One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Chapters 19-23
Chapters 19-23
Sefelt has a seizure and drops to the ground, where he is administered to by one of the orderlies. When Nurse Ratched arrives, she looks at Sefelt with pity and disgust. She reminds the gathered patients that it is important to take their medication to not have reactions like Sefelt's, who happens to be epileptic. One of the other patients, Fredrickson, takes issue with the tone of the nurse, but he quiets him down quite easily. Everyone, including the nurse, is aware that Fredrickson takes the medication that is given to Sefelt because he doesn't want to have a seizure while Sefelt has a problem with the side effects. When everyone has left, Fredrickson shows McMurphy how the medication makes their gums rot and explains the breaking of teeth during a seizure.
Harding's wife comes for a visit, and she is escorted by one of the orderlies. Harding receives her rather coldly but introduces her to McMurphy. Their interaction is awkward, as both Harding and his wife lose their temper with one another. Harding criticises her intelligence, while she criticises his way of laughing and how he never has enough of anything. When she leaves, Harding turns to McMurphy and wants his opinion on his wife, but McMurphy has an outburst. He wants them all to leave him alone even though Bromden believes that none of the others had been bugging him. Later, McMurphy apologises to Harding and confesses that he's been having trouble sleeping.
The patients are taken for X-rays, and the corridor in which they sit waiting for their turn also has an unmarked door that seems to terrify Bromden. McMurphy sits with the others and watches the door open as they bring out a patient whose body is still smoking from the treatment. As they carry in another drugged patient, McMurphy asks what they were doing to the patients. Harding explains that it is the 'Shock Shop' where the hospital conducts Electroshock Therapy. McMurphy is horrified at the idea of having someone run electricity through the brain as part of the treatment. Harding also mentions Lobotomy, the surgical removal of the frontal lobe, and describes it as castration of the mind. McMurphy is horrified at learning the details of the treatment offered in the ward. He expresses confusion as to the nature of the place and why it felt so wrong to him. He tells them that he had initially thought that Nurse Ratched was the main problem but had now come to realise that there was some greater issue, one he had yet to understand. McMurphy believes that the patients have conned him to make their life more comfortable while remaining on the good side of the nurse.
Harding shocks McMurphy by informing him that most of the patients in the ward were not committed but choose to stay voluntarily. McMurphy is in disbelief. He cannot comprehend why they would all choose to stay. He asks Billy Bibbit why a young man like him would choose to remain in such a bizarre place and asks them to all have the guts to out into the world. Billy is set off by this tirade. He has a mental breakdown and runs down the corridor bleeding and crying, chased by one of the orderlies.
As they make their way back to the ward, Bromden sees McMurphy struggling with a thought in his head. Bromden watches as McMurphy comes to some sort of decision and then races to buy three cartons of cigarettes. Back in the ward, the patients are having a group meeting. Bromden has a weird ringing in his ears. Near the close of their group meeting, the nurse brings up the importance of obeying rules and facing the consequences of rule-breaking. She makes a show of regretting her actions and then announces the closing of the adjacent tub room, the one where they had been playing their card games. The whole group turns to McMurphy as one and watch as he stands up and walks up to the nurse station where Nurse Ratched sits and sticks his arms through the glass and shatters it to collect one of the cartons of his cigarettes. He then apologises for the glass by confessing that the glass was so clean that he couldn't see that it was there and calmly walks back to his chair. Nurse Ratched is left sitting stunned, surrounded by broken glass.Analysis
The callous way in which Nurse Ratched treats the seizure of Sefelt further proves her lack of empathy for the patients. She uses it as an opportunity to teach the patients about the consequences of not listening to her advice. McMurphy's reaction towards Harding's wife demonstrates how his perception of women is almost entirely sexual, while his outburst shows the reader how disturbed he is by Cheswick's death. He also comes to understand how afraid the patients are of the outside world and the related social pressures, as they choose to remain in the ward under the cruel control of Ratched rather than face the outside world.
