Cuckoo’s Nest
Thomas Huxley states that, “It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts” (Brainy Quote). One may ask what makes us irrational or what makes us lucid? This question is challenged by Ken Kesey the author of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey does his best to separate the impractical from the practical. This prodigious literary work demonstrates how without trouble one can be mistaken or misjudged. The perseverance through the author's work illustrates his true devotion throughout, the novel as he constantly makes the reader question the true meaning of: sanity, sickness, and health. Kesey truly wrote One Flew over the Cuckoo’s
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The author uses power driven symbols to signify today’s society and natural life. Using contrivances and technology, humanity advances its power, destroying independence and one’s likely inclinations. The assistants and nurse are characterized as variegated machine parts that threaten the patients in different ways. In the dream of the chief, after Blastic has been eviscerated it exposes the infirmary as destroying his life and also taking his mortality. Bromden realizes that the hospital treats mankind in an atypical manner by harming their patients both physically and mentally. His growing personality forms as an example of his nearby crazy thoughts. For Bromden, he is an example of usual individualism, but is almost devoured and changed by society’s industrialization. In the beginning, he had complete control of his own “free will” and is trapped by the government. Bromden and the tribe, he once belonged to quickly started to conform to the government "It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking about it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen "(13). The author is explaining that by trying to not to think about harming thoughts it caused the character to fixate on the issue at hand about the problem that he or she may be facing. Randle McMurphy is a character of freedom, life, and joy with an example of the individualism look on sexuality. He is …show more content…
Bromden tries as hard as possible to not be noticed. Throughout the novel he pretends to not comprehend what’s going on around him. Both Bromden’s mind and body are hidden by this fog he pretends to see that he feels will keep him safe and that he uses as a security blanket. He feels that the patients are furtive because the power that these “machines” (nurses) have over him. "Like a ratchet wrench she keeps her patients 'adjusted,' but like a ratchet, a gear in the Combine, she is herself mechanically enmeshed” (120). The nurse powers the patients by her whispers and never has to mean what she says. She is hard on them and lets them know who is in charge and what happens if you get out of line. The patients are influenced by her and to them, she has sick and cruel ethics. After McMurphy breaks the glass in the novel he reminds the patients that even though they can’t see the nurse for who she really is, she still controls them. “I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking about it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” (13). The narrator is saying that he is tired of being pushed around and quiet with the hurtful and emotional
...and they have no choice, but to follow it or else they can be put into the “Combine” as Bromden sees it. Near the end of the novel “she turned and walked into the Nurses’ Station and closed the door behind her”. When the nurse “walked” away, it shows how she no longer cares and Bromden will then start having a sense of feeling that he should do something because she just let Billy kill himself. The moment when Nurse Ratched “close[s] the door” is a sign for Bromden to gather his courage and help everyone to get out of this ward.
Mc Teigue and Kesey use the characters V and McMurphy as recurring symbols to convey the concept that ideas are bulletproof. The character V is both physically and mentally strong, “Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”, the symbolic potential of V is made unquestionably aware to the audience, V is explicitly shown as the vessel of the idea. Similarly, Kesey uses McMurphy’s character as a symbol of the same concept, “that crummy sideshow fake lying there on the Gurney” Bromden is referring to McMurphy’s body, Scanlon calls it “fake” therefore denying the fact that McMurphy has passed. This shows that even though McMurphy is not physically present, his legacy still lives on in the patients’ minds. The idea which he represented of breaking free from the conforms of the corrupt authority at the hospital is stronger than him. Therefore, reinforcing...
People often find themselves as part of a collective, following society's norms and may find oneself in places where feeling constrained by the rules and will act out to be unconstrained, as a result people are branded as nuisances or troublemakers. In the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the author Ken Kesey conveys the attempt McMurphy makes to live unconstrained by the authority of Nurse Ratched. The story is very one sided and helps create an understanding for those troublemakers who are look down on in hopes of shifting ingrained ideals. The Significance of McMurphy's struggles lies in the importance placed on individuality and liberty. If McMurphy had not opposed fear and autocratic authority of Nurse Ratched nothing would have gotten better on the ward the men would still feel fear. and unnerved by a possibility of freedom. “...Then, just as she's rolling along at her biggest and meanest, McMurphy steps out of the latrine ... holding that towel around his hips-stops her dead! ” In the novel McMurphy shows little signs like this to combat thee Nurse. His defiance of her system included
Ken Kesey presents his masterpiece, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with popular culture symbolism of the 1960s. This strategy helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Music and cartoons of the times are often referred to in the novel. These help to exaggerate the characters and the state of the mental institution.
McMurphy’s resistance against Nurse Ratched begins to awaken Bromden’s own ability to resist the grip of the nurse. Bromden slowly starts to see that he is an individual that possesses his own free will; in turn the fog begins to fade. Through Clarisse’s love of nature she begins to open Montag up to a world outside conformity. She see’s that Montag is not like everyone else and that he has the potential to become a free thinking individual. Clarisse is able to force Montag to confront his deeper issues with reality eventually making him realize his own potential.
McMurphy’s dereliction of Nurse Ratched’s rules not only provides entertainment for Bromden and the other patients, but also acts as an impetus for their own rebellion.... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Fassler, Joe. A. "The Endless Depths of Moby-Dick Symbolism."
Sutherland, Janet R. "A Defense of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NEst." English Journal 61.1 (1972): 28-31. JSTOR. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. .
Malin, Irving. “Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Critique 5.2 (1962): 81-84. Rpt. in Kesey 440-444.
...ibbit, as he gives Billy the gift of his first sexual encounter, even as McMurphy realizes it will cost him his chance at freedom. In all these ways, McMurphy shows love for the unique, individual nature of each man. McMurphy honors and loves the sanctity of individual human beings. He talks to the Chief, even though he thinks the Chief is deaf. He is patient with the babyish Martini, even though he cannot grasp the fundamentals of blackjack. He helps Taber catch a fish and teaches Cheswick to drive a boat. He encourages the Chief to grow through playing basketball. Its as if he is the father figure in the ward instead of top dog because every decision he makes is to help the patients in the ward and help better their stay. He doesn’t want the ward to seem like a prison to the patients. Each individual should be able to be themselves no matter what society thinks.
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
When he departs with the other patients on a fishing expedition he begins to “feel better than [he] remembered feeling since [he] was a kid, when everything was good and the land was still singing kids' poetry to [him]” (Kesey 216). On the fishing trip Chief begins to mellow out, laugh a little and act more human and alive than he has for years. Being on the water reconnects him to his roots as he grew up fishing on the Columbia and it brings him back to a time when he was one with nature. After battling the oppression of the combine, Bromden is sentenced to shock therapy and during his final treatment he relies on memories of home to ease the effects of the treatment. This helps him realize that he finally “had them beat” (245). He feels a sense of victory after being able to manage the pain of shock therapy without submitting to a state of non-existence in the form of fog. Instead he cherishes the memories of his childhood and is able to conquer the combine by connecting himself to the uplifting experiences of his past. The novel ends with Bromden realizing that he has a desire to escape the institute and return to his “point of origin that promises greater health and a deeper connection with his environment” (Kaiser). Finally he is looking past the walls of the institute and into a brighter future where he is no longer
There were no heroes on the psychiatric ward until McMurphy's arrival. McMurphy gave the patients courage to stand against a truncated concept of masculinity, such as Nurse Ratched. For example, Harding states, "No ones ever dared to come out and say it before, but there is not a man among us that does not think it. That doesn't feel just as you do about her, and the whole business feels it somewhere down deep in his sacred little soul." McMurphy did not only understand his friends/patients, but understood the enemy who portrayed evil, spite, and hatred. McMurphy is the only one who can stand against the Big Nurse's oppressive supreme power. Chief explains this by stating, "To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as sson as you loose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that." McMuprhy's struggle for hte patient's free will is a disruption to Nurse Ratched's social order. Though she holds down her guard she yet is incapable of controlling what McMurphy is incontrollable of , such as his friends well being, to the order of Nurse Ratched and the Combine.
[9] The hospital ward is likened to that of a democratic community by those in power. [10] Both terms of castration are used in description of the Nurse's desire to emasculate and thus gain power over the men. [11] He has a stutter as a result of his persecution from society. [12] A metaphorical representation of society as a machine, from the narrative voice Bromden.
In Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author refers to the many struggles people individually face in life. Through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, the novel explores the themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity. With these themes, Kesey makes various points which help us understand which situations of repression can lead an individual to insanity. These points include: the effects of sexual repression, woman as castrators, and the pressures we face from society to conform. Through these points, Kesey encourages the reader to consider that people react differently in the face of repression, and makes the reader realize the value of alternative states of perception, rather than simply writing them off as "crazy."
George has a huge phobia of cleanliness and begs the aides not to spray him. McMurphy and Bromden get into a fight with the aides to defend George, and the Nurse Ratched sends them to Disturbed Ward. The pleasent Japanese nurse explains to them that army nurses have a bad habit of running the place like an army hospital. Nurse Ratched informs McMurphy that he can avoid getting electroshock therapy by admitting he was wrong. He refuses and tells her “those Chinese Commies could have learned a few things from you, lady.” McMurphy and Bromden are sent for electroshock treatment, but McMurphy appers unafraid. He climbs onto the table and says aloud if he will get a “crown of thorns.” Bromden, however, is afraid and struggles the entire time. During and after the treatment, Bromden experiences images and memories from his childhood. When he awakes he resists the fog and works to clear his head. For the first time he managed to do after receiving electorshock therapy. He knows that this time he is not subjected to any more treatments. McMurphy, unfortunely, receives three more treatments that week. He shows no pain but Bromden can tell that the treatments are hurting him. Nurse Ratched noticies McMurphy is growing as a figure in the eyes of the other men because he is out of sight, so she brings him back from Disturbed