Chief Bromden Sparknotes

Chief Bromden, a long-term patient in Nurse Ratched’s psychiatric ward and he narrates the novel. The story begins on how he awakens to a typical day on the ward, feeling paranoid about the certain nighttime activities of the ward’s three black aides. The aides make fun of him for being a pushover, they make him sweep the hallways for them, even though he is over six feet tall. The black aides have nicknamed him Chief Broom. Bromden pretends to be deaf and dumb; he overhears all the secrets on the ward and is barely noticed by anyone. When Nurse Ratched enters the ward it’s like a gust of cold air. Nurse Ratched gets angry with the aides quite frequently. She demands the aides to shave Bromden, and he screams and hallucinate that he is being

surrounded fog until he is medicated.
Bromden regains consciousness in the day room. This is the day the new patient, Randle McMurphy arrives. McMurphy has a brassy voice and he is confident with an iron-heeled walk. He meets Billy Bibbit, who is 31 years old with a baby face and a severe stutter, and also Dale Harding, who is the president of the Patients’ Council. McMurphy divides the patients into two main categories: the Acutes, who are labeled curable, and the Chronics, who Bromden identifies with, are labled machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired. Nurse Ratched pushes the Acutes to spy on one another. If someone is to find an embarrassing personal detail they were to write it in the logbook. She rewarded them by sleeping late the next morning.
Tables turn in the ward as everyone watches Nurse Ratched in the Nurses’ Station after her outlash. Nurse Ratched struggles to regain her composure for the staff meeting. He Bromden normally cleans the staff room for the meetings, but after he votes, he thinks that everyone will realize that he is not really deaf. He still goes knowing that Nurse Ratched is suspicious of him. Doctor Spivey starts the staff metting while Nurse Ratched is silent to show her power. The staff treats Nurse Ratched’s silence as approval. Staff decides that McMurphy has the potential to be violent and needs to be sent to the Disturbed ward. Nurse Ratched disagrees with the decision she declares that McMurphy is an ordinary man, and has the same fears and timidity as the others. McMurphy is committed, so Nurse Ratched can control how long he spends in the hospital and decides to take her time with him.
The Disturbed ward is taken to the pool to swim. McMurphy finds out that the patient who is on duty as the lifeguard is released at the discretion of the staff. McMurphy was under the impression that he could leave as soon as he was done. In the next Group Meeting, Cheswick brings up the cigarette rationing problem but McMurphy does not support him. Nurse Ratched sends Cheswick to Disturbed. After he returns Cheswick tells McMurphy that he now understands why McMurphy does not disobey Nurse Ratched. The same day Cheswick gets his finger caught in the pool drain and downs but appears to look like a sudicide.
McMurphy breaks the glass to the nurse’s station. After returing he is back to his old ways. Doctor Spivey begins to stand his ground with the nurse. Nurse Ratched denies McMurphy’s letter for an Accompanied Pass. McMurphy wants to leave the ward with a prostitute he knows from Portland, Candy Starr. When McMurphy finds out that his request was denied by Nurse Ratched he shatters the replacement glass pane and then claims he did not know it was replaced. Bromden notices that the nurses’ patience is starting to wear thin. Once the glass is replaced again, Scanlon accidentally shatters it with a basketball.
Doctor Spivey approves McMurphy’s request to go on a fishing trip with nine other patients, by two of his aunts.

Nurse Ratched begins to post newspaper articles about wrecked boats and rough weather on the bulletin board next to the sign up list. Bromden wants to sign up but is afraid to blow his deaf-and-dumb cover, because he would have to act deaf if he wanted to hear it all. He remembers when he was 10 years old, three people came to his home and talked to his father about buying the tribe’s land. When Bromden spoke up they acted like he had not said a word. Geever, who is an aide, wakes Bromden and McMurphy in the middle of the night while scrapeing off the wads of gum under Bromden’s bed. Geever tells McMurphy that he has been trying to find out where Bromden could get gum from. When he leaves McMurphy gives Bromden some Juicy Fruit, and Bromden thanks

him.
Nurse Ratched posts the patients’ financial statements on the bulletin board, it shows that everyone’s account, except McMurphy’s, has a steady decline in funds. The other patients begin to question the reasons for his actions. McMurphy doesn’t make the Group Meeting due to a phone call. Nurse Ratched tells everyone that everything he does is motivated for personal gain. After the meeting Harding argues that everyone got their money’s worth and McMurphy never hid his con-man ways from them. McMurphy asks Bromden if he can move the control panel to measure how big Bromden has grown. Bromden is able to move it half a foot. McMurphy makes a bet with the other patients that if someone could lift the control panel, but he is the only one who knows that Bromden has already lifted it. Bromden lifts it, and McMurphy wins the bet. Bromden, finds out about McMurphy’s bet refuses to accept the five dollars that McMurphy offers him. McMurphy feels as though everyone acting like he is a traitor, and Bromden tells him it is because of him always winning.
Nurse Ratched ordered everyone who went on the fishing trip be cleaned.

George has a huge phobia of cleanliness and begs the aides not to spray him. McMurphy and Bromden get into a fight with the aides to defend George, and the Nurse Ratched sends them to Disturbed Ward. The pleasent Japanese nurse explains to them that army nurses have a bad habit of running the place like an army hospital. Nurse Ratched informs McMurphy that he can avoid getting electroshock therapy by admitting he was wrong. He refuses and tells her “those Chinese Commies could have learned a few things from you, lady.” McMurphy and Bromden are sent for electroshock treatment, but McMurphy appers unafraid. He climbs onto the table and says aloud if he will get a “crown of thorns.” Bromden, however, is afraid and struggles the entire time. During and after the treatment, Bromden experiences images and memories from his childhood. When he awakes he resists the fog and works to clear his head. For the first time he managed to do after receiving electorshock therapy. He knows that this time he is not subjected to any more treatments. McMurphy, unfortunely, receives three more treatments that week. He shows no pain but Bromden can tell that the treatments are hurting him. Nurse Ratched noticies McMurphy is growing as a figure in the eyes of the other men because he is out of sight, so she brings him back from Disturbed

Ward.
The other patients know that Nurse Ratched will continue to attack McMurphy, so they push him to escape. As morning approaches they realize that they are going to have to figure something out before the staff arrives. Harding suggest they tie up Turkle, so it looks like the mess from the party was a part of McMurphy’s escape. Turkle will be able to keep his job, patients will not get into trouble, and McMurphy can drive off to Canada or Mexico with Candy and Sandy. McMurphy and Sandy get into bed and ask Turkle to wake them before the morning staff arrives. Turkle falls asleep, and the aides find Sandy and McMurphy in the morning.
The following morning all the patients are curious about how last night went. Nurse Ratched finds more incriminating evidence from the party. McMurphy escapes when Turkle opens the screen to let Sandy out, but he refuses. When Nurse Ratched finds Billy with Candy, he is calm. When the nurse threatens to tell Billy’s mother he begins to cry. He beggs her to keep it a secret and blames Candy, McMurphy, and Harding for the whole thing. She sends him to Spivey’s office while she clears things up with the other patients. Billy commites suicide by cutting his throat.
By this time Bromden realizes that no one can stop McMurphy from rebelling, because the patients continue to encourage him. McMurphy adbrutly smashes through the glass door, rips the front of Nurse Ratched’s uniform, and attempts to strangle her. Over time some of the Acutes transfer to other wards, and some check themselves out of the hospital altogether. The doctor is asked to resign from the hospital but refuses. Nurse Ratched returns after a week from medical leave but unable to speak. She lost all her power she had over the ward. The only patients left on the ward were Bromden, Martini, and Scanlon. For his punishement from the attack McMurphy is given a lobotomy. Returing from the surgery he is a vegetable. The same night, Bromden suffocates McMurphy with a pillow. He breaks the control panel throws it through a window screen and escapes from the hospital, he ends up hitching a ride with a trucker.