History Literature / OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest

** When Chief Bromden speaks just after [=McMurphy=] offers him a piece of gum, this is a reference to a real indicent when a catatonic schizophrenic who had been silent for 19 years finally spoke after he was reinforced with chewing gum.

* GentleGiant: Bromden measures at a staggering 6 ft, 8in.(203 cm), but is as timid as the other inmates.[[spoiler: [[CharacterDevelopment Until the lobotomy that is.]]]]

-->'''[=McMurphy=]''': She was fifteen years old going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen.

* LastNameBasis: Compare: The patients all call each other by the last names, whle the Big Nurse has them on a first-name basis.

* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: This excerpt from the fishing trip:

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness, SpockSpeak: Our garrulous friend, Harding

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Charles Cheswick]] in the movie. According to WordOfGod, [[spoiler: Cheswick]] was spared to make [[spoiler: Billy Bibbit's]] death all the more shocking.

* TotallyEighteen: This is part of the reason why [=MacMurphy=] is locked in a mental institution; he had sex with an underage girl whom he thought was eighteen.

* WhamLine: The book being from Bromden's perspective and the movie from Mac's provides us with two contrasting reveals, both of which are provided by a single line: in the movie, [[spoiler: Mac passes supposedly deaf/mute Bromden a stick of chewing gum and Bromden says, "Thank you."]] The book's WhamLine is possibly less impactful on the story, as it is more illustrative of a character than something that fundamentally changes our perception of them, but it still comes as a shock: we know [[spoiler: Bromden is faking being deaf/mute right from the start.]] What we don't know until roughly the halfway point is that [[spoiler: Mac has him figured out quite early on: "Chief, I swear they told me you was deaf!"]]

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:Charles Cheswick]] in the movie. According to WordOfGod, [[spoiler: Cheswick was spared to make Billy Bibbit's death all the more shocking]].

* WhamLine: The book being from Bromden's perspective and the movie from Mac's provides us with two contrasting reveals, both of which are provided by a single line: in the movie, Mac passes deaf/mute Bromden a stick of chewing gum [[spoiler: and Bromden says, "Thank you."]] The book's WhamLine is possibly less impactful on the story, as it is more illustrative of a character than something that fundamentally changes our perception of them, but it still comes as a shock: we know [[spoiler: Bromden is faking being deaf/mute right from the start.]] What we don't know until roughly the halfway point is that [[spoiler: Mac has him figured out quite early on: "Chief, I swear they told me you was deaf!"]]

--> '''[=McMurphy=]''': This is Dr. Cheswick, Dr. Taber, Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Scanlon, the famous Dr. Scanlon, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Mr. Harding]], Dr. Bibbit, Dr. Martini, and Dr. Sefelt...Oh, I'm Dr. [=McMurphy=], R. P. [=McMurphy=].

--> '''[=McMurphy=]''': This is Dr. Cheswick, Dr. Taber, Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Scanlon, the famous Dr. Scanlon, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Mr. Harding]], Dr. Bibbit, Dr. Martini, and Dr. Sefelt (William Duell)...Oh, I'm Dr. [=McMurphy=], R. P. [=McMurphy=].

--> '''[=McMurphy=]: This is Dr. Cheswick, Dr. Taber, Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Scanlon, the famous Dr. Scanlon, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Mr. Harding]], Dr. Bibbit, Dr. Martini, and Dr. Sefelt (William Duell)...Oh, I'm Dr. [=McMurphy=], R. P. [=McMurphy=].

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Chief Bromden

** Electro Shock therapy is mainly painless and quick but with varying results. Seriously it can cure you of your depression permanently or it can make it worse and wreck your memory.

* TheIshmael: Chief Bromden, in the book.

** Inverted. Harding was described as looking like a film star in the book. In the film, he looks like an average man - [[YourMileageMayVary perhaps even slightly unattractive]]. This may have to do with his homosexuality being toned down a lot in the movie as he was a stereotypical pretty boy in the book.

** Electro Shock therapy is mainly painless and quick. Now what happens to the person falls into YourMileageMayVary. Seriously it can cure you of your depression permanently or it can make it worse and wreck your memory.

* TheSociopath: [=McMurphy=] he pretends to be to get committed.

* FoeYay:Nurse Ratched and [=McMurphy=]. Even their dialogue is full of innuendo (particularly on [=McMurphy's=] end).

* DisabledCharacterDisabledActor: ''Actual asylum inmates'' were used as extras

* HoYay: Plenty in the novel, but not between any specific characters and used more to build up the discomforting, emasculating atmosphere of the hospital than to establish the sweetly ambiguous kinds of relationships that the trope is associated with.
** In the film, there's Billy/[=McMurphy=]. [=McMurphy=] even says to Candy something like, "I just want you to do this one thing for me. He's cute, isn't he?"
*** And then there are the orderlies. According to Bromden, they love to give patients showers. They always check the patient's temperature at the same time they shower the patient, and they go down to Miss Ratched beforehand to get a rectal thermometer and a bottle of Vaseline. She admonishes them to use the minimum amount of Vaseline necessary, but they take the whole bottle inside with them, and they turn up the water pressure till the noise [[RapeAsDrama makes it impossible to hear anything that's going on inside]]...

** And hey, man, she was 15 going on 30, if you know what I mean. And if you were there with that red beaver right in front of you...

* [[SlidingScaleofAntiheroes Anti-Hero]]: McMurphy is type III. He's racist, sexist, loud, rude, and scams the other patients out of their money regularly. Hell, he originally got busted for statutory. But he's the only thing that can get them out of their shells and remind them that they're not a bunch of worthless rabbits.

* AManIsNotAVirgin: In the novel (though not the film) McMurphy claims to have lost his at the age of TEN. Though he may be lying to impress the others. As for Billy, it's implied, though never outright stated, that he was a virgin [[spoiler: until he slept with Candy.]]

* RealMenWearPink: Contrast the closeted homosexual Harding (who fears showing signs of weakness) with the straight, [[RatedMForManly boisterous]] McMurphy who isn't afraid to express his softer side once in a while.

* BattleaxeNurse: Miss Ratched, one of the most famous in literature.

*** By a curious coincidence, the actor in question ''was'' a film star. :P
** In the book, Nurse Ratched is frequently mentioned to be overweight (the cause of her large ladybags). Louise Fletcher...isn't.

''One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'' by KenKesey takes place in the early 1960s in an insane asylum run by Miss Ratched, the Big Nurse, who rules over the patients with an iron fist...and her machines of course, according to Chief Bromden, the narrator of this psychological novel.

* MyBelovedSmother: The whole reason poor Billy Bibbit is so messed up.

* TheQuietOne: Bromden. [[spoiler: Until later]].