Defiance

This art piece represents the scene from page 125. McMurphy makes himself comfortable in front of the TV, defying the nurses order to get back to work. The other patients see his actions and pull up a chair to join him. McMurphy had attempted to switch the cleaning schedule so that they could sit and watch the world series however his attempt was unsuccessful. He didn’t want to believe he lost so he stood up against Nurse Ratched and finally made her lose her cool. Nurse Ratched, furious, cuts the TV off but McMurphy isn’t bothered. Bromden notes “That eye doesn’t faze him a bit. To tell the truth, he doesn’t even let on he knows the picture is turned off…” (125) The artwork represents McMurphy’s act of defiance as well as the consequences that followed.

The top right portion of the piece represents the cleaning supplies that the patients dropped when deciding to join McMurphy. “Harding shuts off the buffer and leaves it in the hall.” (125) I chose to include this because it shows that the choice the patients made was spur of the moment. I felt it was most important to emphasize McMurphys character in this piece so he got the most detail. McMurphy leans back, “puts his cigarette between his teeth and pushes his cap forward in his red hair till he has to lean back to see out from under the brim.” (125) I drew McMurphy just as described, leaned back, hands crossed behind his head, cigarette in his mouth and hat brim on his head. His relaxed nature while Nurse Ratched yells from behind is really important to notice. He intentionally acts like this because he knows that it will annoy the Nurse and his goal is to make her lose her temper.

In my artwork, I included the other Acutes sitting in front of the gray TV screen to show that they were supportive of the effect it would have on the nurse Ratched and not so much actually wanting to watch the world series. The patients are “sitting there lined up in front of that blanked out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could see the baseball game clear as day, and she’s ranting and screaming behind us.” (125) McMurphy continuing to watch the TV as if it were still on shows that he doesn’t want to let the Nurse know that she has won. For him, this front that he has put up must stay intact even if that means he has to act in this manner. By doing this he won the bet that he could make the nurse lose her temper.

The nurse’s appearance is simple, she is drawn to have infuriating facial expressions towards the men by the TV. The artwork shows the important moment when she loses her temper with the patients. Throughout this moment her anger grows more intense, “Mr. McMurphy, I’m warning you!” then she pulled out her fist and “all those red - orange fingernails burning into her palm.” (125) In the piece, Nurse Ratched’s Facial expressions, red cheeks and orange fingernails were done intentionally to replicate this moment from the book.

This scene is significant to the story because it’s the first moment where McMurphy makes Nurse Ratched lose her temper on the patients. Each moment before this, she has calmed herself down before things escalated but this scene shows how McMurphy tipped the scales. This scene could lead McMurphy to have many more moments where he defies the rules and causes Nurse Ratched to be furious with him. It leaves the reader wondering about the amount of control the patients truly have within the hospital.