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Analysis of one flew over the cuckoo nest
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Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest uses a mental institution to contrive a daunting metaphor for society; epic power struggles, inequity, and inhumanity seep through the pages, painting a dismal image of society as a game that cannot be won. The novel is host to many, arguably crucial, conflicts; however, perhaps the most important conflict is one that, oddly enough, the character was not ever truly aware of until the end. Nurse Ratched, the head honcho on the ward, manipulates her patients’ psyches, eroding their self-worth, in an effort to accommodate her reign. From the moment Randle McMurphy, a new patient, arrives, he, unwittingly so, enacts an integral role on the ward, bearing the burden of undoing the ruinous effects of Nurse Ratched’s tyranny. …show more content…
He is coming from a work farm, and even says that “[he] requested a transfer [to the ward]....to get [him] out of those damned pea fields” (12-13). Disregarding his woeful ignorance of his circumstance, McMurphy’s very attitude toward what he expects of the mental home is “inspiring” somewhat; it is in stark contrast to the despondent residents and the bleak undercurrent of the ward. This is McMurphy’s first act of chipping away at the damage done to the patients at the hands of the Big Nurse, however, the true extent of that damage is harrowing: it manifests itself in Harding’s revelation regarding what meagre esteem he and the patients hold themselves with. “[they’re] rabbits,” he says, “[they’re all rabbits,” and perhaps most disturbingly, “[they’re] happy [being rabbits]” (64-65). Harding latently enlists McMurphy’s assistance in pulling them up from the depths of their own low self-worth by declaring him a “wolf,” not unlike the Nurse, insinuating that they already perceive McMurphy to be on par with Big Nurse, essentially her only
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
He would always sneak in wine, gamble with them, and would have them play along on all his jokes. His need for freedom was refreshing to everyone else, that what kept them going. At points when he gave up from being a rebel, other patients gave up. McMurphy wins this war between him and Ratched because he helps other patients continue to be excited and helps them get out of there. McMurphy influences patients to stand up for themselves and not take orders from Ratched. Harding listened to McMurphy and did exactly that. He started to call her out on things and make fun of her, and she couldn't respond. It was clear that Nurse Ratched wasn't the same person and because of what McMurphy did, she couldn't get back in control. Ken Kesey writes, “She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings… she couldn't rule with her old power anymore… She was losing her patients one after the other” ( 320-321). McMurphy has always taught them to follow their own rules and not obey Ratched. In particular, he influenced Chief, a quiet patient that watches his surrounding carefully. After teaching Chief what it's like to follow your own rules, Chief begins to follow McMurphy’s role. After the incident of stripping Ratched’s identity, he learns that McMurphy was a hero to him and although he doesn’t physically help him out, McMurphy has taught Chief how to play this game. Chief tries to be like McMurphy by taking over. DOing so he tries on his cap, trying to be the new McMurphy. Ken Kesey writes, “I reached into McMurphy’s nightstand and got his cap and tried it on. It was too small” (323). Chief realized that no one could take over McMurphy's role, but that Chief would have to be in control over himself to make a statement. Chief does exactly that, he runs for it, making him happier than he has ever
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
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.
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
In Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the acute are unable to better themselves on the hierarchy triangle. Nurse Ratched’s power prohibits from the acutes from having esteem, loving and belonging, and having their safety needs met. Therefore the patients on the ward incableable to be their best selves.
This comes as both a blessing but cost to the patients, who have been tortured countess times through processes such as electroshock therapy in order to be perfectly cooperative as the Big Nurse wishes. Throughout the novel, Chief Bromden analyzes the actions of McMurphy, who acts as sane as the “normal” people in society and how he plans to overthrow the “dictator” of the mental hospital through an objective opinion due to the fact he must not speak to maintain his reputation as both deaf and unintelligent. Over the course of six months, however, McMurphy had become successful in his quest, which did come at a cost. Without the rule of the Nurse, who, at the time, was planning her revenge, all functions of the hospital had ceased to continue, leading the men who had once wished to seek freedom with a blindside. As the novel progresses, many more of the members of the hospital seem to be out of character, as with Bromden who begins to speak. When the Big Nurse allows the men to travel out of the hospital on a boating trip, the men realize that the lack of being accustomed to society was the reason they had been “imprisoned” within a hospital and that their freedoms came at a
Generally, mental illnesses were treated unprofessionally during the 1960s, and conditions of institutions were inimical compared to today’s standards. Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, despite being a fictional piece, gives appropriate insight into just how detrimental institutions at the time were. Throughout the novel, the reader follows the patients, such as the schizophrenic Chief Bromden, as they endure, and eventually overcome, Nurse Ratched’s authoritarian nature.
This passage in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, displays the distrust that the other Acutes, patients in the mental ward, begin to have for McMurphy. They question McMurphy’s intentions for helping the patients of the ward. He gets rules lifted for the other men and acquires them things from outside of the mental ward, such as magazines. All the questionings from the patients are insinuated by the Big Nurse and the rumors she spreads. The major theme that is being displayed in this portion of the novel is the absolute power that an authority controls. The theme is highlighted throughout the passage through use of plot and how drastically things changed in the ward over time.
Immediately, he understands that the only way to achieve a leadership role within the ward is through each patient’s vulnerability. McMurphy accomplishes this criticising of others during the weekly therapeutic meetings. By explaining to the patients that “[Nurse Ratched] ain’t peckin’ at [their] eyes” but “at [their] balls, buddy, at [their] everlovin’ balls”, McMurphy forces them to realize that Nurse Ratched has suppressed their masculinity, but at the same time, he uses a similar approach to acquire dominance within the group (59). McMurphy gains the patients’ trust by making them feel as though they need him to gain freedom, when in reality, he is selfish and positioning himself to get the control he desires within the ward. Furthermore, McMurphy takes advantage of Chief, through his silence, in order to make easy money off the other patients. Not only did McMurphy make Chief “[feel] like [he’d] helped him cheat them out of their money”, but deep down Chief knew that they all feel that “something had been kicked out from under them” due to McMurphy’s constant gambling (269). While the patients do not want to admit it, they know McMurphy is scamming them, but they do not have the strength to rebel against
In the 1950’s, conformity was common to the world, and nonconformists would often feel shunned and oppressed by their society (Edmund 69). In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the Oregon Psychiatric Institution depicts a microcosmic variation of the society in which he lived, as each character in the novel represents a specific societal role. Nurse Ratched, the head administrative nurse of the ward, represents the oppressive force or government; the Acutes represent the average society, the fighters and followers, and the Chronics represent those who have fought, but lost to conformity and oppression. Alongside this, “there is a certain sigma not only attached to being a patient in a mental hospital, but the whole field of mental
McMurphy, wild and confident, is first introduced when he is admitted to the hospital. McMurphy acts as a symbol of freedom and is a complete contrast to nurse ratched's oppressed ward.
Ken Kesey appears to show disgust for people of power in his book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Throughout the novel, Nurse Ratched, the lady within whom lays all the power of the staff in a mental institution, frequently sends people who she has behavioral problems with off to the disturbed wing, like she did Maxwell Taber. It is there that they experience the pain of either electroshock therapy, or a full frontal lobotomy. Nurse Ratched uses this and her natural dominance to inspire fear in her patients. She tends to agree with old school of thought that a healthy dose of fear makes people easier to control. Thus she was able to easily putdown any uprising against her totalitarian rule before Randle McMurphy. Nurse Ratched tries to use the power that has been given to her as head nurse to change the patients as she sees fit. As Bromden puts it, "Working alongside others... she is a veteran of adjusting things" (p. 30). But to do this she has created a living hell for them. McMurphy, one of the rare man that dares to vocalize his opinion, shows his negative sentiment towards Nurse Ratched when he tells Harding, "Hell with that; she's a bitch a ball cutter..." (p. 58). The entire ward can see how power has corrupted Nurse Ratched into the pseudo-megalomaniac/sadist she now is.
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."
The plot of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest fluctuates between the individual and the role of authority during the 1960’s. The film questions the amount of power that authorities have and highlights what happens when authorities have too much power. In Dedria Bryfonski’s book, Mental Illness, in Ken Kesey’s Over Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, she writes that “evil is not exercising free will and that evil is always the thing that seems to control” (Bryfonski 38). In the film, Nurse Ratched is an authoritative figure who is in charge of the ward that McMurphy is in and she has full control of all of the patients.