Randle Patrick McMurphy
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Randle Patrick McMurphy, or R.P. McMurphy for short, is a the protagonist of Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He was played by Kirk Douglas and Aleksandr Abdulov in the stage version and by Jack Nicholson in the 1975 film adaptation.
McMurphy is an Irish-American brawler found guilty of battery and gambling (he had also been charged with, but never convicted of, statutory rape, something which he bragged about). He is sentenced to a fairly short prison term, and decides to have himself declared insane so he'll be transferred to a mental institution, where he expects to serve the rest of his time in (comparative) comfort and luxury.
McMurphy's ward in the mental institution is run by an unyielding tyrant, Nurse Ratched, who has cowed the patients — who are mostly there by choice — into dejected, institutionalised submission. The two hate each other on sight, and McMurphy goes on a crusade to flout Ratched's regime of rules and punishment, as well as liberate the other patients from her grip.
Throughout his short stay at the hospital, McMurphy forms deep friendships with two of his fellow patients: Billy Bibbitt, a suicidal, stuttering manchild whom Ratched has humiliated and dominated into a quivering mess; and "Chief" Bromden, a Native American who probably has schizophrenia. In the former, McMurphy sees a younger brother figure whom he wants to teach to have fun, while the latter is his only real confidant, as they both understand what it is like to be treated like nobodies.
McMurphy becomes ensnared in a number of power-games with Nurse Ratched for the hearts and minds of the inmates. Toward the end of the novel, however, McMurphy is the clear winner, reminding the other patients how to enjoy life and stand up for themselves, and persuading them to act out against Ratched's bullying. Ratched tries everything to break his spirit, from solitary confinement to shock therapy, but he emerges from every punishment more defiant than before.
In the novel's climax, McMurphy sneaks two prostitutes into the ward to take Billy's virginity, while he and the others throw a party. Ratched catches them and threatens to tell Billy's mother — the only woman he fears more than her — which so terrifies him that he cuts his throat. Enraged, McMurphy nearly strangles Ratched, for which she has him lobotomized. Chief Bromden, unable to stand seeing his friend as a mindless zombie, smothers him to death in an act of euthanasia and uses a control panel as a battering ram to break the window and flee the cuckoo's nest.
