"No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal strength; both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time" - Laurence Sterne. The words within this quote can help understand the dilemas of Mr McMurphy; the protagonist on the novel "one flew over the cuckoos nest" by Ken Kessey. Ken Kessey introduces McMurphy to the reader in an asylum, a hospital for the mental ill. during his stay McMurphy develops a dilemma between two compelling desires. In one hand McMurhy knows he does not wish to spend a lot of time in the hospital but only good behavior can get him out quickly, on the other hand as he gets to know the patients of the hospital and befriends them he makes it his mission to help them live a little better by standing up both to the staff and policies of the hospital The staff of the hospital also have their mission, and that is to keep the patients living as they always have, under conformity and military manner. Conformity has taken over and anyone who steps out of line will be punished. hen McMurphy first arrives to the hospital he immediately attracts attention for he was something the patients were not acccostumed to see. McMurphy represents sexuality, freedom, and self-determination—characteristics that clash with the oppressed ward, which is controlled by Nurse Ratched. He came in big and strong and laugh which came to be known as a symbol of freedom. after he observes the patients attack one another in his first meeting as a group he explains to a patient;Afterward, McMurphy tells the other patients that they were like “a bunch of chickens at a peckin’ party,” attacking the weakest one with such blind fury that they a... ... middle of paper ... ...t sane and powerful but ends up a helpless vegetable, having sacrificed himself for the benefit of all the patients. McMurphy’s self-sacrifice on behalf of his ward-mates echoes Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross to redeem humankind. McMurphy’s actions frequently parallel Christ’s actions in the Gospels. McMurphy undergoes a kind of baptism upon entering the ward, and he slowly gathers disciples around him as he increases his rebellion against Ratched. When he takes the group of patients fishing, he is like Christ leading his twelve disciples to the sea to test their faith. Finally, McMurphy’s ultimate sacrifice, his attack on Ratched, combined with the symbolism of the cross-shaped electroshock table and McMurphy’s request for “a crown of thorns,” cements the image of the Christ-like martyrdom that McMurphy has achieved by sacrificing his freedom and sanity.
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
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...
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
From the moment McMurphy enters the ward it is clear to all that he is different and hard to control. He’s seen as a figure the rest of the patients can look up to and he raises their hopes in taking back power from the big nurse. The other patients identify McMurphy as a leader when he first stands up to the nurse at her group therapy, saying that she has manipulated them all to become “a bunch of chickens at a pecking party”(Kesey 55). He tells the patients that they do not have to listen to Nurse Ratched and he confronts her tactics and motives. The patients see him as a leader at this point, but McMurphy does not see the need for him to be leading alone. McMurphy is a strong willed and opinionated man, so when he arrives at the ward he fails to comprehend why the men live in fear, until Harding explains it to him by
Control in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Ken Kesey?s masterpiece novel One Flew over the Cuckoo?s Nest uses many themes, symbols, and imagery to illustrate the reality of the lives of a group of mental patients. The element of control is a central, arguably the largest, and the most important theme in the novel. The element of control revolves around the two main characters of the novel, Randle P. McMurphy, and Nurse Ratched. These two characters are the exact antithesis of each other, and they both seek to get their own way.
The use of theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey brings upon the ideas of misogyny, sexual repression and freedom, and salvation from an omnipotent oppressor, through the story of Chief Bromden, who lives in an insanity ward. Even from the beginning pages of the novel, the reader is introduced to such characters as Nurse Ratched, or the “Big Nurse,” who is said to be the dictator of the ward and acts upon the ward with the utmost control. Another branch of the theme of oppressors and salvation that relates to Nurse Ratched, as well as Randle McMurphy, is the idea that they are both representatives of figures based in Catholicism. Sexual repression and freedom is seen with the ultimate punishment in the ward, a lobotomy, being stated as equivalent to castration. Both of the operations are seen as emasculating, removing the men’s personal freedom, individuality, and sexual expression, and reducing them to a child-like state. All of these different pieces of the theme relates to a powerful institution that, because of the advances of the time, such as technology and civil rights for women, is causing men to be common workers without distinctive thoughts that must fit the everyday working mold of the 1950s.
When it comes to manipulation many view it as a negative aspect in life. Although people view it as a negative aspect, they continue to manipulate words and actions to get what they want. Ken Kesey applied manipulation in the book to reveal the positive and negative sides of manipulation. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a controversial novel that describes the inner workings of a mental institution.
One would be familiar with the phrase “great minds think alike” which is exclaimed upon the coincidence of two or more people sharing the same idea. Unbeknowingly, this condemns divergent thinking and individuality, whilst praising conformity. To think differently would imply that one is a below average human being; enforcing the acceptance and comfort of collective mental stasis. Those uncaring to the status quo are considered to be an individual; a hero of sorts by the collective. Media particularly in the twenty-first century, constructs the individual as a counterfeit hero in order to subdue the populace into conformity. The individual, as a result, no longer exists.
While McMurphy tries to bring about equality between the patients and head nurse, she holds onto her self-proclaimed right to exact power over her charges because of her money, education, and, ultimately, sanity. The patients represent the working-class by providing Ratched, the manufacturer, with the “products” from which she profits—their deranged minds. The patients can even be viewed as products themselves after shock therapy treatments and lobotomies leave them without personality. The negative effects of the hospital’s organizational structure are numerous. The men feel worthless, abused, and manipulated, much like the proletariat who endured horrendous working conditions and rarely saw the fruits of their labor during the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom and United States in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century (“Industrial Revolution” 630).
Kesey’s biblical allusion to Lazarus’s resurrection suggests, that the emotional strength McMurphy gives to the men is the key to overthrowing the combine. As a savior McMurphy supplies the patient’s with the necessary faith and apparatuses to combat their oppression. McMurphy cannot single-handedly liberate each man from the combine rather he inspires and educates the men on how to rise up and free themselves. Moreover, Kesey parallels McMurphy’s last hoorah to Christ’s Last Supper. The Last Supper is the final meal Jesus shared with his disciples before his betrayal and crucifixion. McMurphy’s less dignified Last Supper was an attempt to bring a sample of manly life to the patients. After a wild night full of alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes McMurphy and his disciples fall asleep and the day shifters find them the next morning among the aftermath of the party. Nurse Ratched finds Billy Bibbit with the prostitute; when questioned Billy immediately blames McMurphy and the other men for his doings, “They m-m-made me! Please, M-Miss Ratched, they may-may-MAY—!”
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
This is showing the aftermath of how McMurphy's actions affect others as well as that McMurphy's desires are outweighed by the desires of those around him.Realization was made by McMurphy he noticed that the patients looked at him for guidance, they expected McMurphy to put up a fight to keep them from unfair circumstances.
McMurphy is shown as a martyr like Jesus was because the patients really don’t become free until he dies. Before the treatment is administered to him McMurphy “climbs on the table without help and spreads his arms out to hit the shadow. A switch snaps the clasps on his wrists, ankles, clamping him into the shadow” (Kesey pg. 272) When the graphite salve is put on his temples and they tell him its a conductant he says “Anointest my head with conductant.
Even though McMurphy's own sacrifice of life is the price of his victory, he still attempts to push the ward patients to hold thier own personal opinions and fight for what is ethically right. For instinace, McMurphy states, "But I tried though,' he says. 'Goddammit, I sure as hell id that much, now didn't I?" McMurphy strains to bring the 'fellas' courage and determination in a place full of inadequacy and "perfection." McMurphy obtains a lot of courage in maintaining his own sort of personal integrity, and trying to keep the guys' intergrity and optimistic hope up.
Unable to see McMurphy imprisoned in a body that will go on living (under Nurse Ratched’s control) even though his spirit is gone, Chief smothers him to death that night. Then he escapes the hospital and leaves for Canada and a new life. We begin to see the different situations in which the patients struggle to overcome. Whether insane or not, the hospital is undeniably in control of the fates of its