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Cate DeMetrovich

Dr. Popescu

Reading Seminar

8 October 2018

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Reaction Paper

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was not anything close to what I expected. It was a

dark, disturbing novel that has quite a depressing ending. While reading, I had high hopes that

McMurphy, the main character, would have a major impact on the entire floor of the hospital,

allowing them to overcome their fears of the outside world and of Nurse Ratched. However, the

inmates were not completely able to overcome the tyranny of the hospital. The only upside was

that many of them found the courage to enter into the real world once again. There were a few

major scenes or elements that had a large impact on my overall view of the novel.

The first scene that truly impacted my reading experience begins when the pool lifeguard

tells McMurphy that the nurses decide how long he will have to stay in the institution, and it is

not simply based on his prison sentence time. When the lifeguard tells his story of how he was

only put in the institution for being drunk and disorderly, we can see that although McMurphy is

supposed to be let out of prison in the next few months, he will have to stay at the institution for

a long time if he continues his rebellious behavior. This is one of the first times in the novel that

we can see that the tyranny in the hospital is unethical. If the lifeguard is not able to leave even

though he was committed without having any evidence of mental illness, there is something

mysterious going on in the mind of Nurse Ratched.

I found it especially frightening when the situation continues to unfold with the revelation

to McMurphy that most of the patients are not committed. The scary part of this is that these
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people feel as though Nurse Ratched has such control over them even though they are not forced

into being there. It is hard for us as readers to understand what goes on in the minds of those that

are mentally ill, but I cannot imagine wanting to stay in a place that contains abuse and

manipulation rather than being independent in the real world.

The members of the institution that are considered curable are called the Acutes. They are

the ones who tend to rebel against the nurses. It is interesting to me that even in an institution

where everyone is supposed to have some mental illness, there is still a divide between the

severity of these illnesses. It seems as though the division is very forthright, meaning that all of

the patients know who is in what category. For the patients not considered an Acute, it is hard to

imagine them even wanting to improve their mental state when the nurses or doctors do not even

consider it possible for them to get better.

Another scene that portrayed the severity of the impact of this hospital is Billy’s suicide.

It made me extremely sad to see that the nice thing that McMurphy was doing for the patients

resulted in such a traumatic incident. This seemed as though it was the first time that Billy

allowed himself to feel happy since his mother was not there to ruin it. Although he was given

the confidence to briefly stand up to Nurse Ratched, she knew exactly how to destroy that

confidence right away. Nurse Ratched seems as though she has mastered the art of manipulation.

She has discovered every little detail that has brought each patient to the point where they felt the

need to commit themselves and will never let them forget it. She constantly reminds the patients

that their lives are ruined because of themselves and their mental state, but she seems to be the

one causing the problems and keeping them in this frame of mind.

One of the last scenes of the movie could be considered the most shocking of all. After

sticking up to Nurse Ratched for Billy, McMurphy was punished by the performance of a
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lobotomy. I was not really sure what this was at first and did not know why this was even taken

into consideration, so I did some research. I found that in the 1900s, lobotomies were a popular

technique used as a cure for patients with mental illnesses since many of the hospitals were

overcrowded. Walter Freeman was the first to perform this surgery and convinced the medical

community that this would help stabilize their personalities. This scene in the novel was

incredibly graphic in my eyes, especially considering that the hospital would result to such a

drastic treatment so quickly for a patient that they claim to be mentally unstable. Nurse Ratched

did not call for this treatment to better McMurphy but as a way to shut him up and stop the

rebellion. It is disheartening for the patients to see such a strong influence turned into a

vegetable. As readers, we can see that Nurse Ratched has eliminated “the problem,” and the

hospital will eventually go back to normal.

Although the ending is dark and depressing since McMurphy is no longer alive, there is

some comfort knowing that he left a large impact on all of the patients. Before he came, none of

them were willing to even consider the idea of leaving the hospital. The author portrays the

impact by the patients finding the courage to leave this idea of safety and find their way in the

real world.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this novel. It shed a light on the problems of mental

institutions that were around in the 1900s. Patients considered to be mentally ill were not thought

of as real people who could be treated. Nurse Ratched symbolized the entire hospital system

throughout most of this century and the abuse inflicted upon those seeking help. It is reassuring

that most of these practices are not used in present-day facilities, but it is sad to think about the

torture that many patients had to go through in the past.