In escaping a work farm, a man commits himself to a mental institution and saves the sanity of many men while he himself is on the road to certain death. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and the movie by the same name explores the darkness and humour waging war in the human mind and the difference between insanity and indolence. Both the novel and the film consists of a boisterous main character that changes the dynamics of a mental institution run by a psychotic, dictator like nurse with the assistance of a quiet Indian that is far underestimated. The way all these characters fit together however varies greatly from book to movie. The humour and darkness fits its way into every character in very distinct ways.
In the book McMurphy is generally more human, he feels the responsibility of the men relying on him very deeply after the incidence of Cheswick’s suicide in the pool, he realizes that with the sanity he is bringing them there are also consequences and it scares him, he feels everything deeply like everyone else but he tries very hard to keep his reputation in the ward up and to keep everyone hopeful. In the movie Cheswick’s suicide is decidedly absent, he is there for the entire story, this creates the lack of McMurphy realizing there are consequences for others and spiral into McMurphy only realizing that Nurse Ratched has the ability to keep him there for as long as she wants, causing him to be a less caring and more selfish character.
The movie softens up McMurphy’s behavior and creates him to be a fun loving goof ball who only cares about himself, this is clear in the fishing trip scene when he escapes the outdoor yard with the assistance of Chief Bromden, steals the bus and take the men out where they stea...
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...n both characters, the ending scene is much less dramatic and shocking because Chief is mature and sane enough to handle the fact that McMurphy isn’t truly McMurphy anymore. He didn’t say anything to McMurphy because he realized that it wasn’t him anymore, he did what he knew McMurphy would want and would do for Bromden if he had needed it.
The story One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is not simply about the opposition between Big Nurse and Randle McMurphy, it is the humour and darkness that is present within each character and each interaction, it is the yin and yang of the story, the sweet and the salty. It is what makes it such a powerful and famous story; it makes McMurphy loveable and irritating and Bromden inspiring and mysterious. Without one the other would be over powering, McMurphy is humour and Chief Bromden is darkness, and together they balance the story.
Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, is a novel containing the theme of emotions being played with in order to confine and change people. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is about a mental institution where a Nurse named Miss Ratched has total control over its patients. She uses her knowledge of the patients to strike fear in their minds. Chief Bromden a chronic who suffers from schizophrenia and pretends to be deaf and mute narrates the novel. From his perspective we see the rise and fall of a newly admitted patient, RP McMurphy. McMurphy used his knowledge and courage to bring changes in the ward. During his time period in the ward he sought to end the reign of the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched, also to bring the patients back on their feet. McMurphy issue with the ward and the patients on the ward can be better understood when you look at this novel through a psychoanalytic lens. By applying Daniel Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence to McMurphy’s views, it is can be seen that his ideas can bring change in the patients and they can use their
Bromden, the narrator, always vies himself as small, even though he’s actually a large person. To him, McMurphy is big, which he says metaphorically. In the passage, McMurphy makes the patients big: “It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger. I watched, part of them, laughing with them- and somehow not with them. I was off the boat, blown up off the water and skating the wind with those black birds, high above myself…” (Kesey 249-250). People who are small are weak and powerless, like Bromden and the patient’s, scared and willing to submit to power. Meanwhile, people who are big, like McMurphy, are confident and not afraid. McMurphy made the men “bigger”, more powerful, just by laughing and giving them confidence. All in all, the metaphor and contrast between being big and small reveal how McMurphy made them stronger and more confident just by being
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the dysfunctions and struggles of life for the patients in a matriarch ruled mental hospital. As told by a schizophrenic Native American named Chief Bromden, the novel focuses primarily on Randle McMurphy, a boisterous new patient introduced into the ward, and his constant war with the Big Nurse Ratched, the emasculating authoritarian ruler of the ward. Constricted by the austere ward policy and the callous Big Nurse, the patients are intimidated into passivity. Feeling less like patients and more like inmates of a prison, the men surrender themselves to a life of submissiveness-- until McMurphy arrives. With his defiant, fearless and humorous presence, he instills a certain sense of rebellion within all of the other patients. Before long, McMurphy has the majority of the Acutes on the ward following him and looking to him as though he is a hero. His reputation quickly escalates into something Christ-like as he challenges the nurse repeatedly, showing the other men through his battle and his humor that one must never be afraid to go against an authority that favors conformity and efficiency over individual people and their needs. McMurphy’s ruthless behavior and seemingly unwavering will to protest ward policy and exhaust Nurse Ratched’s placidity not only serves to inspire other characters in the novel, but also brings the Kesey’s central theme into focus: the struggle of the individual against the manipulation of authoritarian conformists. The asylum itself is but a microcosm of society in 1950’s America, therefore the patients represent the individuals within a conformist nation and the Big Nurse is a symbol of the authority and the force of the Combine she represents--all...
He values this trait in others too, and when the Chief sees just how deceiving McMurphy can be, he is dumbfounded. Just as quick as he trusted McMurphy in the first place, Bromden lost his trust once he saw the con man for what he really is. This can be applied to everyday life as well, because there are so many scams out in the world that people are afraid to trust others. Once Chief Bromden sees what McMurphy is capable of, the Chief understands why the Big Nurse is so skeptical of him. McMurphy always acts according to his ethics, which consist of maintaining having the upper hand in all situations. The narrator provides indirect characterization for McMurphy. By describing his actions and how the man thinks, the reader can interpret McMurphy’s behavior to discover some of his traits. Since McMurphy plays with the thinking of others, I can infer that he is sly and calculating. Additionally, since McMurphy looked reluctant to bet, I can infer that the man is skilled in acting, because he obviously knew the outcome of the bet but pretended
-Character Development- All of the characters experience significant development throughout the story. This starts when McMurphy first enters the hospital and teaches the patients to not be afraid of expressing their feelings. For example, he wanted to watch the world series in the television, but the television hours were at a different time than the world series. He got some patients to vote for the time to be changed by questioning why they were afraid to vote for the change. “You afraid if you raise your hand that the old buzzard'll cut it off”(pg 117). with the aid of McMurphy, chief Bromden goes from withdrawn with flashbacks on his time in the war to actually participating in activities instead of hiding away. “I noticed vaguely that I was getting so’s I could see some good in the life around me. McMurphy was teaching me”(pg 223). Lastly, McMurphy's efforts to rebel against the system and Big Nurse's rules do not go to waste. Chief Bromden runs away from The asylum, and is finally free at the end of the novel (pg 310-311). He was free of the asylum and its' rules. Harding also speaks up to Big Nurse when she tells him that McMurphy will be back after his electroshock treatment. At the beginning of the novel, he wouldn't have dared to say anything to her because he would have been too afraid, but he tells he that he thinks she is “so full of bullshit”(pg 307).
In the book as McMurphy progresses, he goes through many stages where he is rebellious, then docile, then rebellious again. This is due to the fact that he learns exactly what it means to be committed and what it takes to be released. Then he begins to see that all his ward mates (I don't know what you want to call them) are counting on him. becomes rebellious again. These reactions to his environments encourage McMurphy is not crazy but intelligent and quick. This is exactly the case. way a character such as McMurphy should act. In the movie, McMurphy is not only wild but rude. He tried to never be outright rude in the book. aggravating for the nurse) yet in the movie he was. He never stopped being. wild in the movie, leading you to believe that maybe in fact he is crazy.
...lling at opposite ends of the spectrum. McMurphy’s sacrifice resulted in success while the Savage’s did not. There is one key difference that causes this. The attempt at control in Cuckoo’s Nest start late in the inmates lives; they are able to resist it to a certain degree and were able to use McMurphy’s rebellion as a means to gain their freedom. In Brave New World, control starts immediately with life. The people do not rebel because they do not even have the notion of rebelling. Their lives are so programmed they can barely even think for themselves and the Savage’s attempts to deprogram them are doomed to failure. McMurphy was fighting an uphill battle, but the Savage was going up against a sheer cliff.
McMurphy and proctor eventually become heroes. In the end the men choose to do what is right, defending others, giving their lives in the process. In Kesey’s novel, McMurphy defends George, a patient afraid of dirt and the hospital soap that an orderly tries to force George to use. He tries to defend George by reasoning with the orderlies but this does not work so he fights them (Kesey 272-275). He later tries, partially succeeding, to choke Nurse Ratched and destroy her and her power. He is lobotomized for his actions so, to end his suffering, Chief smothers him (Kesey 319, 321, 323). Proctor chooses to die instead of confessing to a crime he didn’t commit (Miller 149-150). Both men’s deaths cause them to become martyrs, saving both the ward and Salem from complete and total destruction. Proctor and McMurphy’s martyrdom shows them to have grown to become heroes rather than selfish.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, R.P. McMurphy is not a typical patient stuck in a ward. In fact, McMurphy is one idiosyncratic patient that no one in the ward has ever encountered. But throughout the book, he becomes an innate leader and a “martyr” for the other patients in the book, much like Christ in the Bible. Christ is an intended symbol that the author, Ken Kesey, uses in this book. McMurphy acts like Christ in the book—a model and leader for his disciples, the other patients. He tries to free the other patients from Nurse Ratched, the psychotic, inhumane leader of them all. He “fights” Nurse Ratched by becoming a leader for the other patients so that they may have hope that they can make it out of this ward still sane, despite what Nurse Ratched has done to them to brainwash them into believing that she is a good, caring leader who can be trusted. It is right in that case to associate him with a powerful, and worshipped leader such as Christ. However, McMurphy is not a Christ-figure due to his violent, sexual and seemingly amoral behavior throughout the book, despite all the things that make him seem worthy to be compared to Christ. Christ is a sinless, holy being. That one detail may seem insignificant to some, but it is actually the stripped down reason, the core reason, why McMurphy is not like Christ. McMurphy’s weakness to gamble excessively, his want to rebel without reason, and his desire to do risqué behavior, sins which he commits, conclude that McMurphy is not a figure similar to Christ.
In "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," McMurphy is successfully perceived as a heroic Christ figure. Kesey uses foreshadowing and images, the fishing trip, actions and feelings of other characters to develop this character.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a compelling tale that brings a warning of the results of an overly conformist and repressive institution. As the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden, a paranoid half- Native American Indian man, has managed to go unnoticed for ten years by pretending to be deaf and dumb as a patient at an Oregon mental asylum. While he towers at six feet seven inches tall, he has fear and paranoia that stem from what he refers to as The Combine: an assemblage whose goal is to force society into a conformist mold that fits civilization to its benefit. Nurse Ratched, a manipulative and impassive former army nurse, dominates the ward full of men, who are either deemed as Acute (curable), or Chronic (incurable). A new, criminally “insane” patient named Randle McMurphy, who was transferred from the Pendleton Work Farm, eventually despoils the institution’s mechanical and monotonous schedule through his gambling, womanizing, and rollicking behavior.
Although modern science has allowed us to develop many complex medicines, laughter is still the strongest one available in the real world and in the book. Laughter proves to be a strong medicine in more ways than one and is completely free, allowing anyone to use it at anytime. It allows us to connect socially with people, it can be used as a way of overthrowing power, and it is good for your health. As Randle McMurphy showed in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, laughter can lighten the mood in the darkest situations.
The novel, which takes place in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, centers around the conflict between manipulative Nurse Ratched and her patients. Randle McMurphy, a transfer from Pendleton Work Farm, becomes a champion for the men’s cause as he sets out to overthrow the dictator-like nurse. Initially, the reader may doubt the economic implications of the novel. Yet, if one looks closer at the numerous textual references to power, production, and profit, he or she will begin to interpret Cuckoo’s Nest in a
Even though McMurphy's own sacrifice of life is the price of his victory, he still attempts to push the ward patients to hold thier own personal opinions and fight for what is ethically right. For instinace, McMurphy states, "But I tried though,' he says. 'Goddammit, I sure as hell id that much, now didn't I?" McMurphy strains to bring the 'fellas' courage and determination in a place full of inadequacy and "perfection." McMurphy obtains a lot of courage in maintaining his own sort of personal integrity, and trying to keep the guys' intergrity and optimistic hope up.
3. In the book, McMurphy gains money from the patients, and in the movie it only shows him getting cigarettes.