McMurphy's anti-literary business.com

Big Nurse’s most effective control tactic is to emasculate them; McMurphy’s fateful demise comes at the hands of Big Nurse but not without a fight. McMurphy resisted under a guise of machismo and bravado and by building a network of supporters based again on being a “man.” Big Nurse views the notion of “manhood” as a deviant behavior in need of reconstruction methods. Big Nurse is a manifestation. She is the gate keeper—seemingly to everything—at least through Chief’s eyes.

The first group meeting McMurphy watches while Big Nurse horsewhipped Harding about his questionable virility and masculinity, and then he interjects to gain Harding’s trust…show him men stick together. Nurse’s “McMurray” intentional mispronunciation is her attempt to shut him down and he’s already slipped a wink at Harding and the group is in on the gag before she recognizes the sex joke was at her expense. She’s completely befuddled at the notion that someone would view her “femininity” that it doesn’t even occur to her until the effect has taken its roots. The “effect” is that McMurphy has established his right to be a man.

Big Nurse resolves to persist. She continues to “mispronounce” his name before promptly announcing he’s in “—for Rape.” Now, Big Nurse is a seasoned pro at controlling all types. Even the doctor is not allowed to overtly appreciate McMurphy’s full “effect.” But McMurphy dispels her attempt effortlessly by characterizing the “relationship” with the fifteen year old as one in which he was the victim of her libido—…took to sewing my pants shut (40). Somehow Big Nurse believed that shaming McMurphy about his virility would be effective indicates she is outmatched initially. At least it indicates she is out of practice and these are only lessons for her on adjustment tactics which she’s re-assessing constantly… “looking out through her window, got a tape recorder hid out of sight somewhere, getting all this down—already planning how to work it into the schedule” (64).  

Her perseverance is flawless and without effort as she “dispenses” of him now. This reveals another slip in judgment. She’d been mispronouncing his name in attempts to belittle him many times. McMurphy never corrects her. Big Nurse reasoned initially that McMurphy would correct her sooner, explains the numerous times she so abuses this tactic. And by the time the doctor speaks to McMurphy directly, he mispronounces it as well. McMurphy swiftly corrects him and the doctor must recognize the Big Nurse’s subversive tactics...he knows, Mac knows and Big Nurse knows. McMurphy’s hilarious concession speaks volumes, “It’s okay, Doc. It was the lady there that started it, made the mistake” (41). This is pure, gold. Good old fashioned, down-homey rhetoric. 

McMurphy’s response exposes the wires Big Chief reminds us are there. The doctor is an unwitting casualty of the war between McMurphy and Big Nurse. He lacks the courage to act overtly in McMurphy’s favor, but he allows McMurphy to tell the story of Hallilhan and Hooligan. Of course the poor doctor cannot, “overlook the possibility that this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of the work farm” (42). He’s revealed himself twice already, snickering into his collar, and he must rectify the appearance of complicity and swing the pendulum back into Big Nurse’s paradigm. McMurphy…seemingly satisfied with the turn of events, settles back to observe…as Chief suggests would be another aspect of being a man—a gambler—“is a smart move” (43). This may also be the one real victory for McMurphy and mark the beginning of his demise.

McMurphy successfully establishes with Harding the catalyst for the pecking party is Big Nurse. 

McMurphy uses a colloquial caricature as an interface persona to eventually inspire Harding’s break down as the entire ward watches and on their proverbial seat edges….Big Nurse presumably is witnessing this event from her box. This information is pivotal and McMurphy’s symbolic offering of a cigarette is a gesture of both offering and accepting. The nurse intentionally observed and vetted the information for future possibilities wherein which she could exploit. The comradery will continue to align McMurphy more and more alongside the Acutes. He will become one of them…either by his proactive intentional actions or leading by example…behave like a man. Big Nurse knows at this point, the invaluable key to successfully breaking McMurphy is time. McMurphy hasn’t figured this out yet, but speaking to Harding is enlightening for McMurphy.

McMurphy immediately recognizes the value of the doctor’s role. The variable is how much of a spine does Spivey have. McMurphy knows this.

“It’s like an old clock that won’t tell time but won’t stop neither, with the hands bent out of shape and the face bare of numbers and the alarm bell rusted silent, an old worthless clock that just keeps ticking and cuckooing without meaning nothing” (49). Kesey’s nod to the title’s meaning. It’s especially meaningful because he tells this story of ol’ Pete during the group therapy meeting, while McMurphy is “observing,” and in this same meeting is where McMurphy discovers virtually everything there is to know about the Ward, Big Nurse, the Doctor and all the patients. He’s even seemed to have figured out Big Chief is not what he seems.

Kesey’s set-up of the battle between McMurphy and Big Nurse is an old theme, but McMurphy is determined to reject the literary allusions that work to expose themselves. Harding plainly states the Ward is a matriarchy and he extends the “controlled” scenario out into the world telling the story of how she’s taken to volunteering and donating to poor young couples. Harding’s building a literary giant out of Big Nurse. He makes her the matriarch in and out of the Ward and by virtue of the same emasculating tactics. She promises, according to Harding’s imagination, to send money for scouring powder and on her way out, “[Pauses]…draws the timid young bride to one side and offers her twenty dollars of her own: ‘Go, you poor unfortunate underfed child, go, and buy yourself a decent dress. I realize your husband can’t afford it, but here, take this, and go,’ ” as a way of insuring “the couple is indebted to her benevolence [forever]” (55). Of course this is only Harding’s version, but it smacks of literary allusions.

Harding is trying to elevate McMurphy’s truth…which is real men don’t get controlled by a ball-cutter, by giving it a prescriptive language. He makes allusions to obvious institutionalized and academic metaphors. He says they’re all rabbits and he’s a wolf; compares the EST sessions using Christ-like imagery; and he alludes to the American dream—rather the “Vanishing American” dream in Chief. But McMurphy rejects these couched allusions and reduces them to his truth tit-for-tat.

To McMurphy he’s not literally saying, “stop making bad clichés and metaphors,” he’s saying, “no, that’s not why…I can flirt the pants off a Mormon deacon’s wife, that’s why!” The thing a writer has to contend with, I suppose are his critics. It’s possible that McMurphy’s acknowledging Helena…rather Marilyn Monroe, a contemporary offering at least, is evidence of Kesey’s awareness. He couldn’t let his story hinge on the moral ramblings of Harding…nor McMurphy, and hence the necessary component, Big Chief as narrator. Literally blind to everyone save for on a subconscious level…except for McMurphy. A better metaphor for the narrator of the story cannot be discovered. Telling the story, sweeping up on discrete conversations, the longest on the Ward gives him credibility and ability to tell stories any mostly omniscient third person narrator could, even getting invited into the panel discussion regarding McMurphy, to clean some random mess—Big Chief is the perfect narrator.