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No Fear Shakespeare
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No Fear Shakespeare
Literature
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Ken Kesey

Study Guide

Summary
- Plot Overview
Characters
Main Ideas
- Themes
- Motifs
- Symbols
- Key Facts
Quotes
- Important Quotations Explained
Further Study
- Context
- Full Book Quiz
- Study Questions
- Suggestions for Further Reading
Writing Help

Further Study

Full Book Quiz

Further Study Full Book Quiz

1. What physical feature does Nurse Ratched try to conceal?

Her long legs
Her blonde hair
Her large breasts
Her birthmark

2. Why did Nurse Ratched hire the three black aides?

For their strength
For their intelligence
For their stubbornness
For their hatred

3. What animals does McMurphy compare the patients to?

Wolves
Chickens
Rabbits
Pigs

4. What animals does Harding compare the patients to?

Wolves
Chickens
Rabbits
Pigs

5. What pattern covers McMurphy’s boxer shorts?

White whales
Hearts
Rabbits
Kisses

6. Which character is a closeted homosexual?

Nurse Ratched
Billy Bibbit
Dale Harding
Chief Bromden

7. Which patient has been on the ward the longest?

Pete Bancini
Colonel Matterson
Chief Bromden
Maxwell Taber

8. How does Rawler, a patient on Disturbed, commit suicide?

He hangs himself
He drowns
He cuts off his testicles
He slits his throat

9. Which of the following symbolizes Bromden’s insanity?

The flock of geese
The loud music
The monopoly board
The fog machine

10. What is the reward for snitching on a fellow patient?

Sleeping late
An extra pack of cigarettes
An Accompanied Pass
Skipping the Group Meeting

11. What is McMurphy’s first complaint to Nurse Ratched?

That the bathrooms are dirty
That the music is played too loudly
That he has no privacy
That he cannot smoke the cigarettes he bought

12. What ailment do Sefelt and Fredrickson suffer from?

Diabetes
Multiple sclerosis
Jaundice
Epilepsy

13. Why does Doctor Spivey drive the patients and accompany them on the fishing trip?

It is hospital policy to have a member of the staff accompany, and Ratched refuses to go
The original driver, Sandy, does not show up
Spivey is a former fisherman who insists he can show McMurphy how it is done
He loses a bet to McMurphy and has no choice

14. Which character, a former seaman, captains the fishing boat?

Colonel Matterson
George Sorensen
Doctor Spivey
Dale Harding

15. What is McMurphy’s excuse for breaking through the glass of the Nurses’ Station?

The glass was so clean he did not see it
Voices in his head told him to
The patients bet him he would not do it
He tripped

16. What important information does the lifeguard give McMurphy?

That Doctor Spivey is addicted to opiates
That he was once in the NFL
That committed patients can leave only at the staff’s discretion
That Bromden is crazy

17. Which of Nurse Ratched’s patients dies in the novel?

Billy Bibbit
Charles Cheswick
Randle McMurphy
All of the above

18. What punishment do McMurphy and Bromden receive for fighting with the aides?

They have to clean the latrines
They have to give up card games in the tub room
They are given electroshock therapy
They are given lobotomies

19. What does McMurphy do to Nurse Ratched after Billy commits suicide?

He punches her in the face
He rips open her shirt and strangles her
He rips off her clothes and rapes her
He calls her vulgar names to her face

20. Why doesn’t Harding want to escape with McMurphy?

He wants to leave via the correct procedures, to prove that he can
He is afraid of the outside and prefers the hospital
He is too drunk and he passes out
He promised his wife that he would stay another year

21. How does Chief Bromden leave the hospital?

He leaves with Candy and Sandy through the window
He checks himself out
He makes Doctor Spivey drive him away
He breaks through a window and runs away

22. How does Charles Cheswick die?

He falls off the boat during the fishing trip and drowns
He drowns in the hospital swimming pool
He receives too many electroshock treatments
He has an epileptic seizure

23. What might the white whales on McMurphy’s boxers symbolize?

An obsessive search for evil
The power of nature
God
All of the above

24. Which event symbolizes that Bromden is regaining his sense of self?

He watches the dog outside his window
He smashes the glass of the Nurse’s Station
He helps McMurphy win a bet by lifting the control panel
He sweeps the floor during a Group Meeting

25. Who eventually kills McMurphy?

Nurse Ratched
McMurphy commits suicide
Doctor Spivey
Bromden

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Popular pages: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Character List CHARACTERS
Chief Bromden: Character Analysis CHARACTERS
Quotes by Theme QUOTES
Themes MAIN IDEAS

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