One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Flashcards
Who is the bull goose looney on the ward before McMurphy arrives?
Harding
Who was the narrator of the novel - large in size although he believes to have been made small by the combine?
Chief
Who is the character that stutters and has attempted suicide at least twice?
Billy Bibbit
Who drowned in a swimming pool accident after losing a battle with the Big Nurse and not having any friends to back him up?
Cheswick
Who is a vegetable that was treated better in death than in life - as chief imaginedit, he was put on a meat hoot in the night and carted away?
Blastic
Who is a gambler and a rabble rouser who throws a wrench in Nurse Ratched’s machine as soon as he is committed to the mental hospital?
McMurphy
Who is an epileptic who refuses to take his medication due to the side effects: hair loss, weak gums, loss of teeth, etc.?
Sefelt
Who is the former army nurse who runs the ward under tight control, doesn’t allow anything or anyone to get out of line, and often manipulates them with psychological tactics?
Nurse Ratched
Who is the character takes extra medication (his friend’s share) because he is so afriad of having a seizure?
Frederickson
Which character is an example of EST gone wrong, permanently a Chronic, when brought into the day room he is “pinned” against the wall in the shape of the table in which he received treatment?
Ellis
Who is the father of the narrator - he harassed and ignored government officials who wanted to buy his reservation land until the Combine finally wore him down, with the help of his white wife?
Tee Ah Millatoona
Which character hallucinates often, is one of the Acutes in the main group who throws off the monopoly game?
Martini
Who is the night guard who loses his job after a late night party?
Mr. Turkle
Who is the orderly who scrapes gum off of Bromden’s bed and frequently has to tie him to his bed with sheets?
Geever
Who are the characters that the Big Nurse’s personally chosen and well trained orderlies who know what she wants without her even asking and who are often used as pawns in her game of control?
Washington, Warren, Williams
Who is the lead doctor on the ward who participates in, but doesn’t necessarily run the show?
Dr. Spivey
Who chose to have himself committed to get out of the work farm?
McMurphy
Who is a strict catholic who clutched the cross around her neck whenever she feels threatened?
Nurse Pilbow
Who is a former fisherman and PT Boat Captain who sails the boat on the fishing trip, and has a deep fear of dirtiness?
George
Who informs McMurphy that he is in the hospital until the Nurse says he can go - he’s committed, being on the ward ain’t like being in jail?
Lifeguard
Which character commits suicide after being shamed by the Big Nurse at the end of the novel, prompting McMurphy’s final, uncontrollable attack?
Billy
Who loses power at the end of the novel along with her voice?
Nurse Ratched
Who is the Big Nurse’s trophy - a patient who refused medication, was abused and eventually received a lobotomy before being released from the hospital “a new man”?
Max Taber
Who is a character who has hidden his homosexual tendencies all of his life for fear of being an outcast or a degenerate - patronizes his wife and blames his problems on her promiscuity for most of the novel?
Harding
Who pretended to be deaf and dumb for most of the novel?
The Chief
Who is McMurphy’s “aunt” who takes the men on a fishing trip and spends the night with a patient during the party?
Candy Starr
Who is an example of lobotomy gone wrong - this patient came in as an acute and became a chronic after a lobotomy?
Ruckly
Who always complains of being tired - an Acute who has brin damage at birth - he lived the best life he could, working a simple job for the railroad until he was “too tired” to continue?
Bancini
Who is the only Acute besides McMurphy who was involuntarily committed - he frequently has visions of blowing things up?
Scanlon
Who is one of the Big Nurse’s pawns who is chosen because she can mold him just the way she wants - he eventually begins to assert himself and sometimes sides with the patients when they want to make changes - refuses to resign at the end of the novel?
Dr. Spivey
What is the Chief’s last name - is not his father’s name - he took the last name of his town mother?
Bromden
Who was the first patient to back up McMurphy’s fight against the Big Nurse - sadly, when forced to fight by himself he became over excited and was sent to Disturbed - he assured McMurphy that he understood why Mac had backed off of the fight?
Cheswick
In the film version of Cuckoo’s Nest, who is present as a patient on the ward whereas in the novel, he had been sent home as the Big Nurse’s trophy?
Max Taber
What does McMurphy refer to the first group therapy session as after witnessing what everyone does to Harding during the meeting?
Pecking Party
Who offer to be a chaperone for the fishing trip when only one woman shows up?
Dr. Spivey
What were the Chief’s first words after being silent for so long?
Thank You
Which of Billy’s relatives is Nurse Ratched good friends with and uses it against him?
Mother
What does the Chief notice is on McMurphy’s shorts?
Big White Whales with red eyes
What does McMurphy notice that no one on the ward does - something he likes to do often and loudly?
Laughs
McMurphy loses control the first time when the patients on the ward do not participate in his vote to able to watch what special tv event?
The World Series
What does Nurse Ratched begin rationing after many of them lose much of what they have purchased in gambling?
Cigarettes
Which room is McMurphy able to get opened up so that the patients can play games without the noise of the music to annoy them?
Tub Room
Nurse Ratched claimed that McMurphy was crazy like a what?
Fox
Where were McMurphy and the Chief sent after they fought the black boys in the shower?
Disturbed
What did the other men plan for McMurphy when he returned from another ward?
Escape
What does the Chief begin to observe about McMurphy after the fishing trip?
He appears tired and sad when no one is looking.
What did McMurphy smash to get some cigarettes for Cheswick?
The Nurse’s immaculately clean window
What had finally become of the patients after the night of the party and McMurphy was removed from the ward?
They became men (big)
What was Nurse Ratched’s final hit against McMurphy?
A lobotomy
When the Big Nurse found Billy and Candy in the Seclusion Room he greeted her without any what in his speech?
Stutter
According to your research, what might proponents of the lobotomy have said in order to support its usage in medicine?
Use your notes
Why did the Chief first stop speaking?
- Government agents came to buy their land spoke over and around him as if he wasn’t there.
- He could not hear or respond to them.
- They ignored his presence.
How is McMurphy able to change the Chief’s size?
- He gets the Chief to raise his hand during the World Series vote.
- He tries to boost his confidence.
- He finally gets him to lift the control panel.
- He talks to the Chief.
- Asks him to go on the fishing trip.
What is the significance of the fog?
- The fog appears when the Chief is afriad.
- A method of the Combine being forced upon them.
- Comes when he is heavily medicated.
- Fog begins to disappear when he loses his fear of the world, gain in size, and when he stops taking his big red pills.
What does McMurphy say the Big Nurse is trying to do to the men on the ward? Is he correct? Support your answer with details.
- She is trying to emasculate them.
- She stifles their sexuality and the expression thereof, even using homophobia as a weapon.
What shocking information does McMurphy learn about the status of most of the patients on the ward?
- He learns that most of them are voluntary.
- He feels conned.
Why can’t the patients on the ward survive on the Outside?
- They cannot fit into what society deems proper or normal behavior and they do not know how to deal with it.
What is the Comine? How is the Big Nurse involved, according to the Chief?
- Answer may vary.
- Combine is the machine at work both in the inside and the Outside, to control the thoughts, actions, and behaviors so that everyone fits into a cookie cutter society and lives in cookies cutter neighborhoods.
- It stifles individuality and creativity.
- The Nurse is a tool in the machine works.
When the nurse is comforting Billy after catching him in the Seclusion room, how are her words and her nature/appearance paradoxical?
- She is saying the most comforting and sweet things to Billy to try to calm him down.
- In reality she is being cold and calculated, not warm at all.
- She knows to use his mother as a threat in order to control him and she weakens him enough that he commits suicide.
- She may speak kindly but the coldness of her face says otherwise.
How is the importance of the Chief diminished in the film? Be specific.
- The film is not taken from the Chief’s point of view.
- Therefore his troubles and triumphs are not as important to the film viewer as they are to the reader.
- We lose the comparison of his past and what goes on at the hospital and it is hard to see his transformation.
Is the Chief a reliable narrator? Support your answer.
- The Chief is both.
- He is reliable in the fact that because he plays deaf and dumb people are not afraid to speak honestly in front of him.
- Therefore, he is privy to information that others are not.
He is unreliable when he is medicated and hallucinating.
In writing this novel, what might the author have been saying about the society in which it was written?
- Answers will vary.
Essays!!!
She will have 8 questions and you must choose 5 to answer. Study your notes!!
