Symbols and Tropes
The Water Fountain
At an early point in the movie, McMurphy boasts that he is going to break out of the mental hospital by lifting a water fountain and chucking it through a window. The others don't believe him, so h...
The Pack of Nude Cards
One of the things McMurphy always holds onto in the mental hospital is his pack of playing cards with pictures of nude women on them. This little item tells us a whole lot about McMurphy's characte...
Voting
Nurse Ratched is a dictator when it comes to deciding how things are going to work in her hospital ward. But she also has this clever way of never seeming like a dictator because she uses false log...
Lobotomy Scars
When Chief Bromden sees McMurphy's lobotomy scars at the end of this movie, he realizes that the hospital has made McMurphy into an obedient zombie for life. It's the biggest bummer of the whole mo...