McMurphy apologizes to Chief for getting him involved in the fight as the two are led to electroshock therapy. Alluding to his stay in a Chinese prison camp in the Korean War, McMurphy refuses to cooperate with Ratched to prevent the electroshock. Emulating the crucifixion, McMurphy lies down on the electroshock table and asks for a crown of thorns.
As Chief recovers from his electroshock, he remembers his mother’s emasculating behavior toward him and his father. She civilizes them by forcing them to take her last name, Bromden, and moving them to town where “getting a Social Security card [is] a lot easier.” He recites the nursery rhyme from which the book takes its title, a game called Tingle Tingle Tangle Toes. In the game, Mrs. Tingle Tangle Toes catches hens and puts them into pens while a goose flies overhead looking to pluck one of the hens out. Chief awakens soaked in his own urine in the Seclusion Room. He says he knows he has the aides beat this time.
