One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

When McMurphy first arrives on the ward and laughs out loud, Bromden calls it “the first laugh I’ve heard in years” (11). From that moment until he leads the patients on a fishing expedition—during which, on the open ocean, they finally join him in releasing a massive, liberating peal of laughter—McMurphy’s wit carries him through the worst that Ratched has to offer. McMurphy believes that “you can’t really be strong until you can see a funny side to things” (205). Similarly, Bromden remembers his father making fun of a group of government representatives. In these and other circumstances, laughter constitutes a challenge to authority.

As an authority figure, Ratched’s interest in laughter is purely clinical, as her staff is on the lookout for any signs of mirth among the patients. The public relations man who leads tours on the ward does laugh a lot, but something in his laughter rings false to Bromden.

Coined by Bromden, this phrase refers to a massive, “nation-wide” social superstructure that coaxes and, when necessary, coerces individuals to comply with society’s norms and rules. The term simultaneously suggests the combined efforts of various entities and the mechanical motion of harvesting and threshing—of people rather than grain.