McMurphy arrives at a crucial point in the Chief's life. The Chief has endured years in the hospital, years of self-imposed silence, years of abuse. He's undergone over 200 shock treatments. Clearly, he is a strong man. But now, we see, his strength is near its end. He tells us, "One of these days I'll quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog." McMurphy's arrival at first seems able only to postpone …showed first 75 words of 586 total…

…showed last 75 words of 586 total…be able to fight the Combine on another battlefield. The Chief grows so strong and self-reliant in the course of the novel that he is able to realize what Nurse Ratched has done to McMurphy through the lobotomy and take matters into his own hands. At the end of the novel, Chief Bromden suffocates McMurphy with a pillow and then escapes from the hospital to freedom. He is finally able to stand on his own.