Through McMurphy’s attempt to lift the control panel in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey, the author, demonstrates the importance of perseverance and trying even when there is no chance of success to inspire the other patients in the ward to take risks. During his attempt to lift the control panel, McMurphy realizes that the control panel is too heavy for him to lift, but he continues to give it all his effort even though he knows he will fail. Even though McMurphy knows he will not achieve his goal, he still tries because he is brave enough to. He understands that he will not be able to achieve anything unless he takes a chance to achieve the impossible. In the novel, the entire ward wants changes to be instilled in the hospital, but the ward is too afraid to try. …show more content…
Due to Nurse Ratched’s complete dominance and perfunctory routine, the patients exhibit inhumane behaviors and act like animals who get “sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it... till they rip the chicken to shreds’ (Kesey 57). However, McMurphy’s decision attempt to lift the control panel gives the other patients in the ward the courage to attempt the impossible. In the novel, McMurphy wants other patients to participate in a vote that will allow them access to the tv to watch the World Series. When he demands a revote from Nurse Ratched, the McMurphy is able to help the patients stand up for themselves by going “into the fog... dragging them blinking into the open” (Kesey 140). By trying to lift the control panel even when he knows he cannot, McMurphy inspires the other patients in the ward to take risks. He is also able to connect the patients back to their humanity and courage, which allows them to recognize that they deserve proper treatment in order to get better. McMurphy shows the patients that they have the power to fight and make their own
The author Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and went to Stanford University. He volunteered to be used for an experiment in the hospital because he would get paid. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey brings up the past memories to show how Bromden is trying to be more confident by using those thoughts to make him be himself. He uses Bromden’s hallucinations, Nurse Ratched’s authority, and symbolism to reveal how he’s weak, but he builds up more courage after each memory.
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.
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.
Control in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Ken Kesey?s masterpiece novel One Flew over the Cuckoo?s Nest uses many themes, symbols, and imagery to illustrate the reality of the lives of a group of mental patients. The element of control is a central, arguably the largest, and the most important theme in the novel. The element of control revolves around the two main characters of the novel, Randle P. McMurphy, and Nurse Ratched. These two characters are the exact antithesis of each other, and they both seek to get their own way.
The ability to manipulate others and situations using power is a trait many do not possess. The battle over obtaining power can lead to conflict, as it did in Ken Kesey's novel: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Ken Kesey develops this statement by introducing McMurphy, a
The theme of this story “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” according to Daniel Woods is “Power is the predominant theme of Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest': who holds power, who doesn't, who wants it, who loses it, how it is used to intimidate and manipulate and for what purposes, and, most especially, how it is disrupted and subverted, challenged, denied and assumed” (http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/cuckoosnest/essays/essay1.html). No, it is not McMurphy who flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, or Harding, or Taber. It wasn’t Martini or Cheswick, or Bibbit, Chief Bromden or Bancini. The journey of crazies that flew over the Cuckoo’s nest was in the asylum, but they were not patients. The mad people in this scenario were paid to be mad. Nurse Ratched, Dr. John Spivey and other staff, like Washington, were salaried each day to come into the asylum and impose dreadful doses of mental (and sometimes physical) hurt on the so-called "nuts" whose lives consisted of white hallways and white floors. McMurphy lost his life because he saw the reality in the asylum, the Cuckoo’s nest. He lost his life because he had not yet been in long enough to grow resistant to the brutal treatment that he received. He lost his life because he figured out who the real nuts were and, unlike the other inmates, McMurphy still knew enough of fairness to comprehend and want to remove the dreadful unfairness being done to the powerless patients inside the asylum.
Reading Log for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” The novel is written from the perspective of a mental patient, Big Chief Bromden, who observes and comments about the daily activities of the hospital where he is a chronic patient. Through his interpretations, the reader experiences his surroundings and experiences. One of the key elements that he conveys early on is that he is pretending to be deaf and is able to hear everything spoken around him.
In this, individual’s regain self-confidence, and in turn inspires others to pursue the same. With Mcmurphy’s unwavering confidence and belief, the impossible seemed achievable, and gave hope to the other patients. Consequently, this phenomena inspired the rest of the patients to band together, and act out against injustice- regardless of the discomfort this imposed upon them. In doing all, an individual is able to evoke self confidence and overcome personal obstacles, just as Chief did. As the novel highlights, life will not always be lawful. Despite the convenience of conformity, individuals must muster up the courage to face the unjust, in order to restore any sense of self-esteem and save the vulnerable. Many humans are frail and cowardly, but with the guidance of a committed leader, even the most grim obstacles can be
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!"
One of the main themes discussed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kasey was freedom. Even though the characters in the novel are in a mental institution, they still want to have rights and a feeling of independence for themselves which they are not getting. When patients receive electroshock therapy or are sent off to seclusion for misbehaving and not following the rules, they feel as if they are not being treated fairly. One example would be how the Chief is treated when he is being shaven, “I don't fight or make any noise. If you yell it's just tougher on you. I hold back the yelling. I hold back till they get to my temples. I'm not sure it's one of those substitute machines and not a shaver till it gets to my temples; then I can't hold back. It's not a will-power thing any more when they get to my temples […] My sound soaks up all other sound” (7). The chief feels as if he has no control over the situation and is forced to hold back his emotions in order to please those around him which shows how freedom was being taken away from the patients.
He continued to show the patients that the nurses were not in power in fact had little power over him. Inspired patients occurred once again he had inspired them with is lack of surrender to the wards system. With this situation in play this brought up McMurphy picking the needs of patients to motivate his own plan of
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)
McMurphy is an individual who is challenging and rebelling against the system's rules and practices. He eventually teaches this practice of rebellion to the other patients who begin to realize that their lives are being controlled unfairly by the mental institution. When McMurphy first arrives at the institution, all of the other patients are afraid to express their thoughts to the Big Nurse. They are afraid to exercise their thoughts freely, and they believe that the Big Nurse will punish them if they question her authority. One patient, Harding, says, "All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees...We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place" (Kesey 62).