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?
Nurse Ratched does not abuse authority. She only tries to keep everything in order. Nurse Ratched exclaims when the patient's escaped the ward,
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Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros, they inform readers about psychologist Stanley Milgram’s studies. “Milgram proposed that the reasons people obey or disobey authority fall into three categories. The first is personal history family or school backgrounds that encourage obedience or defiance. The second, which he called “binding,” is made up of ongoing experiences that make people feel comfortable when they obey authority. Strain, the third category, consists of bad feelings from unpleasant experiences connected with obedience,” ( Milgram 247). Although the nurse isn’t harmful the patients still feel obligated to respect and obey her. The complication begins when McMurphy joins the group. First of all, Randle McMurphy is not disturbed, he’s not crazy. He’s just a rebellious man who doesn’t follow any orders. He had the group steal a bus and steal a boat to go fishing and so he could spend time with his old friend Candy. He doesn’t respect Nurse Ratched and always seems to have a problem with her. He causes everyone to speak up, which isn’t a bad thing but causes disorder and the patients act up. For example, the scene where Cheswick starts yelling at the nurse and disobeys her orders doesn’t sit down and pouts about not getting his cigarettes back. From the start of the movie to the middle it seems that they were gaining a new authority figure, McMurphy himself. “The Greek example illustrates how the ability to torture can be taught. Training that increases binding and reduces strain can cause decent people to commit acts, often over long periods of time, that otherwise would be unthinkable for them” (Gibson, Haritos-Fatouros 249). The rebellious Mac has an influence on the rest of the ward to think it is okay to be against the rules. The quote “You bargained your freedom for the comfort of discipline,” (Jones Gibson, Haritos-Fatouros 247) has a similar meaning to McMurphy's actions. Mac gets a bit out of
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
The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey tells a story of Nurse Ratched, the head nurse of a mental institution, and the way her patients respond to her harsh treatment. The story is told from the perspective of a large, Native-American patient named Bromden; he immediately introduces Randle McMurphy, a recently admitted patient, who is disturbed by the controlling and abusive way Ratched runs her ward. Through these feelings, McMurphy makes it his goal to undermine Ratched’s authority, while convincing the other patients to do the same. McMurphy becomes a symbol of rebellion through talking behind Ratched’s back, illegally playing cards, calling for votes, and leaving the ward for a fishing trip. His shenanigans cause his identity to be completely stolen through a lobotomy that puts him in a vegetative state. Bromden sees McMurphy in this condition and decides that the patients need to remember him as a symbol of individuality, not as a husk of a man destroyed by the
In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, role reversal puts a woman, Nurse Ratched, in control of the ward, which is important in creating a contrast to traditional power. Within the ward Ratched has ultimate power by “merely [insinuating]” (p. 63) a wrongdoing and has control of the doctors. Soon after the first confrontation with Randle McMurphy (Mack), her power is demonstrated through the submissive and obedient manners of all there (152). Ratched is shown as having great power within the ward and outside, despite that time periods constriction of being a women, showing an important contrast to traditional power structures.
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.
What is the deciding factor in determining what is sane: what is natural, or what is socially acceptable? In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and later the movie the novel inspired, this conflict is ever present in its Oregon setting of a psychiatric hospital. Throughout the novel, characters with minor quirks and disabilities are shamed and manipulated by the tyrannical Nurse Ratched in an attempt to make them “normal”—that is, conforming to her rigid standards. In fact, the only time these characters overcome their personal challenges is when they are emboldened by the confidence of an outsider, McMurphy, who encourages embracing natural instincts and rejecting conformity. In one particularly apt scene, McMurphy’s recounting
The use of theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey brings upon the ideas of misogyny, sexual repression and freedom, and salvation from an omnipotent oppressor, through the story of Chief Bromden, who lives in an insanity ward. Even from the beginning pages of the novel, the reader is introduced to such characters as Nurse Ratched, or the “Big Nurse,” who is said to be the dictator of the ward and acts upon the ward with the utmost control. Another branch of the theme of oppressors and salvation that relates to Nurse Ratched, as well as Randle McMurphy, is the idea that they are both representatives of figures based in Catholicism. Sexual repression and freedom is seen with the ultimate punishment in the ward, a lobotomy, being stated as equivalent to castration. Both of the operations are seen as emasculating, removing the men’s personal freedom, individuality, and sexual expression, and reducing them to a child-like state. All of these different pieces of the theme relates to a powerful institution that, because of the advances of the time, such as technology and civil rights for women, is causing men to be common workers without distinctive thoughts that must fit the everyday working mold of the 1950s.
Nurse Ratched uses her voice throughout the novel to intimidate the patients. She is the antagonist of the novel. The patients obsequiously follow Ratched’s command, until McMurphy comes along. They all fear that she will send them for shock therapy if they don’t obey her. Nurse Ratched is the most daunting persona of the novel, due in large part to the use of her voice.
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.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to authority, but we should rebel when it is against our better judgment. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy is an individual who represents rebellion. He knew conforming to society wouldn't benefit him. He broke Nurse Ratched's rules and although he was becoming weak, he wouldn't conform. He did not try to fit into the image of a patient in a mental ward.
Nurse Ratched gains much of her power through the manipulation of the patients on the
One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a movie that portrays a life story of a criminal named McMurphy who is sent to a mental institution because he believes that he himself is insane. While McMurphy is in the mental ward, he encounters other patients and changes their perception of the “real” world. Before McMurphy came to the mental ward, it was a place filled with strict rules and orders that patients had to follow; these rules were created by the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. However, once McMurphy was in the ward, everything, including the atmosphere, changed. He was the first patient to disobey Nurse Ratched. Unlike other patients who continuously obeyed Nurse Ratched, McMurphy and another patient named Charlie Cheswick decided to rebel
Nurse Ratched was head nurse of the ward. She needed to have control over everything. All of the patients feared Nurse Ratched, or as they sometimes call her, “Big Nurse.” That is everyone feared her until McMurphy. Because he refused to listen to Nurse Ratched, the “ruler” of the ward, it showed that there will be dismay between the two throughout the story.
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 nurse-patient relationship is one that is built on a mutual trust and respect that fosters hope and assists in a harmonious healing process. A nurse has the professional duty to the patient to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual care to avoid injury. Any negligence in rendering care to the patient is direct disregard and results in malpractice. This is the crux of the problem with Nurse Ratched. In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched is guilty of malpractice due to the cruel medical treatments she practiced, mental anguish inflicted by her on the patients, as well as the undue authority she had in the hospital that she consistently misused.