One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

674 Words2 Pages

Cuckoo's Nest Essay One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is one of those books that I am glad to have read. This book has lots of twists, turns and unexpected events. Two characters that stick out in my mind are Chief Bromden and Mc Murphy. In the beginning of the story Chief Bromden seemed to be reclusive and drawn into his own imagination. Everything that he saw or felt was paralleled with the likeness of a machine. Then a little bit later Mc Murphy comes along with his direct attitude and masculinity that he felt the need to assert from day one. His character gave me the sense that the cruelty that the other men faced by the hands of Ms. Ratched was soon to be over. But both men surprised me with the way their characters changed in the end. The question posed is, who is the real hero, Mc Murphy or Chief Bromden? Well this is no easy question to answer, but in order for me to begin to think along those lines I have to explain what impression each character had on me. In the beginning I was not connected to Chief Bromden. I had a hard time relating to and understanding his character, which to me did not stand out as anything significant but fit the typical picture of what a mentally insane person would be. At times it seemed as though his thoughts were erratic, for instance, when he was describing the black boys talking in a huddle as "the humming of black machinery", or comparing Ms. Ratched's chest as a "manufacturers defect." I immediately came to the conclusion that he was really crazy, I did not think that his character would change to be one the strongest in the book. My opinion about Chief Bromden being crazy was quickly changed when I learned of his early childhood, and understood why he did not talk and pretended to be deaf. I figured that because he had to basically keep all of his thoughts to himself there had to be a way to express them. The character that I had an immediate connection with was Mc Murphy. I think that this happened because of the way he came onto the ward. His laughter and direct attitude was strong and funny; it was a break from the boring gray cloud that seemed to loom over the patients.

Bromden vs. Himself
1174 Words | 3 Pages
Chief Bromden’s character development is extremely limited in the movie adaptation, because director Milos Forman took out one of the most crucial details of the novel: Bromden’s first person narration. The movie lacked in any references to Bromden’s philosophy of society and had nothing about his back-story, an important aspect of what made him the person he was at the beginning of the movie. Of course, it would’ve been a pain to film an entire movie from one person’s point of view, much less include narrations and backgrounds. Overall, despite the film’s outstanding ability to match the novel’s original storyline, Ken Kesey does not depict Chief Bromden’s growth in a successful, accurate, and admirable way.
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Mcmurphy's The Big Nurse
1623 Words | 4 Pages
He values this trait in others too, and when the Chief sees just how deceiving McMurphy can be, he is dumbfounded. Just as quick as he trusted McMurphy in the first place, Bromden lost his trust once he saw the con man for what he really is. This can be applied to everyday life as well, because there are so many scams out in the world that people are afraid to trust others. Once Chief Bromden sees what McMurphy is capable of, the Chief understands why the Big Nurse is so skeptical of him. McMurphy always acts according to his ethics, which consist of maintaining having the upper hand in all situations. The narrator provides indirect characterization for McMurphy. By describing his actions and how the man thinks, the reader can interpret McMurphy’s behavior to discover some of his traits. Since McMurphy plays with the thinking of others, I can infer that he is sly and calculating. Additionally, since McMurphy looked reluctant to bet, I can infer that the man is skilled in acting, because he obviously knew the outcome of the bet but pretended
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Compare And Contrast One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
776 Words | 2 Pages
This essay will be exploring the text One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey and the film Dead poet’s society written by Tom Schulman. The essay will show how the authors use over exaggerated wildcard characters such as McMurphy and Keating. The use of different settings such as an insane asylum and an all-boys institution. And Lastly the use of fore shading to show how the authors can use different texts to present similar ideas in different ways.
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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.
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Comparison of Book and Movie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
695 Words | 2 Pages
Bromden is nothing more than a crazy Indian who doesn't want to talk so. pretends to be deaf and dumb.  Much of the understanding and respect is lost in the transition between book and movie.  In the book, Bromden has flashbacks to his childhood, lighting on significant points in his childhood.  His background is never even brushed upon in the movie.  Of course it would have been nearly impossible to tell of Bromdens life in a movie, much less show the world from his point of view as in the book. Bromden is still a very interesting character but the real puzzle to his problems are lost in the process. & nbsp; McMurphy is a very sly, cunning man.  He knows how to play his game. and does it well. 
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One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
1055 Words | 3 Pages
As medical advances are being made, it makes the treating of diseases easier and easier. Mental hospitals have changed the way the treat a patient’s illness considerably compared to the hospital described in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
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Hero in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
710 Words | 2 Pages
Randle Patrick McMurphy, the main character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, is the perfect example of a hero. He is committed to a mental institution after faking insanity to get out of a work camp. From the beginning of his presence on the ward, things start to change. He brings in laughter, gambling, profanity and he begins to get the other patients to open up. All of this, however, clashes with the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, who is trying to press conformity and obeying authority. It is then a battle between McMurphy and the nurse, McMurphy trying to set the patients free and the nurse trying to make them “normal”.
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Over The Cuckoo's Nest And Fahrenheit 451 Comparison Essay
819 Words | 2 Pages
However things start to change for both of these men when they start to receive guidance from their counterparts, Randle McMurphy and Clarisse McClellan. Both of these characters become the catalyst for the freedom and liberation that Bromden and Montag come to find. Throughout the Cuckoo’s Nest Chief Bromden is stuck in the “fog” living in his past memories. Bromden
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Point of View in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
2247 Words | 5 Pages
The choice that a novelist makes in deciding the point of view for a novel is hardly a minor one. Few authors make the decision to use first person narration by secondary character as Ken Kesey does in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. By choosing Bromden as narrator instead of the central character of Randle Patrick McMurphy, Kesey gives us narration that is objective, that is to say from the outside of the central character, and also narration that is subjective and understandably unreliable. The paranoia and dementia that fill Bromden's narration set a tone for the struggle for liberation that is the theme of the story. It is also this choice of narrator that leads the reader to wonder at the conclusion whether the story was actually that of McMurphy or Bromden. Kesey's choice of narrative technique makes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a successful novel.
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The Meaning of “Story-Truth” and “Happening-Truth”
1005 Words | 3 Pages
...ien writes this story in a completely non traditional way and manages to create a whole new experience for the reader. He takes the reader out of the common true, false diameters and forces the reader to simply experience the ultimate truth of the story by reliving the emotional truth that the war caused him. Although this may be a bit challenging for the reader, it becomes much easier once the reader understands the purpose for the constant contradictions made by O’Brien. The difference between “story-truth” and “happening-truth” is that “story-truth” is fictional, and “happening-truth” is the actual factual truth of what happened. The “story-truth” is the most important when it comes to O’Brien, and understanding his work. It is meant to capture the heart and mind of the readers and take them on a journey through war with the O’Brien, as he experienced and felt it.
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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!"
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Power In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
514 Words | 2 Pages
The climactic end to One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, by Ken Kesey, left an important question, who won, McMurphy or Nurse Ratched? While answer isn’t as simple as one side beating the other, there was definitely signs that point to McMurphy being the winner in the end. While he does end up being killed inadvertently by the Nurse, but really by Chief Bromden, he still beat her down enough to the point where she no longer held power over the men. He took away her main source of power and that was her words. She verbally belittled the men and had them under her control until McMurphy took all of that away from her and became a martyr.
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One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Psychological Analysis
1343 Words | 3 Pages
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
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McMurphy as Hero of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
506 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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What Is The Mood Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
1125 Words | 3 Pages
Often, movies are said to be not as good as novels. Various elements included in the novel may not be implemented well into a movie. However, some movies do incorporate those elements accurately, resulting in positive notions. Mood, which is the atmosphere portrayed in a story, is one element of the novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey. For that particular novel, the mood was dark and oppressive in the beginning and changes into a lighter one later on. The element’s importance is to help readers accurately understand the changes in the ward due to McMurphy’s arrival and rebellious nature. Milos Forman, director of the novel’s movie version, had attempted to portray the mood throughout the movie through soundtracks, people’s facial expressions, and actions. He successfully did this, assisting in the viewers
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Bromden vs. Himself

Mcmurphy's The Big Nurse

Compare And Contrast One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest