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<title> Billy Bibbit in "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest" </title>
"One flew over the Cuckoo's nest" is a book were the story takes place in a mental hospital in the late 1950s. An Indian, who is a patient in the hospital, tells the story. The book is about the staff and the patients on the hospital and how it changes as the story is told. I'm going to write about Billy Bibbit, who is one of the patients and has been in this hospital for about five years. I will describe his character and the characterization, which is how his character is created and revealed to the reader.

Billy Bibbit's feature is vaguely described. The Indian describes Billy's face like a beggar's, needing so much more then anybody can give. The Indian is giving a very strange description of Billy once. He tells that Billy's got wrinkles in his face and specks of gray in his hair, although he looks like a kid. He's got jug-ears and a freckled face and bucktooth, but the Indian goes on that Billy in a closer look is just as tall as anyone and doesn't have jug-ears or bucktooth and "is, in fact, thirty-some years old" (p 246). Billy's got razor blade scars on his wrist and cigarette burns on the back of his hand. The reader can draw the conclusion that he's been trying to kill himself and that he is acting self-destructive.

When Billy speaks for the first time the reader gets to know that Billy stutters. Billy stutters when he is talking about something that bothers him, like when he, in one of the therapeutic meetings, tells about the time he proposed to a girl asking her if she wants to "muh-muh-muh-marry" him. The girl just laughed at him. Big Nurse, who is the head nurse running things and a cold-blooded and mean woman, asks Billy if he can remember the first time he stuttered. Billy answers: "Fir-first stutter? First stutter? The first word I said I st-stut-tered: m-m-m-m-mamma" (p 119). Here the reader understands that Billy's problem origins in his childhood, and that his mother is a part of them. She is refusing to let Billy to grow up and doesn't accept his age, telling him he is just a little kid. One time she asks him if he really thinks she is the mother of a middle-aged man. The therapy Billy is getting is making him more dependent on his mother, instead of the opposite. When McMurphy, who is new on the Ward and a criminal who faked insane to escape a workfarm, can't understand why Billy is in the Ward, although he isn't committed, Billy gets upset and starts to cry of frustration and he's beginning to shake. Billy explains to McMurphy that he doesn't have the guts to leave. His mother is a good friend of Miss Ratched and that he could leave if he had the guts. But since he has had so many in his life laughing at him, he can't leave. He doesn't want to be in the Ward, but he doesn't have a chose. 

The fishing trip changes many persons and even Billy changes. During this trip he becomes involved with a girl, which have been a dream for Billy. During the whole trip Billy is trying to be a gentleman and helps the girl. The girl comes visiting Billy, and Billy has his first sexual experience. By this Billy achieves manhood and finally can begin to mature. Big Nurse discovers them in the morning, but Billy is calm. Now he doesn't get nervous or scared of Big Nurse, instead he introduces Big Nurse to the girl without stuttering. Big Nurse becomes furious because of the way Billy's acting and strikes "What worries me Billy/.../is how your poor mother is going to take this" (p263). The strike hits just like she wanted. Billy becomes the scared boy again and begins to stutter. Big Nurse goes on reminding Billy that he knows how his mother is when she gets disturbed. Left alone in a room Billy kills himself. He fears so much a conflict with his mother that he doesn't se another way out. 

Billy is very influenced by McMurphy to stand up and protest against Big Nurse. McMurphy is Billy's special friend and hero. McMurphy forces Billy to be a man, he is giving Billy the therapy he needs. MacMurphy sets up the date with the girl and leaves Billy to experience the night with her. The girl accept Billy for who he is, and she doesn't think Billy looks like he have all the "phrenics and pathics" it says in his folder. She is finishing off MacMurphy's job making Billy a man. Harding points out that Billy is no longer a rabbit, he has become a man.

Billy is the victim in the story, a boy who never had the chance to grow up. He is over thirty years old, but hasn't gone to college or had sex with a woman. Billy is changing a lot during the story. In the beginning he is nervous, scared and stutters all the time and he does everything to please Miss Ratched and his mother, who he is still very dependent on. The reader understands that she is the main part of Billy's problems. In the beginning he doesn't get much attention and doesn't have a big role among the Acutes, but he grows. As the story goes on, and McMurphy influences him, he gets a greater part and he's getting more self-esteem and he dares to stand up against Big Nurse. He matures at the very end of his life, after his sex-debut, but Big Nurse uses her knowledge of Billy's weakness to break him and Billy commits suicide to escape.
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