Foil

Character Role Analysis

McMurphy and Billy Bibbit

McMurphy is a free spirit who will never do what he's told and will have sex with as many women as he wants. Billy Bibbit is the exact opposite. Instead of speaking with confidence, he has a terrible stutter. And instead of brashly hitting on women, Billy is terrified of them. He is a total product of Nurse Ratched's efforts to take normal men and grind them down into terrified and obedient little patients.

At the end of the movie, McMurphy tries to give Billy more confidence by fixing him up for sex with a woman named Candy. And he even succeeds when Billy speaks back to Nurse Ratched and says he isn't ashamed. But when Nurse Ratched brings up his mother, Billy is so overcome with shame that he commits suicide.