The Nurse’s rule over the men had changed them so much they were too afraid to speak up against the Nurse or even laugh at McMurphy’s jokes. McMurphy was upset at what the Nurse had done to them. McMurphy tried so greatly to get them to regain this confidence that they had lost. He said to one of his fellow patients, ”Don’t you see you have to do something to show you still got some guts? Don’t you see you can’t let her take over completely?” He goes on,”-the rest (of you) are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that’s the first thing that got me about this place, that there wasn’t anybody laughing. I haven’t heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing”(Page 54). These were McMurphy’s wise words to initially help encourage the men to believe in themselves. He is using the example of laughter to show the men what simple human behaviors the Nurse stripped them of. Laughter is an essential right, the right to be happy. The men could not see what they had lost within themselves to the Nurse. With McMurphy’s help some began to see the situation more clearly. Helping the men understand what they lost was the first step in regaining …show more content…
He decided the way he was going to stop the Nurse’s rule was by both physically and verbally retaliating against her authority. He knew if he had the help of all the men he could really get something accomplished. The first major act of defiance toward the Nurse by all the men was when the World Series game. The men on the ward had a certain TV time, but the game was on before that. McMurphy wanted to change TV time so they could watch it. He proposed a vote during their daily meeting. At first the men did not want to vote because they didn’t enjoy baseball and Nurse’s look and attitude told otherwise. But after awhile one man voted, then another, then all the rest. McMurphy exclaimed, ‘“Twenty-one! The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one! And by God if that ain’t a majority I’ll eat my hat!” “Yippee,” Cheswick yells. The other Acutes are coming across toward me. “The meeting was closed,” she says. Her smile is still there, but the back of her neck as she walks out of the day room and into the Nurses’ Station, is red and swelling like she’ll blow apart any second”(Page 111). It had taken some time but the men finally began to warm up to the new McMurphy and even idolize him. Prior to this event, none of the men ever questioned the Nurse’s authority, but now with the presence of McMurphy it seemed that they all had the confidence to stand up to her. They had realized that this vote was not just a