to the point of over-formality, making him sound almost British in diction). He quickly learns to appreciate McMurphy and becomes one of McMurphy’s closest confidants. Another such character is Billy. Billy is one of the younger patients. He stutters horribly, especially when emotionally aggravated. He is the type that is scared of his own shadow, yet comes off as a very sincere and nice young man—as long as he feels safe and protected. There are many such characters that populate the ward that make the story interesting, funny, and sad all at once.
One of the more severe patients, Colonel Matterson, a retired Colonel from the first world war is a classic ‘crazy.’ He walks around the ward lifting the skirts of the nurses with his cane and he is constantly ‘teaching’ from an imaginary book that he holds in his right hand. From this book he elaborates on American History as if he were talking to a room full of students.
There are two primary groups of patients: Chronics and Acutes. Chronics are the functional (or mostly functional) of the group. The Chronics include McMurphy, Chief, and Harding, while the Acutes, the severe cases, include patients like the Colonel.
Everyone likes McMurphy. Everyone, that is, except for the head nurse at the asylum: Nurse Ratchet. Nurse Ratchet is the quintessential ‘bump on a log’; she’s the always pressed, by the book, non-emotive, cold, harsh, and indeed vicious ‘lord’ of the ward. She immediately sees McMurphy as a serious and dangerous threat to her ‘system’ that she’s worked so hard to put into place. He goal from the very beginning is to tame McMurphy.
If Ratchet’s goal is to tame McMurphy, then McMurphy’s goal is to drive Nurse Ratchet absolutely crazy. His intention, mind you, is not a simple desire to cause a raucous, but rather, he is a free spirit; he is a man that needs to be free, and he sees from the start that many of the patients would in fact be helped if they too were given more freedom, if they too could be free. And it is to this end that McMurphy spreads his gospel.
The story breaks down into roughly four sections. The first is the arrival of McMurphy and his attempts, mostly successful, establishing himself as the new ‘boss’ on the block. He gets along well with all the patients and generally makes the faculty squirm. The second section is the reaction, the attempts by Ratchet to quell McMurphy’s success. The third Section can best be called the enlightenment: McMurphy’s attempts have all but completely proven Ratchet the fool. His relationships with the other patients have begun to show real fruit, the men are behaving better, more functional, happier, more assertive, more free. The fourth section is the hammer: it’s when Nurse Ratchet drops the hammer, bringing down hell upon McMurphy, hell in the form of electro-shock ‘therapy’, over and over again. Eventually, she unleashes her most potent weapon. I will leave this end to the reader.
Suffice it to say here that though the end is bitterly sad, there’s also a sense of hope and joy that comes as a result of all the events.
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