One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Scene 8 Summary

  • We're back at the patient discussion group with Nurse Ratched, who's asking Billy Bibbit about a girl he once knew. He talks about how he went over to the woman's house one day and asked her to marry him.
  • The rest of the patients laugh at him and after a moment, he laughs along with them.
  • Nurse Ratched asks why Billy wanted to marry the girl, and he answers that he was in love with her. Ratched says that Billy's mother told her that Billy never told his mother about the whole thing. It's clear that the mention of Billy's mother immediately fills Billy with shame, and Ratched uses this leverage to manipulate him.
  • She asks Billy why he didn't tell his mother. She also mentions that this was the first time Billy tried to commit suicide.
  • When Billy doesn't answer, Mr. Cheswick speaks up and asks why Ratched can't move on to the next person if Billy doesn't feel like talking.
  • Nurse Ratched says that the point of the group is therapy, meaning that it might be necessary to talk about uncomfortable things sometimes. Cheswick argues that if therapy is the point, then why can't all the patients in the hospital watch a baseball game?
  • He and McMurphy ask for another vote on watching the next World Series game. All of the people in the group vote yes, but Nurse Ratched still blocks them by saying that they are only 50% of the people in the hospital ward.
  • The rest of the patients can barely talk or understand where they are, so there's not much point to including them in the vote. McMurphy is understandably cheesed at Nurse Ratched's trickery.
  • McMurphy runs around the ward trying to find someone to raise his hand. He eventually stumbles across Chief, who eventually raises his hand.
  • But it's too late. Nurse Ratched has already closed the meeting and won't reopen the vote.
  • Ratched then plays loud classical music over the PA, as if to rub in McMurphy's defeat. But McMurphy won't go down so easily. He goes to a corner of the room and pretends he's watching the World Series.
  • The other patients get curious about what he's up to, and soon they're all cheering along to McMurphy's play-by-play.
  • Behind the nurses' window, Ratched is clearly annoyed at the way McMurphy is riling up all the patients. She calls for the men to calm down over the PA system.