One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, novel by Ken Kesey, published in 1962. It was dramatized by Dale Wasserman (1974).

Chief Bromden, so named because he is of Indian descent but also because he is the chief sweeper in the psychopathic ward of an Oregon mental hospital, tells how he and the other inmates with whom he has shared confinement for ten years are buoyed by the arrival of Randle Patrick McMurphy. McMurphy, who has gotten himself transferred to the hospital from a prison, where he was serving time for statutory rape of a teenage girl, is a loud, laughing Irishman. He challenges the sadistic control of Head Nurse Ratched, who has browbeaten the frightened men into abject docility. Bit by bit he restores some self‐esteem in the men and even stirs the long mute Chief to talk. For fomenting rebellion, and assaulting the Head Nurse, however, he is subjected to repeated shock treatment and a lobotomy that reduces him to blank passivity. As an act of mercy the Chief then smothers McMurphy and escapes into the outer world.