“I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed/Get along with the voices inside of my head.” are lyrics to Billboard’s number two on the The Hot 100 list, Monster, which shows how much of an issue defining sanity vs insanity is (SongLyrics, Billboard). The line between the two is unclear, as pointed out in this song, sung by Eminem and Rihanna presumed to be sane but show signs of a mental disorder with the internal voices. This song is fictitious, but it relates to the real issue if determining sanity and insanity. Insanity is defined as severe mental illness, as shown through Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the nurse in charge of making the patients sane may be insane herself (Merriam-Webster, Insanity). The patients may show the most signs of being normal even with diagnosed disorders. In many situations in the novel the line is blurred as to who is insane and who should really be institutionalized. Nurse Ratched runs the ward and should be the most sane one, but she herself may be the most insane out of all the patients. McMurphy has his clothes stolen during the night and when the Nurse sees him draped in only a towel she is furious. She threats the black boy who did not get McMurphy ward clothes that she can make him "spend the next two weeks on the Geriatrics Ward" but she immediately turns to talk to patients "smiling, sweet as sugar" (Kesey 98, 100). She can be described as having schizophrenia "a chronic condition, requiring lifelong treatment", which can be characterized by disorganized behaviors like her ability be incredibly agitated at a staff member and be sweet to patients right after (Mayo Clinic Staff, Schizophrenia). It can also include lack of emotion as shown by her inability t... ... middle of paper ... ...novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, because everyone a reader presumes to be sane based on position in society turns out in the end of the novel to be the most insane. There is no good way of looking at someone to determine sanity level, it is a long process of looking at behaviors and deciding if those behaviors are serious enough to constitute a mental illness and the possibility of institutionalization. Nurse Ratched should be the most sane since she runs the ward but she shows symptoms of Schizophrenia and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, deeming her insane and unfit to run a mental ward. McMurphy is a patient in the ward, but he should be running it because all the claims that s he staff have made about his sanity can be disproved with his actions. The line of sane and insane is blurry, what criteria can really be used to determine who is insane?
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
In the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the characters are in a mental hospital for various reasons. Narrated by Chief Bromden, a large Native American man, the story tells mainly of a newcomer to the hospital, Randle McMurphy, who is not actually mentally ill, but pretends to be to escape work detail. A much-feared middle-aged woman named Mildred Ratched runs the hospital. She runs the hospital like a concentration camp, with harsh rules, little change, and almost no medical oversight. The “prisoners” have a large amount of fear of Nurse Ratched, as she rules the place like she is a soulless dictator, the patients get no say in any decision made. This is exemplified when McMurphy brings up the World Series, and the patients take a vote on it. Though everyone wants to watch it, they have so much fear for Nurse Ratched that they are too afraid to speak out against her wishes.
During the first therapy meeting that McMurphy attends, Nurse Ratched begins by examining Harding's difficulties with his wife. McMurphy tells that he was arrested for statutory rape, although he thought that the girl was of legal age, and Dr. Spivey, the main doctor for the ward, questions whether McMurphy is feigning insanity to get out of doing hard labor at the work farm. After the meeting, McMurphy confronts Harding on the way that the meetings are run. He compares it to a 'pecking-party' in which each of the patients turn on each other. Harding pretends to defend Nurse Ratched, but then admits that all of the patients and even Dr. Spivey are afraid of Nurse Ratched. He tells McMurphy that the patients are rabbits who cannot adjust to their rabbithood and need Nurse Ratched to show them their place. McMurphy then bets him that he can get Nurse Ratched to crack within a week.
A mentally insane person, according to psychologytoday.com, is defined as “a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality… or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive
Rules rule. Without things like stoplights and driving etiquette, we’d be one disaster-prone society. When we are in kindergarten, we learn how to color inside the lines and paint by the numbers, because we might be told that pretty pictures are those that are neat and tidy. We have terms like “good” and “sane” and “insane” because these words help us keep our lives organized and mess-free. No need to debate it or get into messy arguments. But One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest challenges all of that. It makes us look at who makes the rules. Now we want to know: who defines what behavior is "sane" or "insane"? McMurphy helps us realize just how arbitrary "sanity" can be, especially when the poster child of sanity happens to be the one and only Nurse Ratched. So just what does it mean to be "sane" or
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) The character McMurphy as played by Jack Nicholson, McMurphy’s is a criminal who is troubled and keeps being defiant. Instead of pleading guilty, McMurphy pleads insanity and then lands inside a mental hospital. Murphy reasons that being imprisoned within the hospital will be just as bad as being locked up in prison until he starts enjoying being within by messing around with other staff and patients. In the staff, McMurphy continuously irritates Nurse Ratched. You can see how it builds up to a control problem between the inmates and staff. Nurse Ratched is seen as the “institution” and it is McMurphy’s whole goal to rebel against that institution that she makes herself out to be.The other inmates view McMurphy like he is god. He gives the inmates reason to
“I’m dead, serious about those other wards; M.P.’s won’t protect you, because they’re craziest of all. I’d go with you myself, but I’m scared stiff. Insanity is contagious. This is the only sane ward in the whole hospital. Everybody is crazy but us. This is probably the only sane ward in the whole world for that matter”(Heller 8).
In the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the audience is shown the character of Mc Murphy who brought out the conflict of authority, obedience, and disobedience. The film introduces Nurse Ratched as head of the ward and the main authority figure. What this essay will focus on is if Nurse Ratched really ever is negligent? She is simply just doing her job. Would Mcmurphy be considered to be the so-called “evil” character in the film? When he arrives he causes so much chaos between the patients and the nurses. Would the audience agree Mcmurphy is even responsible for a patient's death within the ward?
The main character, Randle Patrick McMurphy, is brought to a state mental institution from a state prison to be studied to see if he has a mental illness. McMurphy has a history of serving time in prison for assault, and seems to take no responsibility for his actions. McMurphy is very outgoing, loud, rugged, a leader, and a rebel. McMurphy also seems to get pleasure out of fighting the system. McMurphy relishes in challenging the authority of Nurse Ratchett who seems to have a strong hold over the other patients in the ward. He enters into a power struggle with Nurse Ratchett when he finds out that he cannot leave the hospital until the staff, which primarily means her, considers him cured.
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.
Some people are what you may call "normal", some are depressed, some are mentally ill, and some are just plain old crazy. In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey, the author shows how people can act so differently and have different ways of dealing with their problems. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden who is thought to be deaf and dumb. He tells of a man by the name of R. P. McMurphy, who was a con man, and was convicted of statutory rape. He told the officials that, "she was 18 and very willing if you know what I mean."( ) He was sent to a work farm, where he would spend some time, working off his crime. Since he was so lazy, he faked being insane and was transferred to a mental ward, somewhere near Portland, Oregon. On his arrival he finds some of the other members of the asylum to be almost "normal" and so he tries to make changes to the ward; even though the changes he is trying to make are all at his own expense. As time goes on he gets some of the other inmates to realize that they aren't so crazy and this gets under the skin of the head nurse. Nurse Ratched (the head nurse) and McMurphy have battle upon battle against each other to show who is the stronger of the two. He does many things to get the other guys to leave the ward. First he sets up a fishing trip for some of them, then sets up a basketball team, along with many smaller problems and distractions. Finally Nurse Ratched gives him all he can handle and he attacks her.
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
Insanity seems to be the question in the courtroom today. What defines if a person is mentally stable or if he is sick? The government and court system has been trying to find the definite line, but there are still varying beliefs for and against whether people should be allowed to plead insanity. The definition of insanity is, “the state of being mentally ill; madness” (Oxford Dictionary). The definition of mentally ill is “psychiatric disorder that results in a disruption in a person’s thinking, feeling, moods, and ability to relate to others” (worldiQ.com). That being said, ponder these two situations.
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.
When someone commits a crime, he or she may use mental illness as a defense. This is called an insanity plea or insanity defense. What the insanity defense does is try to give the alleged perpetrator a fair trial. At least in extreme cases, society agrees with this principle. The problem is where do we draw the line. Under what circumstances is a person considered insane, and when are they not? The trouble with the insanity defense in recent years is the assumption that virtually all criminals have some sort of mental problem. One important point is that the crime itself, no matter how appalling, does not demonstrate insanity. Today, the insanity defense has become a major issue within the legal system. If the defendant is clearly out of touch with reality, the police and district attorney ordinarily agree to bypass the trial and let the defendant enter a mental hospital.