The movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, tells the story of McMurphy, a convict, who is sent to a mental institution because he believes he is insane. In actuality McMurphy, is sane when he comes to the mental ward, he only wants to get out of the work that jail time entails. It is believed that his stay in the mental ward is what drives the man insane. While in the mental ward, he interacts with the patients of his ward and ends up changing their worlds completely. When two different societies are combined, they undoubtedly will change one another. This is the case when McMurphy coming from the "real" world, a society where a person can do what he pleases, is associated with the mental ward patients, whose lives are completely controlled by their nurses and their routines. McMurphy and the patients have a significant effect on each other.
The mental ward and the world that McMurphy comes from are completely different. The mental ward is completely based on rules. The patients' lives are based on the routine that their nurse, Nurse Ratched, has established for them. Nurse Ratched believes that the rules she sets for the patients are in their best interest or getting better. The nurses have entire control over the patients. They are locked into their beds every night, get up at the same time, they eat at the same time, and they watch tv at the same time every day. The patients follow Nurse Ratched's rule without ever questioning them. Basically, they have no minds of their own. McMurphy comes from a society almost opposite of the mental ward. He has lived his whole life doing what he wants. He has never had a nurse hovering over him telling him what he has to do at all time. Being in prison shows that McMurphy has a hard time living by the rules. So living by strict rules of the mental ward is going to be even harder for him.
Living in the mental ward is very hard for McMurphy at first. The patients and McMurphy cannot understand one another so socializing with them is hard for him. When he begins to interact with them, he has a profound effect on the patients of the mental ward. McMurphy has a hard time following the rules that Nurse Ratched sets for patients of the mental ward. So he has to question her and protest against the rules of the ward. Before McMurphy came to the ward, the patients never questioned Nurse Ratched's rules. Seeing McMurphy challenge them incited a sense of freedom within them to disobey Nurse Ratched and everything they knew as true. McMurphy's presence gave them a will for freedom that they did not have before. Under McMurphy's supervision the patients had the nerve to escape from the mental ward for one day and go sailing. Something they would have never of thought of doing before they knew McMurphy. After encountering McMurphy, the patients were brave enough to oppose Nurse Ratched's rules openly. Such as the time Martini threw a tantrum that disputed Nurse Ratched's rationing of their own cigarettes. McMurphy also got them to come together as a group and fight Nurse Ratched's controls. McMurphy gets the whole ward to vote against Nurse Ratched rule that they were not allowed to watch the World Series. Another thing that the patients would not have done without the help of McMurphy. Life in the mental ward has an effect on McMurphy as well. McMurphy's goal was in the mental ward was to escape from it but after he came into close contact with the people of it he lost that aspiration. When he had his window of opportunity he did not escape but instead chose to remain in the mental ward.
When the two different societies of the mental ward and the outside world meet, they were bound to change each other. These changes can be seen by observing the patients actions to the old rules of the mental ward and McMurphy's actions while in the mental ward. Who can say if these changes were for the better? All that can be said is that they clearly changed in some form or another.
