One of the numerous challenges faced by youth today is that of individuality. While the idea of acceptance is becoming more widespread daily, everyone faces a period in life in which he or she is told that it is wrong to be different. The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey challenges this issue and the effect society has on a person’s identity and individualism. Kesey used two of the main characters, Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, to represent the battle for one’s unique personality. Nurse Ratched and The Combine portrayed how society has the power to manipulate an individual into believing that it is unacceptable to be different and that one should alter oneself into societal views of the conventional. However, …show more content…
From the moment he was introduced, McMurphy effected every patient in the asylum. Instead of bowing to society’s rules and ideas, he went against the norm and was unashamed to be himself. Due to this, he was the ideal hero to rescue the patients from declining self-respect. He encouraged those around him to defy rules and reason by opening their eyes to the world, saying for example, “People [will] try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by getting’ you where it hurts most.” Through these means, he succeeded in conquering Nurse Ratched and her attempts to alter her patients to the beliefs of society. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest remarkably demonstrates the individual’s battle to maintain a sense of uniqueness from society. In the novel, McMurphy fought to save the patients of the asylum from the efforts of Nurse Ratched (society) to take their self-respect and force them to sacrifice their individuality. Life is full of contradictions and people who maliciously force ideas upon others of what is normal and acceptable. While McMurphy won the battle against Nurse Ratched, it was not the war; society still threatened the world in Kesey’s novel as it threatens the world of dreams and possibilities
Kesey through changing the structure of power in a society showed the similarity between the oppressed and the oppressor. This was a demonstration of the corruption of power, and a push back to the era. It symbolized an era of radical thinking of changing the power structure, but he advocated making all equal. In addition it exemplified the communist views of the era and the oppressive regime of those with absolute control. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest advocates the quest for equality in a time where disparity in power was great.
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
The dominant discourse of conformity in the novel is characterised predominantly by obeying the rules described by Kesey. At the start of the novel, all the acute and the silenced chronic patients conform to the rules of Nurse Ratched, the main antagonist, before the arrival of McMurphy. This is demonstrated by the following quote: “…she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor...” (p.5). McMurphy is portrayed as a Jesus figure in the novel. After he arrives, he begins to take control of the patients. He begins to take the role of leader. Kesey has foregrounded the character of McMurphy to be different thus creating a binary opposite that is represented in the novel. Kesey shows the binary opposites as being good versus evil. The former is represented by the con-man, McMurphy, and the latter is represented by the Head Nurs...
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is much controversy and bias present throughout the characters in the Combine. The patients have been rejected and forgotten about by society and left to rot with the antithesis of femininity: Nurse Ratched. But even Ratched isn’t immune to the scrutiny of the outside world, and she has to claw her way into power and constantly fight to keep it. With his own experiences and the societal ideals of the 1960’s, Ken Kesey displays how society isolates and ostracizes those who do not follow the social norms or viewed as inferior to the white american males.
What makes an outcast in society? A stutter, an addiction, being gay or a mental illness? In this novel, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” By Ken Kesey, explores this topic of conformity and individuality. R.P McMurphy is the main character and he wins the struggle between him and the nurse over this issue. McMurphy wins this war because he alleviates the stress of being ‘odd’ in the ward for the patients, he also demonstrated that being upset with the rules of the ward is okay and it was their right and lastly, McMurphy leaves a legacy as a reminder of his values and lessons.
Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental hospital. The main character, or protagonist is Randle P. McMurphy, a convicted criminal and gambler who feigns insanity to get out of a prisoners work ranch. The antagonist is Nurse Ratched also referred to as The Big Nurse . She is in charge of running the mental ward. The novel is narrated by a patient of the hospital, an American Indian named Chief Bromden. Chief Bromden has been a patient at the hospital longer than any of the others, and is a paranoid-schizophrenic, who is posing as a deaf mute. The Chief often drifts in and out between reality and his psychosis. The conflict in the novel is between McMurphy and The Big Nurse which turns into a battle of mythic proportion. The center of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is this battle between the two, which Kesey uses to represent many of our cultures most influential stories. The dominant theme in this novel is that of conformity and it's pressure on today's society. In the novel conformity is represented as a machine , or in Chief Bromden's mind a combine . To the Chief, the combine' depicts the conformist society of America, this is evident in one particular paragraph: This excerpt not only explains the Chiefs outlook on society as a machine but also his self outlook and how society treats a person who is unable to conform to society, or more poignantly one who is unable to cope with the inability to conform to society. The chief views the mental hospital as a big machine as well, which is run by The Big Nurse who controls everyone except McMurphy with wires and a control panel. In the Chiefs eyes McMurphy was missed by the combine, as the Chief and the other patients are casualties of it. Therefore McMurphy is an unconformist and is unencumbered by the wires of The Big Nurse and so he is a threat to the combine. McMurphy represents the antithesis to the mechanical regularity, therefore he represents nature and it's unregularity. Another key theme in Kesey's novel is the role of women is society and how it contradicts the males. In keeping with the highly contrasting forces of conformity verses creativity Kesey proceeds to compare the male role to spontaneity, sexuality, and nature and the female role to conformity, sexual repression and ultimately the psychological castration of the male. Nurse ...
Ken Kesey in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest question a lot of things that you think almost everyday. With this famous portrait of a mental institute its rebellious patients and domineering caretakers counter-culture icon Kesey is doing a whole lot more than just spinning a great yarn. He is asking us to stop and consider how what we call "normal" is forced upon each and every one of us. Stepping out of line, going against the grain, swimming upstream whatever your metaphor, there is a steep price to pay for that kind of behavior. The novel tells McMurphys tale, along with the tales of other inmates who suffer under the yoke of the authoritarian Nurse Ratched it is the story of any person who has felt suffocated and confined by our
Author Ken Kesey effectively reflects the social climate of the 1960s in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. By creating a fictitious mental institution, he creates an accurate and eye-opening mirror image of repressive modern day society. While its’ both a microcosm and exaggeration of modern day society, Kesey stresses society’s obsession with conformity, while demonstrating that those individuals who reject societal pressure and conformity are simply deemed insane. However, Kesey infuses the power of the individual in his portrayal of the charismatic outlaw Randall McMurphy, and proves that it only takes one to defeat the restrictions of a repressive society.
Ken Kesey presents his masterpiece, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with popular culture symbolism of the 1960s. This strategy helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Music and cartoons of the times are often referred to in the novel. These help to exaggerate the characters and the state of the mental institution.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” The father of transcendentalism, Emerson believed that people who resist change to be what is most natural, themselves, are the true heroes of the world. Ken Kesey, another popular writer, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a similar spirit. His novel takes place on the ward of a controlling army nurse at an Oregon mental institution in the late 1950s. The storyline mainly follows the interactions between Nurse Ratched, a manipulating representation of society, and Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient, gambler, and renegade. Kesey echoes the transcendentalists and romantics in his work by
People often find themselves as part of a collective, following society's norms and may find oneself in places where feeling constrained by the rules and will act out to be unconstrained, as a result people are branded as nuisances or troublemakers. In the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the author Ken Kesey conveys the attempt McMurphy makes to live unconstrained by the authority of Nurse Ratched. The story is very one sided and helps create an understanding for those troublemakers who are look down on in hopes of shifting ingrained ideals. The Significance of McMurphy's struggles lies in the importance placed on individuality and liberty. If McMurphy had not opposed fear and autocratic authority of Nurse Ratched nothing would have gotten better on the ward the men would still feel fear. and unnerved by a possibility of freedom. “...Then, just as she's rolling along at her biggest and meanest, McMurphy steps out of the latrine ... holding that towel around his hips-stops her dead! ” In the novel McMurphy shows little signs like this to combat thee Nurse. His defiance of her system included
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the dysfunctions and struggles of life for the patients in a matriarch ruled mental hospital. As told by a schizophrenic Native American named Chief Bromden, the novel focuses primarily on Randle McMurphy, a boisterous new patient introduced into the ward, and his constant war with the Big Nurse Ratched, the emasculating authoritarian ruler of the ward. Constricted by the austere ward policy and the callous Big Nurse, the patients are intimidated into passivity. Feeling less like patients and more like inmates of a prison, the men surrender themselves to a life of submissiveness-- until McMurphy arrives. With his defiant, fearless and humorous presence, he instills a certain sense of rebellion within all of the other patients. Before long, McMurphy has the majority of the Acutes on the ward following him and looking to him as though he is a hero. His reputation quickly escalates into something Christ-like as he challenges the nurse repeatedly, showing the other men through his battle and his humor that one must never be afraid to go against an authority that favors conformity and efficiency over individual people and their needs. McMurphy’s ruthless behavior and seemingly unwavering will to protest ward policy and exhaust Nurse Ratched’s placidity not only serves to inspire other characters in the novel, but also brings the Kesey’s central theme into focus: the struggle of the individual against the manipulation of authoritarian conformists. The asylum itself is but a microcosm of society in 1950’s America, therefore the patients represent the individuals within a conformist nation and the Big Nurse is a symbol of the authority and the force of the Combine she represents--all...
Within the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, two of the main themes are borders and marginalization. These themes are found within the various characters within this story, which lead to readers being able to clearly see the effects of this marginalization. Throughout the story, readers see a female-tyrant rule over those below her in a hierarchical setup. This leads to a clear separation of male and female characters. In this novel, the author is able to convey a sense of separation as well as slight misogyny with his use of borders and margins.
In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey argued that this presumed model society was actually quite the opposite. Kesey argued this through the use of the characters in the novel. Nurse Ratched was a character who symbolized the communist rule in Russia, and she displayed absolute power over the patients in the ward. She was depicted as what was wrong with society, and the patients feared her as the Americans feared communists. Randle McMurphy retaliated against Nurse Ratched in order to challenge her control, just as the Americans fought against Communism in the Cold War. Although it seemed as though there were some positive aspects of domestic life in the 1950s, Ken Kesey argued that American society at the time was tainted due to the roles of fear, the rejection of those who were different, and t...
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."