There Will Be No Change

Randle McMurphy is always trying to change something, if it’s the way we are or some rule he doesn’t like. This week during the meeting he decided that it’s unfair that he can’t watch the World Series on Friday because of the schedule we have for TV time. He had been wanting to do this for a while and even a few days before he tried to compromise with Nurse Ratched about the schedule so he could watch the World Series in the afternoon. This didn’t change her mind and in the end, she said no. This didn’t surprise him and he moved on to the others.

He moves on to us and asks what we think about this idea (103) “Nobody says a thing”. We don’t want to answer but he continues trying to get us to. We try to ignore it and (104) “Nobody acts like they’ve heard it ”, I want him to move on and leave me alone. But he continues and Scanlon responds with what he thinks and he thinks the schedule should stay the same because he likes watching the news at six o’clock. He continued to ask for a vote and the only ones to raise their hand was Cheswick. I sat there looking around if there was anyone else who raised their hand in support of Randle. No one else does and we sit there looking back and forth at each other.

Randle looks upset and says (104) “Come on now, what is this crap”. He looks towards the doctor to confirm that we can vote to change the rules of the ward and he nods in agreement. I know and everyone else knows they can vote but just don’t want to. We don’t want to know what happens when we vote against the ward. He asks again if we want to watch the series and Cheswick and Scanlon raise their hands. I don’t know why. They should know what happens when we go against the ward. But why doesn’t McMurphy get punished even after breaking all these rules? The meeting still hasn’t started and Nurse Ratched is asking if we could get back onto the meeting. I would also like to get back to the meeting since I’m annoyed with Randle trying to get the rules changed but I shouldn’t say anything now.

We get back to the meeting and Chewick gives us a hard look as he sits down next to McMurphy looking proud and the meeting starts. The meeting goes on and Randle says nothing to any of us because of how mad he is. But I finally have the opportunity to say what I want to him. I walk up to him and say “Some of us have b-been here for fi-fi-five years, Randle”. I’m twisting the magazine that’s in my hands back and forth as I’m talking to him. (104) “And some of us will b-be here maybe th-that muh-much longer, long after you’re g-g-gone, long after this Wo-world Series is over. And… don’t you see…”. As I’m talking to him I’m realizing he probably won’t listen to me or anyone else who says anything to him, he only thinks about himself and probably isn’t even listening to me. At this point, I don’t feel like talking to him anymore so I just throw down the magazine and walk away saying, “Oh what’s the use of it anyway”. I can’t tell him what he doesn’t know or what it is like to be here because he will never understand.

He continues to ask the other guys why they didn’t vote and argues with them but none of them talk to him and he gives up. They don’t want to get in trouble and stay quiet and let Randle do his own thing without dragging them into it. He got mad at us and called us out for being (103) “too cagey-too chicken-shit”. But I do not want to deal with him.

For this perspective, I decided to go with Billy in the scene where they have the meeting and McMurphy asks for the people to vote and have the TV time changed for the World Series. I chose Billy for the fact that he acts timid most of the time and doesn’t speak much and I thought it would be interesting to see what he was thinking. I called McMurphy in this perspective since it’s Bromden and the Nurse who calls him McMurphy I also felt like this scene impacted Billy the most since after the meeting he went on to talk to McMurphy head-on about how he feels. So to get his thoughts and already introduced dialogue would make this scene even more interesting.