One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Post #4)

“The big, hard body had a tough grip on life. It fought a long time against having it taken away, flailing and thrashing around so much I finally had to lie full length on top of it and scissor the kicking legs with mine while I mashed the pillow into the face. I lay there on top of the body for what seemed days. Until the thrashing stopped. Until it was still a while and had shuddered once and was still again. Then I rolled off. I lifted the pillow, and in the moonlight I saw the expression hadn’t changed from the blank, dead-end look the least bit, even under suffocation. I took my thumbs and pushed the lids down and held them till they stayed. Then I lay back on my bed.”

I could never imagine what it would be like to have to assist a friend in death. However, I do agree with Chief Bromden’s decision to suffocate McMurphy. Ever since the surgery all McMurphy did was sit and stare at a wall with no signs of human life, and that is never how a person should exist. Especially with a person like McMurphy who lived life to the fullest. Chief Bromden didn’t think of it as killing a friend because of this reason. He felt that McMurphjy had really died after his lobotomy. I believe this is also true in some aspects. Although McMurphy could breathe and shows signs of human life he wasn’t really alive. I guess this is similar to the decision of having to pull the plug. If there was a chance that he might come back to his old self he probably wouldn’t have suffocated him. However, since McMurphy had a lobotomy he would never come back to his old self and would be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. In this case I could see how a friend would want to pull the plug. I enjoyed this ending to the book, although it was not what I had expected it was still very good.