Q: What is symbolic about how McMurphy smashes the glass in the nurse's room in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
A:
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, the setting is a mental
hospital. The patients inside are all controlled by one dictator, the big nurse. Also known as Miss Ratched, she imposes rules and restrictions and demands that the hospitalized follow a very organized schedule, as a way of controlling them as society controls us. A new player is introduced later on into the book who is known as McMurphy. He instantly shows a cheerful attitude, as if the hospital couldn't have been a more exciting place to be. His continuous rebellious and uncontrollable behavior angers the big nurse, and inspires the patients to follow in his lead. They all in one way or another contribute to his mission to beat the head nurse in anyway they can. When he learns that most of them are in the ward by choice, and can leave any day, and that the big nurse can extend his sentence indefinitely, he decides to step it down a notch, abandoning his comra...
