The patients are organized and controlled through a rigid set of authoritarian rules and regulations that McMurphy questions: God Almighty, she's got you guys comin' or goin'. What do you think she is, some kind of a champ or somethin'? The contest of wills with the Nurse is played out as a struggle to win the other inmates over to his way of thinking and behaving by establishing a political majority, to lead various group insurrections, and to emphasize how they have been denied their freedom of will:
Lynne Rudder Baker - UMass
Dr. Spivey: It said you've been belligerent, talked when unauthorized, been resentful in attitude toward work in general, that you're lazy.
McMurphy: Chewin' gum in class, ha, ha.?
Dr. Spivey: Well, the real reason that you've been sent over here is because they wanted you to be determine whether or not you are mentally ill. This is the real reason.
Current Scholars - Fulbright
Nine votes are counted in the therapy group and McMurphy senses victory in this round over her. But Nurse Ratched refuses to have the other inmates won over to him and becomes the spoiler. She changes the rules to defeat the proposal:
Mathematics Calendar - American Mathematical Society
With card-shark skill, he introduces card games (with pornographically illustrated cards) and black jack gambling (betting cigarettes) to the dull monotonous routine of the inmates.
I'm here to cooperate with ya a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I'll be just right down the line with ya, you watch. 'Cause I think we ought to get to the bottom of R. P. McMurphy.
An energetic, swaggering, wisecracking, non-conformist, rebellious patient/prisoner Randle Patrick (R. P.) Mac McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), 88 years old, is escorted into the ward where he meets some of the bizarre, memorable patients/inmates (most of whom are voluntarily committed):
What a smart show- I need to start watching more TV. South Park picks up on Higgs' "regime uncertainty" and all of Taylor's recent arguments against current monetary and fiscal policy:
Again, con-man McMurphy bets the patients that he can escape incarceration by lifting and smashing his way out of the ward with a heavy, marble-sided watering station. He plans to go downtown with Cheswick and sit down at a bar, wet our whistles and watch the ballgame. And that's the bet! Now does anybody want any of it? Huh? Harding, contemptuously nicknamed Hard-on by McMurphy, gambles $75 that McMurphy isn't strong enough. McMurphy moves Billy out of the way before attempting to do the lift:
The Nurse proposes a vote to decide the matter - let majority rule - already knowing that authority and power are on her side against the slavish, malleable, drugged-out patients. Only three votes support McMurphy's request and he can't believe it, envoking a political comparison: What is this crap?.What is the matter with you guys? Come on! Be good Americans.
The prison officials think he's been fakin' it, pretending to be insane to get himself transferred out of the hard work details of the prison work farm. McMurphy actually admits that he is sane: I'm a god-damn marvel of modern science. But he agrees to cooperate during a period of evaluation, study, and treatment of his condition: