One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


Kesey, Ken


This book contains an extensive amount of vulgarity, violence, and sex. In the Blue Valley school system, students not only read the book, they also view the movie based on the book. The movie was released in 1975 with an R rating. Information about the movie can be found by clicking here.

Excerpts about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest can also be found at Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, www.pabbis.com.

Citizen reviews for Citizens for Academic Responsibility (a community effort to keep parents in touch with their public school in Richland, Washington) also gave One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a an extremely negative review.


This novel takes place in a mental institution, where McMurphy has faked his way in from prison to avoid physical labor. He was sentenced to prison for dating a 15-year-old girl. McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are bitter enemies from the beginning. The book is written from the perspective of the Big Indian, who in the end smothers McMurphy as a “mercy killing” after the fun-loving, authority-hating McMurphy is lobotomized to keep him under control.

Parents should be aware that the book contains suicides, anal/homosexual rape, graphic sex scenes, child sex, losing virginity, prostitution, alcohol and drug use, antireligious references, and self injury.

Excerpts:
- 12 uses of “fuck/fucking/motherfucker”
- 9 uses of “shit/bullshit”
- 12 uses of “bitch/son of a bitch”
- 4 uses of “asshole/ass”-
- 10 uses of “goddamn”
- 10 uses of “bastard”
- 6 uses of “ball-cutter”
- 4 uses of “coon”
- plus...dago, tarbabies, black-ass, nigger and cocksucker
- several uses of "whore"

-First 2 sentences in book: “They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.”

-“Admission [to the asylum]. ..[they] stand scared till the black boys come sign for him and take him to the shower room, where they strip him and leave him.. while they all 3 run grinning up and down the halls looking for the Vaseline. We need that Vaseline, they’ll tell the Big Nurse, for the thermometer. She [says].. I’m sure you do and hands them a jar.. but mind you boys don’t group up in there.. running the thermometer around in the grease till it’s coated the size of your finger, crooning, That’s right mothah, that’s right and then shut the door and turn all the showers up to where you can’t hear anything but the vicious hiss of water on the green tile.”

-“..they tell me a psychopath’s a guy who fights too much and fucks too much.. whoever heard of a man gettin’ too much coozle?”

-“..a twisted sinewy dwarf the color of cold asphalt. His mother was raped in Georgia while his papa stood by tied to the hot iron stove.. blood streaming into his shoes. the boy watched from a closet... and he never grew an inch after.”

-“..push him face down on the mattress. One sits on [him] and the other rips his pants open in back.. T’s peach-colored rear is framed... he’s smothering curses into the mattress.. boy sitting on his head.. nurse comes down the hall.. long needle.. comes right back out.. Before the black boy can close the door after her, I see the one still sitting on T’s head, dabbing at him with a Kleenex. They’re in there a long time before.. they come out, carrying him.. His greens are ripped clear off now and he’s wrapped in a damp sheet...”

-“..accused of a multitude of things... of having relations with male friends of mine.. of having nothing between my legs but a patch of hair-and soft and downy and blond hair at that…ball-cutter? Oh, you underestimate her!”

-“..you can still make out the.. extraordinary breasts.. could you get it up over her.. I couldn’t get it up over that old frozen face.. if she had the beauty of Marilyn Monroe.”

-“Billy ‘Club’ Bibbit, he was known as.. those girls were about to take off when one…says are you the renowned Billy Club Bibbitt? Of the famous 14 inches.. and we were a shoo-in. ..when we got them to the hotel, there was this woman’s voice from over near Billy’s bed, says.. disappointed in you; I heard that you had four- four- four goodness sakes!”

-“..ask her.. just what was the actual inch-by-inch measurement on them great big ol’ breasts that she did her best to conceal but never could. ..nature had tagged her with those outsized badges of femininity..”

-“At home she locks herself in the bathroom out of sight, strips down, and rubs that crucifix all over that stain running from the corner of her mouth in a thin line down across her shoulders and breasts. She rubs and rubs and hails Mary to beat thunder, but the stain stays. ..darker’n ever. Finally take a wire brush…and scrubs the stain away, puts a nightgown on over the raw, oozing hide, and crawls into bed. ..While she’s asleep it rises in her throat and into her mouth, drains out of that corner of her mouth like purple spit and down her throat, over her body. in the morning she sees how she’s stained again... figures it’s not really from inside her--how could it be? A good Catholic girl like her?”

-“Two whores on their way... to take us deep sea fishing. ..2 whores on a fishing boat.. crank of that reel fluttering her breast at such speed the nipple’s just a red blur.. help her squeeze the pole tighter in between her breasts.. her breasts look so firm.. the girl cussing for all she’s worth and looking at her bare breasts, one white and one smarting red..”

-“..first girl ever drug me to bed.. I was about 10... lay seemed like such a big deal.. I thought if you made it, man, you were legally wed…little whore--at the most 8 or 9-- reached down and got her dress off the floor..”

-“..the 3 black boys came around, gathering the bunch of us for our special shower.. we lined up nude.. one black boy came over, a black plastic tube in his hand, squirting a stinking salve.. in the hair first, then turn around an’ bend over and spread your cheeks! ..They kidded the black boys.. hey, Williams, can you tell me what I had for breakfast?.. When F spread his cheeks there was such a sound I thought the least black boy would be blown clear off his feet. Hark!.. The lovely voice of an angel. ..next man was G.. No-none of that stoof. [G would never let anything/anyone touch him]..You goddamned coon, M said.. Goddamned motherfucking nigger!.. Cocksucker!.. The black boy grabbed [g’s] arm and swung him facing the wall. Tha’s right, G now spread those cheeks. [fight breaks out.. M and other sent for electroshock].”

-“…[T said]: Billy Boy. ...How much is it worth to you to lose your ol’ cherry?.. It ain’ that. Not money. ..You people be sharing more’n a bottle, won’t you? ...M took [Billy] aside and told him not to worry about his girl’s chastity-- T’d likely be so drunk and sleepy by the time Billy was finished that the old coon couldn’t put a carrot in a washtub. The girl was late again. ...they passed one of T’s cigarettes [pot] back and forth... hee hee.. you want a toke? [Girls arrive] Let her in T. Let this mad stud [Billy] at her. ...Billy Boy. It’s too late to back out now. ...I got $5 here that says you burn that woman down... they had to lift their tight skirts up to their thighs to step through the window. [they are drunk and have bottles with them]”

-“…why don’t he answer? Maybe he got too high. Man, what are you talkin’? I don’t get too high, not on a little middlin’ joint like that one.”

- They break into the drug room and find some codeine syrup to mix with the vodka and all drink it and smoke some more pot.

-“…they discussed how it would be to lay that little nurse with the birthmark.. I’d be scared. T said, that she might go to whuppin’ me with that big ol’ cross on that chain.. I’d be scared, M said, that just about the time I was getting my jollies she’d reach around behind me with a thermometer and take my temperature!”

-“…heard on of S’s [seizure] convulsion cries and went to find him sprawled twitching beside that big girl.. She was sitting on the floor brushing at her skirt, looking down at S. I never experienced anything like it she said with quiet awe. F.. put a wallet between his teeth... and helped him get his pants buttoned... I’m all right, he said, Medicate me and turn me loose again.. maybe you better bring me something too [the girl] called drunkenly.. I never experienced anything to come even close to it. ...H came back with a double handful of pills; he sprinkled them over S and the woman... He raised his eyes toward the ceiling. Most merciful God, accept these 2 poor sinners into your arms..[blah, blah] It is our last fling.. We will all be shot at dawn. 100 cc’s apiece... we’ll face the terrible maw of a muzzle-loading shotgun which she has loaded with Miltowns! Thorazines! Libriums! Stelazines!.. Tranquilize all of us completely out of existence... slid to the floor, pills hopping out of his hands in all directions.. Amen, he said and closed his eyes. The girl on the floor smoothed her skirt over her long hard-working legs and looked at S still grinning and twitching.. said Never in my life experienced anything to come even halfway of it.”

-“[Head Nurse] walked straight up to M. “He [Billy] cut his throat,” she said. ...opened the doctor’s desk and found some instruments and cut his throat.”

-M is given a lobotomy and comes out a vegetable. Another inmate kills him [mercy killing] and then escapes. “...waited that night until... everybody was asleep... [M’s eyes] open and undreaming, glazed... I moved to pick up the pillow.. the eyes fastened on the movement and followed me... The big, hard body had a tough grip on life. It fought.. against having it taken away, flailing and thrashing around so much I finally had to lie. full length on top of it and scissor the kicking legs with mine while I mashed the pillow into the face. I lay there on top of the body for what seemed like days. Until the thrashing stopped.. shuddered once and was still again. I rolled off...saw the expression hadn’t changed from the blank, dead-end look the least bit, even under suffocation. I ...pushed the lids down and held them till they stayed.”