Plot Summary Thus Far: Earlier on in the novel, McMurphy bets with the Acutes that he can lift a control panel for hydrotherapy, an old form of “treatment” formerly used by the hospital that consisted of hosing down patients. However, he is unable to do so. The scene below happens after McMurphy is wheeled back in, lobotomized, less than a shadow of his former self, which results in Chief deciding to kill him and escape the ward for good. 

“The moon straining through the screen of the tubroom windows showed the hunched, heavy shape of the control panel, flinted off the chrome fixtures and glass gauges so cold I could almost hear the clink of it striking. I took a deep breath and bent over and took the levers. I heaved my legs under me and felt the grind of weight at my feet. I heaved again and heard the wires and connections tearing out of the floor. I lurched it up to my knees and was able to get an arm around it and my other hand under it. The chrome was cold against my neck and the side of my head. I put my back toward the screen, then spun and let the momentum carry the panel through the screen with a ripping crash. … I remember I was taking huge strides as I ran, seeming to step and float a long ways before my next foot struck the earth. I felt like I was flying. Free. … I caught a ride with a guy, a Mexican guy, going north in a truck full of sheep, and give him a good story about me being a professional Indian wrestler the syndicate had tried to lock up in a nuthouse that he stopped real quick and gave me a leather jacket to cover my greens … I been away a long time.”

(324-325)

Bromden’s escape is a radical defiance of the cold, metallic system of society which forces men to conform to an acceptable standard of masculinity. By rejecting this system using his manhood, he is able to escape. The control panel was used for hydrotherapy, and like many measures of treating mental illness in the book, was torture in the guise of therapy. As established in all previous annotations, the mental health system uses treatment to force them to fit within socially acceptable standards of masculine behavior. The mechanical nature of the control panel is emphasized by the description of its “chrome fixtures” (Kesey 324) and “glass gauges” (Kesey 324), which in turn reflect the mechanical nature of a society which systematically breaks down men to their desired standard. The chrome being cold against his neck and the side of his head strengthens the idea that society is trying to instill their ideas about what masculinity should be through the torturous methods of treatment by the use of objects such as the control panel, though Bromden effectively ignores these things and proceeds with his escape. Bromden hearing the wires and connections tearing from the floor signifies that he is breaking away from what the institution has instilled within him. The act of bending over, breathing heavily, heaving his legs and grinding his weight up against the control panel as he destroys it can also be seen as his reclamation of masculinity via his male sexuality, which defies the idea that unacceptable forms male sexuality should be repressed (Embrace your Rabbithood) and or acted upon without regards to personal desire (Is for you to spread our approved form of masculinity). “Bromden’s escape, as well as the physical act of lifting the tub to break the window and escape the ward, becomes a symbolic act—an assertion of his masculine self.” (Meloy 12). Chief rejecting the institution by asserting his masculinity over their means of breaking men down is what liberates him, as using his masculine strength to throw the control panel out of the room is his means of escape. The idea of Chief Bromden using a control panel also asserts that he is taking back the autonomy and control which he has been robbed of through his masculinity, rejecting the idea that others have power over him. Chief not only breaks the means through which the institution asserts its control, but breaks through the institution itself and attains freedom by virtue of breaking the glass window. 

Chief adopts a hypermasculine identity of “a professional Indian wrestler the syndicate had tried to lock up in the nuthouse” (Kesey 324) from that point on, securing his escape from the institution itself and the social ideals that were being forced upon him. The idea that he was a wrestler, a hyper aggressive character, hearkens back to the hyper aggressive McMurphy at the beginning of the novel, who was institutionalized for fighting too much at the work farm. Chief is given a leather jacket to cover up his hospital greens, and this is important because a leather jacket is a hardened, organic, and masculine piece of clothing, which forwards the idea that Chief has successfully claimed his newfound masculinity. The final line “I been away a long time” (Kesey 325) emphasizes how the institution is willing to trap men who do not conform for the rest of their lives; however, Chief shows that escape from the institution is possible should one assume a hyper masculine identity and use it to reject the system’s standard of masculinity.