Normality In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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When it comes to “normality”, the most narrow definition of normal is something that occurs repeatedly that is usual or expected. However, it complicates once this term is applied to society because this definition is extremely broad to what it applies to. Social norms are constantly changing based on what is happening at the moment. For instance, a lot of women wore uncomfortable and painful corsets that compressed the sides of their waists together to appear more beautiful in the sixteenth century. However, in today’s society, women no longer care for corsets anymore because they embrace the different types of bodies and promotes love to all shapes and sizes through social media. Since people have the power to change what is normal throughout …show more content…

For a brief moment in the novel, the patients are considered normal from society’s point of view when they win against Big Nurse’s attempt to cancel the fishing trip, it introduces the patients to the freedom and happiness that they have never felt in Big Nurse’s mental institution. Since she thinks that the lack of structure and composure leads to mental illness, she enforces strict regulations in the hospital that suppresses the patients to the point where they are cannot question or oppose anything that is unfair because they are constantly threatened by electroshock therapy. It seems as if the patients are trapped a miserable prison where they are constantly under control and stuck in a never ending cycle of fear and captivity. Additionally, the lack of free will and control by fear can be found in reality because Frank experienced it first hand. He was forced to conform to the “hospital’s normal” where he gave up his free will, when he shaved his beard and ate meat, because he was so afraid of the EST’s potential dangers. It is important that the population recognizes the questionable tactics that mental institutions use to “normalize” their patients because the more people that work to make a change within the hospitals, the more likely they would be

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