The brilliant One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a psychiatric film is compared with The English Patient, set at the closing of World War II. Both films use powerful nurse characters to portray a unique nurse image. Through the use of strong nurse characters, contrasting nurse images are portrayed. Nurse Ratched, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a middle-aged former army nurse who is head of the hospital ward and is characterized as a cold repressive authoritarian and Hana, from The English Patient, is a 20-year-old Canadian army nurse characterized as warm and kindhearted. The films shed light on the emotional depths of the nurses’ unique relationship with their patients. Nurse Ratched conceals her humanity by appearing rigid and condescending towards her patients whereas Nurse Hana emphasizes her humanity through defining love and compassion through her nursing role.
Nurse Ratched is represented as an oppressive dictator whose unbendable authority dehumanizes the mentally ill patients through progressive psychological emasculation. Her methods involve harsh control and complete submission to her will. This was intensely apparent during the group therapy that she conducted. Group therapy in itself was ill therapeutic, for it was a form of control led by Nurse Ratched, believing that she was genuinely helping the patients. Leading these dramatic, but tense groups, she was the source of the progressive psychological emasculation of the patients. In one group therapy instance, Cheswick decides to voice his concerns of the cigarette rationing. However, Nurse Ratched does not support his concerns and sends him to a Disturbed Unit for a while, taking back control. Nurse Ratched utilizes shame to coerce the patients back into d...
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...eatly affected by the type of setting they practice in.
The two contrasting nurses portray powerful opposite images of what depicts a nurse. The films are successful at depicting powerful in- depth images of the two nurses with contrasting qualities in two different worlds. Emotional depths of each character are defined through their role as a nurse. Each film emphasizes the nurses’ unique relationship with her patients. Both films reveal humanity, from the view of both nurses illuminated in two vividly contrasting lights, all so successful through the roles of the powerful characters.
Works Cited
Douglas, M. (Producer), & Forman, M. (Director). (1975). One flew over the cuckoo’s nest [Motion picture]. United States: Fantasy Films.
Ondaatje, M. (Filmmaker), & Minghella, A. (Director). (1996). The English Patient
[Motion picture]. England: Miramax Films.
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.
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...
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Presented issues such as lack of nursing opportunities for nursing graduates, lack of respect for the nursing profession and nurses being viewed as a threat by doctors continues to be of an existence today. As a nurse, I feel that it is of high importance to highlight these presented issues from the film not only because they were the most outstanding to me but because the nursing profession needs more
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Nurse Ratched gains much of her power through the manipulation of the patients on the
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
The book is set in a mental hospital where the patients' identities have been tarnished by the depracating nurse, Nurse Ratched. When Randle P. McMurphy admits himself to the hospital to escape a prison term, he immediately interupts the order. McMurphy is an egotistical man whose main goal is to cause problems for Nurse Ratched. However, this changes as the battle changes direction and becomes a fight for the other patients souls. The battle to liberate...
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