In a book written by Jonathan Harnisch, he says, “I have schizophrenia. I am not schizophrenia. I am not my mental illness. My illness is a part of me.” Unfortunately, not everybody has the same idea. In the Soviet Union, citizens were often put inside mental hospitals for having unpopular views or for having a disability. () In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the book displays () Whenever someone says something or acts in a way that is generally seen as unusual or unpopular, society will deem them unfit and insane and call for them to be locked up in a place where their voices can’t be heard. Nurse Ratched seems to have that mindset, as Chief Bromden focused on how she got her power. On page 29, he states, “…A place where the …show more content…
As such, he knows everybody in the ward and learns their secrets by pretending to be dumb and deaf. Whenever he is on his medication or gets fearful, fog spills out into the hospital. In the following passage, the author focuses on the topic of the said fog that could be interpreted as several different things, “There’s long spells – three days, years – when you can’t see a thing, know where you are only by the speaker sounding overhead…Even McMurphy doesn’t seem to know he’s been fogged in. If he does, he makes sure not to let on that he’s bothered by it.” (117). Whenever the fog shows up, Chief Bromden notes how most, if not all, of the other patients don’t notice it. While the fog is not often addressed, it seems to represent how clouded they are to the outside world. To them, the mental hospital was their world. Over the course of the book, the fog gets progressively thinner and thinner. Eventually, with McMurphy’s influence on him, he manages to get out of the fog completely. This is noted on page 287 and 288, where he says, “It’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No…never again…I couldn’t remember all of it yet, but I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and tried to clear my head. I worked at it. I’d never worked at coming out of it before...I saw an aide coming up the hall with a tray for me and knew this time I had them
In the beginning of the novel, Kesey indicates that “it’s not so thick but what [he] can see if [he] strains real hard” (Kesey 42). The denotation of “strain” points out to the word “force” and in this case Kesey portrays how Bromden is the way he is being quiet because of how the Americans treated him and his father. The word “thick” refers to a bulky or heavy object, in this case the bulky object refers to the combine. The Combine is an imaginary figure of a hospital filled with people like Bromden and he thinks that people like him need to go into the Combine in order to come out fixed. Kesey makes it so Bromden can only “see” and hear, which lets Bromden to hallucinate because through his eyes he sees the fog; the fog shows how he has seen people get lobotomized and it ruins his thinking.
I chose the subject about “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” written by Ken Kesey in 1962 for my research paper because my mother told me years ago of the accompanying film and how interesting it is. Two years ago a friend of mine came back from his exchange programme in the United States of America. He told me that he and his theatre group there had performed this novel. He was and still is very enthusiastic about the theme and about the way it is written. Although I started reading the novel, I didn’t manage to finish it till the day we had to choose our subjects at school. When I saw this subject on the list, which we were given by our English teacher Mr Schäfer, I was interested immediately. So I chose it.
When they first come to the Island Philip is dependent of timothy and doesn’t want to work because he is blind stated by him in the novel. ”I just wanted to sit and think. I didn’t want to work. I said timothy I can’t work I’m blind”. Page 70 in the novel. Then when Timothy almost died of malaria so Timothy trained him to to rely on himself. Phillip starts being independent of Timothy when he carves a crane for philip so he can move around the island and also attaches vines to each side of the island so philip can walk back and forth from the hut.In chapter eleven is when philip says ” Timothy fashioned a cane for me and I was now using it to feel my way around the island ”.” I was starting to be less dependent on the vine ”. While still dependent on timothy he started to be less being able to walk without him and the vines. To test if Philip was now independent of Timothy he had to climb a tree blind. When he first went up to it he had stop and
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.
In 1962, when One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the Nest), was published, America was at the start of decade that would be characterized by turmoil. Involvement in Vietnam was increasing, civil rights marches were taking place in the south and a new era of sexual promiscuity and drug use was about to come into full swing. Young Americans formed a subgroup in American society that historians termed the “counterculture”. The Nest is a product of time when it was written. It is anti-authoritarian and tells the tale of a man's rebelling against the establishment. Kesey used metaphor to make a social commentary on the America of the sixties. In this paper I will deal with three issues that seem to strike out from the novel. First; is the choice that Kesey made in his decision to write the novel using first person narration. The second part of this paper will be an analysis of some of the metaphors and Kesey uses to describe America in the sixties. Finally I will speak about the some of the religious images that Kesey has put in the novel.
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.
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.
“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Winnie the Pooh once said. In the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the men that live in the Oregon Mental Institution do not hear words like these very often. They have been rejected from society because they are not classified to meet the “social norm”. These “outcast” hide away behind the white walls of the ward, protecting themselves from the world around them. In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, author Ken Kesey uses religious allusions to depict that society rejects people that do not fit the ideal social “norm”, but when someone can prove himself powerful enough to stand up for his beliefs men easily follow.
Everybody wants to be accepted, yet society is not so forgiving. It bends you and changes you until you are like everyone else. Society depends on conformity and it forces it upon people. In Emerson's Self Reliance, he says "Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater." People are willing to sacrifice their own hopes and freedoms just to get the bread to survive. Although the society that we are living in is different than the one the Emerson's essay, the idea of fitting in still exists today. Although society and our minds make us think a certain way, we should always trust our better judgment instead of just conforming to society.
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!"
In the novel, Kesey suggests that a healthy expression of sexuality is a key component of sanity and that repression of sexuality leads directly to insanity. For example; by treating him like an infant and not allowing him to develop sexually, Billy Bibbet's mother causes him to lose his sanity. Missing from the halls of the mental hospital are healthy, natural expression of sexuality between two people. Perverted sexual expressions are said to take place in the ward; for example; Bromden describes the aides as "black boys in white suites committing sex acts in the hall" (p.9). The aides engage in illicit "sex acts" that nobody witnesses, and on several occasions it is suggested that they rape the patients, such as Taber. Nurse Ratched implicitly permits this to happen, symbolized by the jar of Vaseline she leaves the aides. This shows how she condones the sexual violation of the patients, because she gains control from their oppression. McMurphy's sanity is symbolized by his bold and open insertion of sexuality which gives him great confidence and individuality. This stands in contrast to what Kesey implies, ironically and tragically, represents the institution.
Unable to see McMurphy imprisoned in a body that will go on living (under Nurse Ratched’s control) even though his spirit is gone, Chief smothers him to death that night. Then he escapes the hospital and leaves for Canada and a new life. We begin to see the different situations in which the patients struggle to overcome. Whether insane or not, the hospital is undeniably in control of the fates of its
“There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life 's point of no return.” - Dag Hammarskjold
The story provides two dramatically polar-opposite symbols of power: McMurphy and Ratched (and her fog machine). McMurphy displays and utilizes his power through leadership and inspiration to the patients. McMurphy leads the crew of patients on a fishing trip, which leads to relevations for all of them. By the end of the trip, the patients are described “They could sense the change that most of us were only suspecting; these weren’t the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse that they’d watched take their insults on the dock this morning” (196). This novel is based on the idea of power, and the idea of it is shown in every single chapter. However, to make the idea of power more dynamic, McMurphy was introduced by the author to display a certain type of power; power that is good and inspires others. By bringing in McMurphy, readers can see how truly changing the concept of power can be, but also show that power does not have to be evil and bad. McMurphy’s influence of the patients on the fishing trip shows that good power even has the capabilities of changing the lives of people. On the other hand, Nurse Ratched is also a symbol of power, but the power instilled by Nurse Ratched is very menacing and dark. An example of her power is when she “turns on the fog machine”. Nurse and her assistants are shown instilling their power like during moments “They’re at the fog machine again but they haven’t
This above all; to thine own self be true. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey’s symbols and irony reveals Chief Bromden’s development throughout the story. McMurphy tries to make conversation with Chief to help him go back to being the big strong man he once was. Although Chief is big and strong, he believes that he is weak; bullied most of the time because he is quiet and intimidated. McMurphy and Chief make a type of friendship that helps Chief be the strong man that he really is.