One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

619 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of One flew over the cuckoo's nest

"Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ‘em inna pens…wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock…one flew east, one flew west, on flew over the cuckoo’s nest…O-U-T spells out…goose swoops down and plucks you out."The book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest" is about a man, Randle Patrick Mc Murphy who is a rough-and-tumble, fun-loving guy who comes into the mental ward in Oregon and challenges the authoritarian nurse, Ms. Ratched. As the struggle between them goes on, Mc Murphy starts to show the other men of the ward how to loosen up and that they do not have to always listen to the nurse. Eventually, Mc Murphy is defeated when Ms. Ratched makes him get a lobotomy.

When you first pick up the book, you will first notice that the story is told by one of the men who live in the ward. This is Chief Bromden; a half-Indian who is one of the long time committed men. In my eyes, the Bromden is a key character in the whole book. The Chief, in reality, is 6 foot 7 inches tall, but in his mind he sees himself as a man only two or three feet tall.

This is because he has received over 200 electro-shock treatments and has been physiologically beaten to think that he is an inferior being to all others but he is not alone. All of the patients in the ward have had this done to them, some more than others. Another thing that sets the Chief apart is the fact that he has led everyone to think he is deaf and mute. This has enabled him to hear some of the secrets of the ward because everyone thought it was safe to talk around him. The Chief has also been in the army and in WWII. He claims to hear and see machinery in the walls of the ward that track and monitor all action that goes on in and around the hospital.

With his experiences in war and with what he has gone through in the ward, he often loses himself in a "fog". He creates this "fog" in his mind so that he can numb the reality of where he is. Because of how he acts when in this fog, he has remained distant from all other patients in the ward. At least he was until he met McMurphy.

Show More
Related

  • Character Analysis Of Chief Bromden

    1735 Words  | 4 Pages

    Point of view-The story is told by the point of view of Chief Bromden, a patient at a mental health hospital. He expresses his own emotions as well as providing background details on the characters and setting which enables the readers to comprehend the story better.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Parallelism In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the struggle for power is conveyed in the passage using visual imagery, parallelism, and conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

    1736 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine being stuck in a mental hospital for twenty years where everyone thinks you are deaf and mute. This is what happened to Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Chief Bromden, or Chief, has lived in a mental hospital for over twenty years. He was admitted to the hospital after serving in the Second World War. He is a six-foot seven-inch tall schizophrenic Indian who has convinced the whole ward that he is deaf and mute, and he is the narrator of the story. He is not a very reliable narrator due to his schizophrenia, so some of the events are distorted. Throughout the story, Chief Bromden is reminded of events from his childhood, which reveal little bits and pieces about his character and his uncommon past. The ward he is on is controlled by the Big Nurse, who has emasculated everyone and has complete control over everything and everyone there. She requires everything to be done her way and like clockwork. That all changes when Randle Patrick McMurphy arrives. McMurphy, mandated to the mental hospital by the courts, starts challenging the rules made by the Big Nurse as soon as he arrives, to help improve the lives of all of the patients on the ward. McMurphy also takes some of the patients on wacky adventures. For example, he convinces the Big Nurse to let him and a few other patients go on a fishing trip with his aunt. Except, instead of his aunt, he hires a prostitute to take them in her place. He also starts a basketball league with all of the patients as a way to exercise, but that ends after the basketball breaks through the Big Nurse’s window multiple times. The patients are divided into two groups: the chronics, who have no hope of being cured, and the acutes, who are not nearly a...

    Read More

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    Before R.P. McMurphy arrives, the ward is your basic average mental institution. Men line up to receive their medication, they do puzzles and play cards, and the evil head nurse and her muscle, a group of big black fellows, carry patients off to be shaved or for electroshock therapy. The people can't do anything about it, though. After all, some of them are vegetables, and according to society they're all nuts. Then one fateful day, McMurphy blows in and breathes some fresh air into the ward. He's loud, he cracks jokes, and, as he said of himself, "I'm a gambling fool…and whenever I meet with a deck of cards I lays…my money…down." Nobody was sure whether he was crazy or he was just acting like it to get out of the work camp he transferred from. Soon enough people realized that either way, he had it out for Nurse Ratched.

    Read More

  • Catch 22

    1348 Words  | 3 Pages

    “I’m dead, serious about those other wards; M.P.’s won’t protect you, because they’re craziest of all. I’d go with you myself, but I’m scared stiff. Insanity is contagious. This is the only sane ward in the whole hospital. Everybody is crazy but us. This is probably the only sane ward in the whole world for that matter”(Heller 8).

    Read More

  • Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    2040 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Who Is Mcmurphy In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    474 Words  | 1 Pages

    Randle Patrick McMurphy, although considered a christ figure in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he still is a flawed hero with his lack of compassion towards the other patients and his focus on personal gain. McMurphy’s lack of compassion stems from both his past and his sanity. Because McMurphy is not insane at all and is merely on the ward to escape a prison work farm, his impact on patients is multiplied as they all look up to him. Also, the monotonous lives of the patients has dulled them all so that the slightest bit of difference is miraculous to them. He does not realize the impact he has on the other patients and when his rebellious persona waivers it leads a patient and friend, Cheswick, to drown himself “But just as soon as we got to the pool he said he did wish something mighta been done, though, and dove into the water.” (Ken Kesey Part 2).

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Book Report

    493 Words  | 1 Pages

    As such, he knows everybody in the ward and learns their secrets by pretending to be dumb and deaf. Whenever he is on his medication or gets fearful, fog spills out into the hospital. In the following passage, the author focuses on the topic of the said fog that could be interpreted as several different things, “There’s long spells – three days, years – when you can’t see a thing, know where you are only by the speaker sounding overhead…Even McMurphy doesn’t seem to know he’s been fogged in. If he does, he makes sure not to let on that he’s bothered by it.” (117). Whenever the fog shows up, Chief Bromden notes how most, if not all, of the other patients don’t notice it. While the fog is not often addressed, it seems to represent how clouded they are to the outside world. To them, the mental hospital was their world. Over the course of the book, the fog gets progressively thinner and thinner. Eventually, with McMurphy’s influence on him, he manages to get out of the fog completely. This is noted on page 287 and 288, where he says, “It’s fogging a little, but I won’t slip off and hide in it. No…never again…I couldn’t remember all of it yet, but I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and tried to clear my head. I worked at it. I’d never worked at coming out of it before...I saw an aide coming up the hall with a tray for me and knew this time I had them

    Read More

  • What Are The Similarities Between A Letter Home And Waiting For Dan

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a letter called "A Letter home" one of the students, Kara, that attended Kent State University is demoralized after hearing the U.S. has invaded Cambodia. Many of the college students decide to fight back, protesting against the Ohio National Guard. After protesters got too out of hand, 4 students are killed and 9 are left dead. In "Waiting for Dan" the author and her family learns that their dad has been taken to a prison in Mississippi after taking place in the Freedom Rides. The family is left grief-stricken, and wait for their father to return home. These short passages have many things in common, but are also very different.

    Read More

  • Chief Bromden In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1248 Words  | 3 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey is as social commentary against mental institutions. Randle P. McMurphy acts as an agent against institutionalization throughout the novel. The novel tracks the events shared by Chief Bromden, a tall Native American man who pretends to be deaf and mute, Randle P. McMurphy and the patients within a psychiatric ward. Chief Bromden is deemed schizophrenic and is institutionalized for twenty years prior to McMurphy’s arrival. McMurphy instills hope and confidence into the patients which then allows the patients to truly re-evaluate their lives. Before McMurphy arrived, Bromden hides within a metaphorical fog along with the remaining patients. The fog provides the patients comfort and a place to hide

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Analysis

    255 Words  | 1 Pages

    I chose to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey for my research novel and I’m currently on page 100. The story is told from the perspective of Chief Bromden-a cagey, half-Native American patient in a mental hospital-in a stream of consciousness style. Assumed to be deaf and incapable of speaking by the patients and hospital staff, Bromden exposes and details the deplorable abuse the patients of the hospital endure, which the public does not see. Thus far, Bromden describes how the newly admitted Randle McMurphy pulls antics such as resisting the hospital’s set time schedule, launching butter at a clock, and persuading Dr. Spivey to convince Nurse Ratched to hold a carnival for the patients in order to rebel against Nurse Ratched’s

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast A Letter Home And Waiting For Dan

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    Then the uproar begins, and you with many other student start yelling at the soldiers and throwing rocks. This continues until you finally hear a shot pierce through the air. This happens in the passage of A Letter Home, when protestors against the Vietnam War use acts of violence to express their disagreement, and how it turns in the wrong direction when the fight gets too far. The main character is passionate about the event, and witnesses the uproar of violence, as expressed in the letter she writes to her parents have the shooting.

    Read More

  • Chief Bromden's Escape in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chief Bromden is a six foot seven tall Native American (half) who feels very small and weak even though by physical description, he is very big and strong. Chief does not have enough self-confidence and he is not independent. That is what makes him so small and weak. When Randle McMurphy, the new inmate in the asylum comes in, Chief is reminded of what his father used to be: strong, independent, confident and big. "He talks a little the way papa used to, voice loud and full of hell…" (16) McMurphy helps Chief gains back his self-confidence and teaches him to be independent.

    Read More

  • Comparing A Letter Home And Waiting For Dan

    670 Words  | 2 Pages

    An uprising caused by thousands of troops being sent to Vietnam. Another mutiny caused by the segregation of white and colored people. So many protests against certain decisions, but the authorities do not seem to care in both the short stories “A Letter Home” and “Waiting for Dan”. In “A Letter Home,” students protest against the United States troops invading Cambodia, and decide to make very rash decisions such as burning down buildings to prove their acrimony. In “Waiting for Dan,” a group of white and colored people peacefully ride buses and treat themselves in a manner opposite of what their color would usually be. Although they are not dangerous, their harmless plan gets them into much trouble.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: 3 Points

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    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."

    Read More

More about One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

Open Document