The readers are first introduced to Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel who has been in the mental hospital for fifteen years. As a "Chronic", a type of patient that cannot be cured, the half Columbia Indian pretended to be deaf and dumb with much success. In the hospital the patients are under the power of Big Nurse Ratched. She was a former army nurse and leads a strict daily routine. She encourages the "…showed first 75 words of 671 total…

…showed last 75 words of 671 total…and as a result is lobotomized. By this point it has become clear to the reader that Nurse Ratched does not have the same power over the patients. Her crazy and domineering authority is no longer present, which enables to the patients to check out and escape. But before Bromden leaves the hospital, his home for the previous fifteen years, he strangles McMurphy so he would not have to live his life as a vegetable.