Fog
The fog that constantly surrounds Chief and the patients on the ward is, Chief claims, "made" by Nurse Ratched. Because we know that Chief is schizophrenic and sees things that are not literally th...
A Pecking Party
McMurphy describes a "pecking party" as a situation in which chickens see blood on another chicken and start pecking at it like crazy until they’re all bloody, pecking at each other in a frenzy,...
Rabbits and the Wolf
Harding explains to McMurphy that the world is divided into the weak and the strong. He, the doctor, and most of the patients are the weak—rabbits—and Nurse Ratched is the strong, a wolf. She h...
Outside
The world is divided into the inside of the insane asylum and "Outside," the world as it exists outside of the walls of the insane asylum. Outside has a grip on everybody’s imagination: to s...
Green Seepage
Chief notices that whenever the staff congregates together for a meeting, there’s a green light that pours out of the room they’re in. Afterwards, there’s a green seepage that covers everythi...
The Combine
This is Chief’s word to describe the machine-like nature of the asylum system. But it’s not just the asylum that’s governed by this machine—it’s the entire world. He can hear its hum in t...