One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

511 Words2 Pages

Human nature is extraordinary- people tend to react similarly when put into certain situations that trigger fight or flight responses because those reactions are hardwired into human DNA. Simultaneously, natural responses impact mental states as well as physical states, which allows general statements about humans to be made that are valid for the vast majority. These SOMETHING can also be seen throughout entertainment- movies, books, television shows, like Cool Hand Luke and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The main characters of both stories, Luke and McMurphy, faced situations that could be considered unjust. When subjected to unfair circumstances, many humans will attempt to revise it. Luke and McMurphy showed through their rebellious actions …show more content…

Upon arrival, Luke listened to all the rules, and though he acted like a bit of a smart ass (FIND SYNONYM), followed them. But, the morning after his mother died, the Captain said to Luke “We’re keepin’ you off the road fer awhile” (CITATION) before putting him in the punishment box for the day. While the supervisors were afraid of Luke running away, at this point he had done nothing that could be considered ‘against the rules’. This proved to be a turning point in the movie. Previously, Luke had attempted to play by their rules, but this method was unsuccessful because he was still punished. So, like many other humans after being treated unfairly, Luke attempted to revise his situation, and the only way for him to do this was by changing the game. The Captain and Bosses had too much power in this place, so no matter what, they would be capable of punishing him for nothing, so the only way to right this situation was if he got out of it. Thus, he tried to get away from the work camp. Running away was a rebellious action because it went directly against what was expected of him, it went against the rules. From the moment Luke escaped camp until he was found, he held the power by being in control of the situation. This power was temporary, as he was caught and forced back into conforming to the work camp’s power structures each and

Show More
Related

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo´s Nest And Andrew Niccol's 'Gattaca'

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    Good evening and welcome to tonight’s episode of Learning Literature. Tonight we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Gattaca by analysing the techniques text producers employ to construct representations of social issues relating to marginalised groups. We will focus on two classic pieces of literature, Ken Kessey’s, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as well as Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. Through a range of techniques, the text producers have included representations of freedom and independence, power, as well as discrimination in each of their respective texts.

    Read More

  • Social Influence and Persuasion in Cool Hand Luke

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    The late 1960’s famously introduced the idea of the “anti-hero”, which is defined as an individual with heroic qualities who is not in the position of an archetypal hero. One such example is the movie Cool Hand Luke, from 1967 starring Paul Newman. The movie surrounds a prisoner named Luke Jackson who refuses to comply or conform to the norms of the prison. The powerful Captain and the mysterious prison guard, whose silver reflecting sunglasses was the inspiration for one of the main prison guards in the popular Stanford prison experiment, tested his acts of defiance. This paper discusses the movie Cool Hand Luke and how the prisoners, Luke and the themes in the film relate to the Social Psychology 1ZO3 course focuses of conformity, non-conformity, and obedience to authority.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    In my opinion the main theme of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is conformity. The patients at this mental institution, or at least the one in the Big Nurse’s ward, find themselves on a rough situation where not following standards costs them many privileges being taken away. The standards that the Combine sets are what makes the patients so afraid of a change and simply conform hopelessly to what they have since anything out of the ordinary would get them in trouble. Such conformity is what Mc Murphy can not stand and makes him bring life back to the ward by fighting Miss Ratched and creating a new environment for the patients. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest represents a rebellion against the conformity implied in today’s society.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1919 Words  | 4 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental institution in the Pacific Northwest. The narrator of the novel is Chief Bromden, also known as Chief Broom, a catatonic half-Indian man whom everybody thinks is deaf and dumb. He often suffers from hallucinations in which he feels that the room is filled with fog. The institution is dominated by Nurse Ratched (Big Nurse), a cold, precise woman with calculated gestures and a calm, mechanical manner. When the story begins, a new patient, Randall Patrick McMurphy, arrives at the ward. He is a self-professed 'gambling fool' who has just come from a work farm at Pendleton. He introduces himself to the other men on the ward, including Dale Harding, the president of the patient's council, and Billy Bibbit, a thirty-year old man who stutters and appears very young. Nurse Ratched immediately pegs McMurphy as a manipulator.

    Read More

  • Impulsive Behavior In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    Did you ever notice that human nature revolves around needs, desires, and wants? There are different types of needs, such as safety, social, basic needs. These desires and impulses gives us our survival and the ability to function in the environment we live in. Our subconscious mind is responsible for the decisions we make, and such impulses makes us commit actions we have no control of. In literature, we are able to understand and judge the character’s behavior more so than our own.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest Cuckoos Nest There is much strength associated with both speech and silence. One can use either to their advantage in a power struggle. In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Randle Patrick McMurphy and Nurse Ratched employ the power of speech, and Chief Bromden uses the power of silence until the end of the novel when he gains the power of speech. These cases prove that the greatest power is not held in speech or silence alone, but in the effective combination of the two. Many people believe verbal communication to be a very powerful way of expressing themselves.

    Read More

  • Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    2040 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fred Wright, Lauren's instructor for EN 132 (Life, Language, Literature), comments, "English 132 is an introduction to English studies, in which students learn about various areas in the discipline from linguistics to the study of popular culture. For the literature and literary criticism section of the course, students read a canonical work of literature and what scholars have said about the work over the years. This year, students read One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, a classic of American literature which dates from the 1960s counterculture. Popularized in a film version starring Jack Nicholson, which the class also watched in order to discuss film studies and adaptation, the novel became notable for its sympathetic portrayal of the mentally ill. For an essay about the novel, students were asked to choose a critical approach (such as feminist, formalist, psychological, and so forth) and interpret the novel using that approach, while also considering how their interpretation fit into the ongoing scholarly dialogue about the work. Lauren chose the challenge of applying a Marxist approach to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not only did she learn about critical approaches and how to apply one to a text, she wrote an excellent essay, which will help other readers understand the text better. In fact, if John Clark Pratt or another editor ever want to update the 1996 Viking Critical Library edition of the novel, then he or she might want to include Lauren's essay in the next edition!"

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Lord Of The Flies

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    “ The freedom then of man, and liberty acting according to is own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will.” (Locke). Locke expresses that man is given reason by god, therefore he has everything he needs to govern himself. In Lord of the Flies, the boys were acting like complete savages. This is because they were put into a situation that was not natural in their eyes. Jack, Ralph, Roger and the kids were use to living in a civilized nation. Once they were stranded on an island, there attitudes started to change and they showed several cases of immoral behavior. However, once they were rescued they no longer were trying to harass or kill one another. They all were sad and regretted what was done. This is because they were back in civilization and were able to reason and realize they have done bad. Toward the end of the book this was written: “ His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by the emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too.” This is proof that the situation they were put it caused the evil

    Read More

  • A Clockwork Orange, by Stanley Kubrick

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    "A Clockwork Orange", directed by the immeasurable Stanley Kubrick, starring Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adirenne Corri, Aubrey Morris and James Marcus and produced by Stanley Kubrick in 1971, is, in my opinion, one of the greatest morality plays ever captured on film. It leads viewer in to many different pathways of thought about the time we live in, and about the validity of the concepts of law and morality, and the applications of the two in general society.

    Read More

  • Conformity In Cool Hand Luke

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the film, there are examples of not only conformity but also with obedience to authority. One of these is the prisoners have a leader which happens to be the biggest of them all, Dragline. They do whatever he says and follows what he does, which they see him as their authority and conform to him. Moving to just conformity there are few examples. In one of the scenes Luke 's mother visits him in prison, while she is there she asks him why he couldn 't be like her and why he hasn 't found a house to himself meaning, why he couldn 't figure out what to do with his life. By this, she is asking why he isn 't conforming to society by being "normal" because, obeying authority and everyone doing the same thing is normal, to her he should also follow this. Another example is while in the egg contest when Luke wins everyone sees him as their leader which is very clear when they lay him down and he has his arms and legs the way Jesus had when he died. Many people know the position Jesus was in and because he was a leader of a religious group. Therefore in the movie, that scene symbolized Luke as the leader. Luke himself is a very non-conforming character in the movie and from this example, we could see how he isn 't conforming. By agreeing to eat 50 eggs, which is seen as impossible to do, he is not conforming. This could also be one of the reasons behind others seeing him as their

    Read More

  • Comparing Saviors In Cool Hand Luke And The Stranger

    854 Words  | 2 Pages

    This situation might make the audience question his actions as to why he would put himself in a position go to jail for a crime that he has no gain. The answer would be simply because that is what he wanted to do. Throughout the movie Luke continues to do what he wants to despite the consequences that come with his actions. Because of this he is looked at as strong and confident in his actions, and he becomes a savior figure for the other prisoners. The other prisoners first witnesses his grit when he and Drag get into it, and even though drag kept taking him down with his blows, Luke just kept getting back up until he was not able to. Not only does this foreshadow the rest of the movie, but it is also a display of why he is a savior. He rarely gives into the pressures that everyone around him provides throughout the movie. The way that Luke presents himself sends a message to the other prisoners, and he helps them realise how much more there is than just the prison they have come to recognize as their new lives. What Luke brings the other prisoners is excitement, such as when they were sanding the tar or when they all bet on him eating fifty boiled eggs, he reveals to the others the freedom beyond

    Read More

  • Non-Conformity In Movie Stuart Rosenberg's Cool Hand Luke

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Normally, since the prisoner 's group conform to an easy-going and rule-following lifestyle, nobody tries to escape the prison because it will cause needless trouble. But since, in general, Luke is a natural-born non-conformist he is unaffected by the social pressures to stay within the prison. Even though he is a single dissenter, he, on two different occasions, inspires another prisoner to escape with him. Therefore, a single non-conformist can, potentially, decrease the rate of conformity in the remainder of the social

    Read More

  • A Beautiful Mind

    829 Words  | 2 Pages

    The movie, “A Beautiful Mind” plays out the story of the extremely brilliant mathematician John Nash who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Ron Howard directed this film and is based on the true life story of the genius mathematician Nash which is portrayed by Russell Crowe. At the beginning of the movie John starts his career at Princeton University, as a mathematics student where he was well known for his intelligence. Nash is an arrogant, socially awkward student, who spent most of his time cooped up in his room or library trying to discover an impossible equation in mathematics that would make him one of the greats (Albert Einstein, Plato, Galleo). Half way through the movie, we come to find out a lot if the places and situations that occur are only an illusion within Nash’s “beautiful mind”. At this point we figure out that Nash is suffering from severe mental illness, which is paranoid schizophrenia. Schizophrenia has been defined as a split mind, not only referring to multiple personality but also a split from reality that shows itself as unorganized things, irrational emotions and actions. Nash had been experiencing extreme delusions and hallucinations which were then diagnosed as symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Nash displayed both signs of negative and positive symptoms, as in disorganization, delusions, random laughter, and extreme quietness. One of the first imaginary characters he develops is his roommate Charles Herman, an English Literature student.

    Read More

  • Cool Hand Luke Resistance To Power

    587 Words  | 2 Pages

    He is being forced to abide by the rules in prison and at first, does not get a warm welcome by his fellow prisoners because he refuses to abide by the captains order which is simply to get their minds right. He is soon challenged to a fight by one of his fellow inmates. Throughout the fight, it is clear that Luke is being brutally beaten. He can barely stand up on his feet but he refuses to give up. To me, this is a sign of resistance of power because he does not want to just face the fact that he lost this battle.

    Read More

  • A Beautiful Mind

    2818 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mackey finally could contain himself no longer. His voice was slightly querulous, but he strained to be gentle. "How could you, " began Mackey, "how could you, a mathematician, a man devoted to reason and logical proof... how could you believe that you are being recruited by aliens from outer space to save the world? How could you ... ? "

    Read More

More about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Open Document