One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest written by Ken Kesey in 1962. This novel is based on the experience Ken Kesey had during his time working in a mental institution as an orderly. Ken Kesey’s novel is a powerful critique of early 1960’s American society. The three main techniques that Kesey uses to create the Tragic form. In this novel Kesey has used the three main technique to create an inevitable conflict and outcomes that is similar to tragedy. The three main literary techniques that Ken Kesey uses are narrative structure, foreshadowing and symbolism. In this essay I will explore how Kesey uses these three techniques to form the Tragic form and shows how McMurphy gets lobotomized in the end but still wins the war against the Big Nurse.
The most notable technique that Ken Kesey uses in ‘One Flew Over The Cockoo’s Nest’ to create a Tragic form is narrative structure. Ken Kesey has used narrative structure very wisely in this novel. Instead of having chapters in the novel =, Ken Kesey has divided the novel into four parts, which foreshadows the tragedy which will happen in the novel. The narrative structure in this novel establishes the fatal flaw and conflict between McMurphy and the Big Nurse. Kesey has used narrative structure to show in part one it introduces the conflict between McMurphy and the Big Nurse, It even shows how McMurphy at the end of part one brings all the patient out from the fog and where Bromden chooses the pain of reality and sanity over the safety of his delusions. “McMurphy’s got hidden wires hooked to it, lifting it slow just to get me out of the fog and in the open where I’m far gone. He’s wires…. No. That’s not the truth. I lifted myself.” Pg. 123 This quote tells the reader that the patients are rising up...
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...h the Nurse and her force, the Chief had that energy to fight against the Nurse and whereas McMurphy was exhausted and didn’t had the energy to fight back, as the novel continued McMurphy was getting weaker.
In this novel Kesey has used narrative structure, foreshadowing and symbolism to create the tragic form and to show he downfall of McMurphy throughout the novel. As the down fall of McMurphy progresses throughout the novel his ideas got stronger and at the end of the novel his death reinforced his ideas even more, defeating the Big Nurse due to patients signing out form the ward for freedom. Her control over the ward was shattered when the Chief used the control panel to escape from the ward. The electroshock therapy table was one of the major reason of McMurphy not able to escape the ward.
Works Cited
Kesey, K., 1962. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Signet
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
Contrast. Tone. Metaphors. These literary elements are all used in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s in relation to a larger theme in the novel – confidence. In the book, a man named McMurphy is put into a mental ward run by Nurse Ratched, who has complete power and control over the men. They all fear her and submit to her due to fear, suppressing their confidence and manhood. When McMurphy came, he was like a spark that ignites a roaring fire in the men; they gain back the confidence that they lost and become free. In one passage, McMurphy takes the men on a fishing trip where he helps them stray away from the Nurse’s power and learn to believe in themselves. Throughout the passage, the use of contrast, positive tone, and metaphors of
Kesey, Ken. One flew over the cuckoo's nest, a novel. New York: Viking Press, 1962. Print.
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the struggle for power is conveyed in the passage using visual imagery, parallelism, and conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched.
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.
The dominant discourse of conformity in the novel is characterised predominantly by obeying the rules described by Kesey. At the start of the novel, all the acute and the silenced chronic patients conform to the rules of Nurse Ratched, the main antagonist, before the arrival of McMurphy. This is demonstrated by the following quote: “…she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor...” (p.5). McMurphy is portrayed as a Jesus figure in the novel. After he arrives, he begins to take control of the patients. He begins to take the role of leader. Kesey has foregrounded the character of McMurphy to be different thus creating a binary opposite that is represented in the novel. Kesey shows the binary opposites as being good versus evil. The former is represented by the con-man, McMurphy, and the latter is represented by the Head Nurs...
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
Violence and death surrounds everyone, from movies to books to news. These subjects are particularly prevalent in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Kesey's main goal for writing the novel was to show his readers the atrocities within mental health wards. However, he managed to have a greater impact in young adults' lives than ever imagined. Although there are instances of death and violence in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it should be included in high school curriculum because exposure to these topics helps teenagers to properly deal with similar situations in their own lives.
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.
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.
The novel that Kesey wrote is focused on how Bromden’s past memories should not let him down, but to gather his strength and let go of the past to start anew. Kesey builds up the encouragement through the help on McMurphy in order for Bromden to face reality with the hallucinations, to Nurse Ratched’s authorities, and the use of symbolism.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” The father of transcendentalism, Emerson believed that people who resist change to be what is most natural, themselves, are the true heroes of the world. Ken Kesey, another popular writer, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a similar spirit. His novel takes place on the ward of a controlling army nurse at an Oregon mental institution in the late 1950s. The storyline mainly follows the interactions between Nurse Ratched, a manipulating representation of society, and Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient, gambler, and renegade. Kesey echoes the transcendentalists and romantics in his work by
Ken Kesey incorporates figurative language into his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, to illustrate the struggle to overcome the comfort of inaction, that ultimately results in the great benefit of standing up for one’s self. When McMurphy decides to stand up to Nurse Ratched, there is “no fog” (130). Kesey’s metaphor of the fog represents the haze of inaction that hovers over the patients of the ward. With the oppressive Nurse Ratched in charge, the patients are not able to stand up for themselves and are forced to be “sly” to avoid her vicious punishments (166). When the patients avoid confrontation with the Nurse, they are guaranteed safety by hiding in the fog, complaisant with their standing. The fog obscures the patient’s view of the ward and the farther they slip into it, the farther away they drift from reality.
one flew over the cuckoo's nest written by Ken kesey is a literary work that has reached out to many in both the past and within contemporary society. Ken Kesey reveals how a repressed population will strive to bring back the power balance in the biased social ladder within society, more specifically within a mental institution. Ken Kesey ensured credibility by sharing his experiences as an employee in a mental institution. He also received the same treatments that many in a mental institution had to suffer such as electroshock therapy and taking psychological medication, allowing him to feel and reiterate how the characters truly feel. I think this made this story credible, allowing the reader to relate to its characters and making it difficult
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."