In the beginning of this part, the Big Nurse is trying to convince the other patients that McMurphy is really a bad guy, and that everything he is doing is for his own gain, as a retaliation for the fishing trip he planned. The patients don't argue with her as they know this, but they also know she is wrong too. He is trying to help them as well. He proves this when they are having their showers. The one patient named George, who was afraid of soap, get really upset when the Black Boys try to get him to use it, and they even threaten him. McMurphy steps in and stick up for him. They get into a fight, and all the patients are cheering. Bromdon gets involved, maybe because of his new found confidence, and they took down the black boys. They end up in the Disturbed Ward. This showed everyone that McMurphy did actually care about the rest of the patients and they would never doubt him again, they would never doubt themself again.
He continues to prove himself when he accepts the shock treatment that they give him, again and again and again. Everyone tries to convince him to stop, but he needs to prove to them that they can't break him, in order to prove to them that they can't break them either. "I tried to talk him into playing along with her so's to get out of the treatments, but he just laughed and told me, Hell, all they doin' was chargin' his battery for him, free for nothing. 'When I get out of here the first woman that takes ol' Red McMurphy the ten-thousand-watt psychopath, she's going to light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars! No, I ain't scared of their little battery charger'" (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey, pg 250)
The Saturday comes around when the girl from the boat is supposed to come for her date with Billy, and she brings her friend, and alcohol. The patients all get very intoxicated and Billy ends up sleeping with her. The plan was for McMurphy to escape while this is going on, but he ends up falling asleep and doesn't wake up in time. Everyone has a good time, and even when everyone shows up in the morning and is horrified by the mess and the drunk patients they are still happy and proud of themself. This is just until the Nurse gets to Billy though. His mother works downstairs and the Nurse threatens to tell on him, so he kills himself. Billy and McMurphy were special friends so he takes it pretty hard and does that drastic thing that was foreshadowed in the last part. The writing in this last part is amazing, it ties the entire book together and explains what McMurphy has been doing the whole time, and why.
"First I had a quick thought to try and stop him, talk him into taking what he'd already won and let her have the last round., but another, bigger thought wiped the first thought away completely. I suddenly realised with a crystal certainty that neither I nor any of the half-score of us could stop him. That Harding's arguing or my grabbing him from behind, or old Colonel Matterson's teaching or Sconlon's gripping, or all us together couldn't rise up and stop him. We couldn't stop him because we were the ones making him do it. It wasn't the nurse who was forcing him, it was our need that was making him push himself slowly up from sitting, his big hands driving down on the leather chair arms, pushing him up, rising and standing like one of the moving-picture zombies, obeying orders beamed at him from forty masters. It was us that had been making him go on for weeks, keeping him standing long after his feet and arms had givne out, weeks of making him grim and wink and laugh and go on with his act long after his hunmor had been parched dry between two electrodes. "
(One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey, pg 275)
McMurphy got up and tried to kill the Nurse, for everything she's done, and for everything she'd said and thought and made everyone else think. He was then forced to have lobotomy, and was a vegetable. Most of the patients checked themself out, and lived happily ever after. Bromdon killed McMurphy with a pillow, because he couldn't stand to look at him not himself, and knew that he would have wanted it that way. He then runs away too.
My opinion of this novel, is that it was extremely well written. Using Chief Bromdon as the narrator was a good choice, and the perspective that he used was good too in helping us as the reader understand where he is coming from. Kesey used just the right amount of background information of Bromdon for us to know he was not 'crazy', he was only afraid, which showed us how some of the other patients were feeling as well. Using Randal McMurphy as the main character was inspirational and compelling. He made the book move along and drew my attention in to some of the finer details, even if they were slightly unrelated to him. It left me with a feeling of happiness, overall because of the succeeded point that MCmurphy got across to the patients, and because he died doing something he believe, but also with a feeling like confusion about the world and society today. Although very much unlike the movie which I watched first, I would recommend this book to anyone.
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