Discussion Topic
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Analyzing the Conclusion and Chapter One's Last Line
Summary:
The last line of Chapter One in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest highlights Chief Bromden's unreliable narration, emphasizing that his perceived truth is subjective. The novel's conclusion underscores themes of humanity, rebellion, and spiritual rebirth. McMurphy's sacrifice enables Chief's escape and personal liberation, embodying a true rebirth against institutional control. This ending also clarifies the title's meaning and Chief's role as the true protagonist, reclaiming his identity and manhood beyond the asylum's confines.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, what does the last line of Chapter One mean?
Chapter One ends with an enigmatic statement from Chief Broom, who is the narrator. Broom seems to be not entirely in control of his mental faculties; he sees Nurse Ratched turn into a terrible robot, and believes that the hospital uses a machine to control the minds of the inmates. However, he claims that he will be truthful in the following narrative:
I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn’t happen.
(Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Google Books)
Broom's comment at first seems to indicate...
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that he is going to make things up and lie about the story that follows, and that he is doing it deliberately. However, the line really reveals a stronger undercurrent of insanity in Broom's mind; he knows what the "truth" is regardless of the actual events, and he is ready to relate the events exactly as he experienced them.The events might not be factually correct, but they are his experiences, and that makes them the truth. It also indicates that not everything in the narrative is intended to reflect reality; if something is odd, it might exist solely in Broom's head. However, these events have all been subjectively experienced by Broom, making them as valid as the real "truth."
References
What is the significance of the conclusion of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
First and foremost, the conclusion gives meaning to the title of Kesey's novel. Then, it clears any doubt as to who is the protagonist of this novel. While the indomitable McMurphy is the "free goose" who flies over the cuckoo's nest as in the children's song, acting as agent of rebellion against the stultifying, emasculating forces of sadistic control and technology, it is Chief Bromden who conquers these forces.
Having come from an environment in which his race has been subjugated and their history vilified, the Chief has watched his father destroyed by losing his land and dying of alcoholism. These forces against the Native Americans are perceived by the Chief as the "Combine," likening the routines of the Big Nurse to emasculate and dominate the inmates of the asylum to a huge threshing machine that runs grains through a series of processes until they are ground. He has surrendered to them and allowed his soul to shrivel, his mind and heart to become deaf to the world, existing only within his defeated spirit. As agent, McMurphy becomes the sacrificial victim who dies that the Chief can be reborn from his spiritual death.
McMurphy's influence has also extended to the other men in the ward. Harding challenges Nurse Ratched's assurance that McMurphy will return, telling her she lies.
She tried to get her ward back in shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy's presence still tromping up and down and laughing out loud at the meetings and singing in the latrines....She was losing her patients one after another.
Those who had self-committed leave and return home. Then, after McMurphy is returned to the ward, having had a lobotomy, the men know that his spirit has died. Unable to bear what has been done to one with so much vigor in his heart, the Chief smothers McMurphy. Having heard what has gone on, Scanlon advises him to flee because the Big Nurse will know what has happened; he suggests that the Chief do as McMurphy has shown him. In tune with his native spirit, the Chief sees the moon "straining through the screen," symbolic of his own straining soul as it is reborn. He strains and strains until he finally is able to lift the heavy control panel of the tub-room and hurl it through the panel, screen, and window.
The glass splashed out into the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping earth....I ran across the grounds...I caught a ride with a guy...going north and give him such a good story ...he gave me a leather jacket to cover my greens and loaned me ten bucks....
I might go to Canada, but....I'd just like to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again.
I been away a long time.
The Chief flees the "Cuckoo's Nest" and reclaims his manhood.