This novel is a story of self-realization, sacrifice, and the questionable practices of psychiatric hospitals across the United states during the 1960’s. The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey does a brilliant job of seamlessly portraying the controversial practices of psychiatric wards during this period while still focusing on the main ideas of the book. Kesey does an excellent job of going into depth about many characters in this story within the conflict ridden psychiatric hospital run by a controlling, deceitful, and manipulative woman. One of the most important characters in this book is Chief Bromden. Chief is the one telling the story and Kesey does a great job of describing the ward and all of the patients through …show more content…
McMurphy is a loud, opinionated, and extremely strong willed individual. As soon as he arrives at the ward the whole mood of the book changes. McMurphy brought the patients of the ward something that they all desperately needed, hope. He gave them this hope by the way he stood up to the head nurse and brought life into the ward. Another thing McMurphy brought these men on the ward was laughter. Before he arrived the patients hadn’t truly laughed in what seemed like forever. He brings laughter, hope, and he does the improbable and brings Chief out of his “fog”. McMurphy could not have come at a better time because on page 42 Chief said, “One of these days I’ll quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog the way some of the other Chronics have…”. If McMurphy hadn’t come to the ward Chief could have been lost in the fog forever. One patient that looked up to McMurphy more than any other was Chief Bromden. In the text Chief mentioned how McMurphy reminded him of his father with how he acted and how he carried himself. This relationship that they would have would be extremely important throughout the story. McMurphy ends up being the first to talk to Chief and have Chief respond to him. Their relationship grows throughout the book, and comes to a head in the final pages. …show more content…
At first glance she seems like a nice, caring, heartfelt lady; however, after you get past her sweet exterior you see her true manipulative self. Nurse Ratched was the head nurse on the ward. She controlled the ward and everything that happened within it, that was until R.P McMurphy came along. Before McMurphy none of the patients got out of line or questioned any of her tactics. The ward much like Nurse Ratched looked perfect on the outside, like the quintessential psychiatric ward, but when looked at deeper many problems would arise. The Nurse used fear and an iron fist to run her ward more like a prison rather than a mental help facility. If any of the patients stepped out of line she would literally shock them back into their place. Nurse Ratched and McMurphy both had one major thing in common, they always needed to be in charge. They would have many conflicts throughout the book, everything from breaking glass to arguing about taking advantage of the other
In Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, he engages the reader with Nurse Ratched’s obsession with power, especially against McMurphy. When Nurse Ratched faces multiple altercations with McMurphy, she believes that her significant power is in jeopardy. This commences a battle for power in the ward between these characters. One assumes that the Nurses’ meticulous tendency in the ward is for the benefit of the patients. However, this is simply not the case. The manipulative nurse is unfamiliar with losing control of the ward. Moreover, she is rabid when it comes to sharing her power with anyone, especially McMurphy. Nurse Ratched is overly ambitious when it comes to being in charge, leaving the reader with a poor impression of
He would always sneak in wine, gamble with them, and would have them play along on all his jokes. His need for freedom was refreshing to everyone else, that what kept them going. At points when he gave up from being a rebel, other patients gave up. McMurphy wins this war between him and Ratched because he helps other patients continue to be excited and helps them get out of there. McMurphy influences patients to stand up for themselves and not take orders from Ratched. Harding listened to McMurphy and did exactly that. He started to call her out on things and make fun of her, and she couldn't respond. It was clear that Nurse Ratched wasn't the same person and because of what McMurphy did, she couldn't get back in control. Ken Kesey writes, “She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings… she couldn't rule with her old power anymore… She was losing her patients one after the other” ( 320-321). McMurphy has always taught them to follow their own rules and not obey Ratched. In particular, he influenced Chief, a quiet patient that watches his surrounding carefully. After teaching Chief what it's like to follow your own rules, Chief begins to follow McMurphy’s role. After the incident of stripping Ratched’s identity, he learns that McMurphy was a hero to him and although he doesn’t physically help him out, McMurphy has taught Chief how to play this game. Chief tries to be like McMurphy by taking over. DOing so he tries on his cap, trying to be the new McMurphy. Ken Kesey writes, “I reached into McMurphy’s nightstand and got his cap and tried it on. It was too small” (323). Chief realized that no one could take over McMurphy's role, but that Chief would have to be in control over himself to make a statement. Chief does exactly that, he runs for it, making him happier than he has ever
-Character Development- All of the characters experience significant development throughout the story. This starts when McMurphy first enters the hospital and teaches the patients to not be afraid of expressing their feelings. For example, he wanted to watch the world series in the television, but the television hours were at a different time than the world series. He got some patients to vote for the time to be changed by questioning why they were afraid to vote for the change. “You afraid if you raise your hand that the old buzzard'll cut it off”(pg 117). with the aid of McMurphy, chief Bromden goes from withdrawn with flashbacks on his time in the war to actually participating in activities instead of hiding away. “I noticed vaguely that I was getting so’s I could see some good in the life around me. McMurphy was teaching me”(pg 223). Lastly, McMurphy's efforts to rebel against the system and Big Nurse's rules do not go to waste. Chief Bromden runs away from The asylum, and is finally free at the end of the novel (pg 310-311). He was free of the asylum and its' rules. Harding also speaks up to Big Nurse when she tells him that McMurphy will be back after his electroshock treatment. At the beginning of the novel, he wouldn't have dared to say anything to her because he would have been too afraid, but he tells he that he thinks she is “so full of bullshit”(pg 307).
I hated Nurse Ratched before and I sure do now. Her sneaky little schemes to turn the patients on each other make’s me furious. I’m glad McMurphy broke down the window; it’ll remind the patients that her power is limited and changeable. Although, she made McMurphy stronger than ever, even with the countless electroshock treatments. Proving his desire to remain strong in the face of tyranny. “And he'd swell up, aware that every one of those faces on Disturbed had turned toward him and was waiting, and he'd tell the nurse he regretted that he had but one life to give for his country and she could kiss his rosy red ass before he'd give up the goddam ship. Yeh!” (Kesey, 187) I agree to some extent, that without her there wouldn’t be a book, she makes the book exciting even if her methods are all but pure. Her character stands as a symbol of the oppression woman received during that time and in a way, the society in which these characters live are flipped. While on the outside woman have no rights, in the ward they are the all mighty, all knowing, powerful, controllable force. So yah, we need Nurse Ratched but I still hate her. During the course of the short novel she destroyed three men, two of which died and the other was lobotomised. “What worries me, Billy," she said - I could hear the change in her voice - "is how your mother is going to take this.” (Kesey, 231) I can’t say I enjoyed Nurse Ratched being strangled by McMurphy, but I do think she deserved it. Although, it was the end to the battle since the Nurse had won the war. By infuriating McMurphy to that point and her ability to remain calm throughout it all, she proved that McMurphy’s action didn’t faze her. She proved that rebelling is feeblish and by lobot...
In the book as McMurphy progresses, he goes through many stages where he is rebellious, then docile, then rebellious again. This is due to the fact that he learns exactly what it means to be committed and what it takes to be released. Then he begins to see that all his ward mates (I don't know what you want to call them) are counting on him. becomes rebellious again. These reactions to his environments encourage McMurphy is not crazy but intelligent and quick. This is exactly the case. way a character such as McMurphy should act. In the movie, McMurphy is not only wild but rude. He tried to never be outright rude in the book. aggravating for the nurse) yet in the movie he was. He never stopped being. wild in the movie, leading you to believe that maybe in fact he is crazy.
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
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
Nurse Ratched uses her voice throughout the novel to intimidate the patients. She is the antagonist of the novel. The patients obsequiously follow Ratched’s command, until McMurphy comes along. They all fear that she will send them for shock therapy if they don’t obey her. Nurse Ratched is the most daunting persona of the novel, due in large part to the use of her voice.
After the introduction by the Chief, the story proceeds to a normal morning at the ward. The patients are sitting in the Day Room after their morning pills. Then a new patient, Randall McMurphy, checks in. McMurphy was a big redheaded man who loved to gamble and got transferred to the ward from a work farm. From the beginning, McMurphy had been hard to control. He refused any of the traditional check in routines that any new patient needed to follow including taking his admission shower. The Black Boys, the orderlies of the ward, went to get Nurse Ratched in attempt to put McMurphy in line.
In the control panel scene, McMurphy bets with the other men that he can lift the control panel even though it is too heavy for him. He is teaching Chief and the other inmates that even if you think you can't do something, you have to try. If you try and you fail that will be okay, but if you never try, you don't know what you can do. The other men and Chief have never tried to rebel against Nurse Ratched and the institution. They have watched others fail so they are afraid to try; but they are different. If they try, they might be able to defeat Nurse Ratched. They do not know about their own abilities. They lack the self-confidence and courage to do it for themselves. So McMurphy shows them how to try. "But I tried, though,' he says. Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?"(111)
Even though McMurphy's own sacrifice of life is the price of his victory, he still attempts to push the ward patients to hold thier own personal opinions and fight for what is ethically right. For instinace, McMurphy states, "But I tried though,' he says. 'Goddammit, I sure as hell id that much, now didn't I?" McMurphy strains to bring the 'fellas' courage and determination in a place full of inadequacy and "perfection." McMurphy obtains a lot of courage in maintaining his own sort of personal integrity, and trying to keep the guys' intergrity and optimistic hope up.
Ken Kesey in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest question a lot of things that you think almost everyday. With this famous portrait of a mental institute its rebellious patients and domineering caretakers counter-culture icon Kesey is doing a whole lot more than just spinning a great yarn. He is asking us to stop and consider how what we call "normal" is forced upon each and every one of us. Stepping out of line, going against the grain, swimming upstream whatever your metaphor, there is a steep price to pay for that kind of behavior. The novel tells McMurphys tale, along with the tales of other inmates who suffer under the yoke of the authoritarian Nurse Ratched it is the story of any person who has felt suffocated and confined by our
Initially the ward is run as if it was a prison ward, but from the moment the brawling, gambling McMurphy sets foot on the ward it is identified that he is going to cause havoc and provide change for the patients. McMurphy becomes a leader, a Christ like figure and the other patients are his disciples. The person who is objective to listen to his teachings at first is Chief Bromden (often called Bromden), but then he realizes that he is there to save them and joins McMurphy and the Acutes (meaning that they have possibility for rehabilitation and release) in the protest against Nurse Ratched, a bureaucratic woman who is the protagonist of the story, and the `Combine' (or society).
She controlled every movement and every person’s actions and thoughts. She made the doctors so miserable when they did not follow her instructions, that they begged to be transferred out if. “I'm disappointed in you. Even if one hadn't read his history all one should need to do is pay attention to his behavior on the ward to realize how absurd the suggestion is. This man is not only very very sick, but I believe he is definitely a Potential Assaultive” (). This quote from the book illustrated how Nurse Ratched controlled her ward. She manipulated people into siding with her regardless of whether it was the right decision. This was malpractice by Nurse Ratched because she did not allow the doctor, who was trained to diagnose patients, to do his job properly. Instead, she manipulated the doctor to diagnose the patients incorrectly in order to benefit her interests rather than those of the
Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a story about a band of patients in a mental ward who struggle to find their identity and get away from the wretched Nurse. As audiences read about the tale, many common events and items seen throughout the story actually represent symbols for the bigger themes of the story. Symbols like the fishing trip, Nurse, and electroshock therapy all emphasize the bigger themes of the story. The biggest theme of the story is oppression. Throughout the course of the story, patients are suppressed and fight to find who they really are.