Comparison of Book and Film of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey There are differences and similarities in the book "One flew over the
cuckoo's nest" by Ken Kesey and the movie, which is based on the
novel. The characters are the same, so is Nurse Ratchard in both the
book and the movie represented as an angry and two faced woman. She
wants to have the absolute control over the ward and therefore
manipulates the men. The only thing that is not equal in regard to the
nurse is here physical appearance. While she has a face like a baby
doll with a small nose, white skin and baby-blue eyes, pink lips and
nails and big breasts, which she tries to hide in the book, she is
more a normal woman, without remarkable make-up or breasts in the
movie. But her character and behavior is represented in the same way.
She doesn't like McMurphy, who actually was on a working farm, but
could manage to be send to the hospital. There he wants to have a nice
time and entertain the other patients. He plays poker and basketball
with them and slowly gives them there self-confidence back, which they
lost over the last years under the control of the nurse and therefore
he wins there appreciation. The nurse and he seem to be in competition
the whole time, who of them has more influence on the patients. He is
played exactly the same way as he is described in the Kesey's
original: as an open and self-confident man with oxblood colored skin,
who is walking like a motorcyclist and don't like to be ordered
around. The patient that we get to know the most in...
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...actor. Nobody cares how long a book
is. The author can nearly write as much as he likes, but the film
would be too long with all the scenes that are described.
The point of view in the motion picture is totally different from the
point of view in the book. In the story Bromden is the narrator, a
first person narrator. That's the reason why he has to take part in
all events Kesey wants us to know about. Otherwise there would be no
way we would get this information. This point of view is good, because
we see and feel with Bromden, who is a very important character. But
on the other hand we never know, what the others are thinking, except
Bromden would talk to them. That's why an omniscient narrator, like
the camera represents it in the movie, is very useful, because it can
watch into everybody and shows their feelings.
The novel that Kesey wrote is focused on how Bromden’s past memories should not let him down, but to gather his strength and let go of the past to start anew. Kesey builds up the encouragement through the help on McMurphy in order for Bromden to face reality with the hallucinations, to Nurse Ratched’s authorities, and the use of symbolism.
Kesey through changing the structure of power in a society showed the similarity between the oppressed and the oppressor. This was a demonstration of the corruption of power, and a push back to the era. It symbolized an era of radical thinking of changing the power structure, but he advocated making all equal. In addition it exemplified the communist views of the era and the oppressive regime of those with absolute control. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest advocates the quest for equality in a time where disparity in power was great.
In Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest there are many recurring motifs and images. One very prominent motif is laughter. Following the motif of laughter throughout the novel, it is mostly associated with McMurphy and power/control. McMurphy teaches the patients how to laugh again and with the laughter the combine loses control and the patients gain their power back.
Once McMurphy attacks the nurse and exposes her breasts and thus her sexuality – which she has always tr...
Kunz, Don. Symbolization in Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A Casebook on Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1989.
This essay will be exploring the text One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey and the film Dead poet’s society written by Tom Schulman. The essay will show how the authors use over exaggerated wildcard characters such as McMurphy and Keating. The use of different settings such as an insane asylum and an all-boys institution. And Lastly the use of fore shading to show how the authors can use different texts to present similar ideas in different ways.
Overall, the movie and book have many differences and similarities, some more important than others. The story still is clear without many scenes from the book, but the movie would have more thought in it.
From the start, the movie is adapted from the novel and therefore it could not cover everything, some actions or acts in the novel are too dense such that it is not of any importance to angle them in the movie. It is very realistic to everyone that the movie cannot cover every single paragraph in the novel even the memorable ones. Some materials are left out in the film, and others were changed.
From the moment McMurphy enters the ward it is clear to all that he is different and hard to control. He’s seen as a figure the rest of the patients can look up to and he raises their hopes in taking back power from the big nurse. The other patients identify McMurphy as a leader when he first stands up to the nurse at her group therapy, saying that she has manipulated them all to become “a bunch of chickens at a pecking party”(Kesey 55). He tells the patients that they do not have to listen to Nurse Ratched and he confronts her tactics and motives. The patients see him as a leader at this point, but McMurphy does not see the need for him to be leading alone. McMurphy is a strong willed and opinionated man, so when he arrives at the ward he fails to comprehend why the men live in fear, until Harding explains it to him by
Randle Patrick McMurphy, the main character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, is the perfect example of a hero. He is committed to a mental institution after faking insanity to get out of a work camp. From the beginning of his presence on the ward, things start to change. He brings in laughter, gambling, profanity and he begins to get the other patients to open up. All of this, however, clashes with the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, who is trying to press conformity and obeying authority. It is then a battle between McMurphy and the nurse, McMurphy trying to set the patients free and the nurse trying to make them “normal”.
Fred Wright, Lauren's instructor for EN 132 (Life, Language, Literature), comments, "English 132 is an introduction to English studies, in which students learn about various areas in the discipline from linguistics to the study of popular culture. For the literature and literary criticism section of the course, students read a canonical work of literature and what scholars have said about the work over the years. This year, students read One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, a classic of American literature which dates from the 1960s counterculture. Popularized in a film version starring Jack Nicholson, which the class also watched in order to discuss film studies and adaptation, the novel became notable for its sympathetic portrayal of the mentally ill. For an essay about the novel, students were asked to choose a critical approach (such as feminist, formalist, psychological, and so forth) and interpret the novel using that approach, while also considering how their interpretation fit into the ongoing scholarly dialogue about the work. Lauren chose the challenge of applying a Marxist approach to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not only did she learn about critical approaches and how to apply one to a text, she wrote an excellent essay, which will help other readers understand the text better. In fact, if John Clark Pratt or another editor ever want to update the 1996 Viking Critical Library edition of the novel, then he or she might want to include Lauren's essay in the next edition!"
The author of One Flew over the Cuckoo 's Nest, allows the reader to explore different psychoanalytic issues in literature. The ability to use works literature to learn about real world conflicts allows us to use prior knowledge to interact with these problems in reality. Ken Kesey, the author of the above novel and Carl Jung, author of “The Archetype and the Collective Unconscious” wrote how the mind can be easily overtaken by many outside factors from the past or present. The novel takes place in an asylum that is aimed to contain individuals that have a mental issue or problem. The doctors and care takers are seen as tyrants and barriers that inhibit the patients to improve their health, while the patients are limited by their initial conditions
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, a Novel. New York: Viking, 1962. Print.
Stark contrasts exist between the description of the characters and emotional content between the book and the movie. This may be mainly due to the limited length of the movie. In the movie, Rat Kiley who is telling the story seems gentler. In the book they make it seem like everything Rat says is exaggerated, but the movie does not stress that fact. “Among the men in Alpha Company, Rat had a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement, a compulsion to rev up the facts, and for most of us it was normal procedure to discount sixty or seventy percent of anything he had to say” (O’Brien 89). Also, the movie emphasizes the fact that Rat Kiley fell in love with Mary Anne Bell. He himself says he loved her towards the end of the movie. A character that people may tend to have sympathy for is Mark Fossie. In the book, one may not feel for Fossie. The movie shows the character having more feeling especially after he couldn’t find Mary Anne. A third character that is portrayed differently in the movie than in the book is Mary Anne, who is the main female character of the chapter. The movie stressed the fact that Mary Anne wanted to learn more about the Vietnamese way of life. There was a scene in the movie where Mary Anne spent time with the Vietnamese soldiers learning their language and how to cook their food. They also show her going ...
Goodwin, Susan. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey." 2012. Lone Star College System. 8 April 2014 .