More handpicked essays just for you.
Themes of one flying over the cuckoo's nest
Themes of one flying over the cuckoo's nest
Themes of one flying over the cuckoo's nest
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Critique of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells a colorful but rather disturbing story through the lenses of Chief Bromden-a schizophrenic half Indian who pretends to be deaf and unintelligent-as he observes how McMurphy-a con man and a gambler charged with battery and assault who cheated himself out of a prison work farm through an insanity plea-manages to grant the patients freedom against the oppression of the head Nurse. On the surface One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a commentary concerning the institutional systems that are responsible for the mentally ill. However, as the book progresses it is evident that the ward in the mental asylum is metaphorical for society at large and the authoritative …show more content…
As the novel progresses it is clear that there is most likely no fog created by the ward and that it is simply one of Chief Bromden’s many hallucinations to escape his fears. One night the Chief has one of his hallucinations and sees the ward turn into a mechanical object headed by the combines-the authority in charge of the mental asylum. The mechanization is utilized to illustrate the dehumanized nature of the institution and its patients. Furthermore, The Chief is also described as being gigantic in stature. However, when McMurphy speaks to him, Chief Bromden explains how he believes he is no longer strong and massive as he used to be. McMurphy then promises him that he will grow again if he follows his program. After McMurphey helps Chief Bromden assert his confidence he believes he has regained his strength. In one instance McMurphey is holding a vote to view the world series. Needing a majority of the votes, McMurphey drags Chief’s hands and the chief describes it as being pulled out of the fog thus demonstrating how McMurphey is helping him escape his mental prison. …show more content…
Billy Bibbit is presented as a thirty-year-old man who is under the control of his mother. He is extremely shy and cannot speak without stuttering. McMurphy attempts to restore Bibbit’s confidence and self worth by helping have his first sexual encounter with a prostitute. Billy however is caught by the nurse who shames him by telling him she will inform his mother. Billy becomes once again enslaved under the control of his mother and commits suicide. Therefore, this represents a method by which the nurse and society in general controls patients and it is shame. The nurse has group discussions with the group of patients in which she subtly allows all the group to attack and belittle a patient. Through belittlement the nurse dehumanizes the patient and forces them to conform to her controls and regimentation. Later in the novel the reader also learns that most of the patients are in the asylum voluntarily and that they could easily leave. However most stay due to their lack of self confidence in surviving in the real world. This is further illustrated by one of the patient’s description of themselves as weak rabbits subordinate to strong wolves. Moreover, as the novel progresses most of the patients that McMurphy interacts with are relatively normal and capable of functioning in the outside world however their dehumanization through belittlement makes them believe they are incapable of surviving outside the asylum
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 the beginning of the novel, Kesey indicates that “it’s not so thick but what [he] can see if [he] strains real hard” (Kesey 42). The denotation of “strain” points out to the word “force” and in this case Kesey portrays how Bromden is the way he is being quiet because of how the Americans treated him and his father. The word “thick” refers to a bulky or heavy object, in this case the bulky object refers to the combine. The Combine is an imaginary figure of a hospital filled with people like Bromden and he thinks that people like him need to go into the Combine in order to come out fixed. Kesey makes it so Bromden can only “see” and hear, which lets Bromden to hallucinate because through his eyes he sees the fog; the fog shows how he has seen people get lobotomized and it ruins his thinking.
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...
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
In the play, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which Dale Wasserman adapts from a Ken Kesey novel, she takes the audience into the world of institutions of psychology inner works. Except it is not done through the eyes of a journalist searching for the truth, but through the eyes of a major character that has little to say throughout the play, Chief Bromden. Chief Bromden plays a major role showing the main character, R. P. McMurphy, what he is up against and does this without speaking a word. Early in the 20th Century for people in psychological institutional, confinement meant that you could not function as a productive member of society. Personnel in these institutions took their role as one of power over their patients, disregarding them as humans. Patients resigned themselves to viewing nurses and doctors as people who knew more, therefore should trust without question.
McMurphy’s evident superiority among the other patients in the hospital immediately establishes his power and authority over the other patients. From the minute he enters the ward, Bromden notes his charismatic and overbearing personality as signs of his power. “Even though I can’t see him, I know he’s no ordinary admission. I don’t hear him slide scared along the wall… he sounds like he’s way above them… he sounds big” (15-16). Instantly, McMurphy radiates power and defiance that the other patients in the ward notably admire. He boldly challenges authority and battles conformity in the ward, determined to eradicate the authoritarian governance of the institution. He proves to be a symbol of defiance and gradually begins to beat out the authority in the ward.
Living in the mental ward is very hard for McMurphy at first. The patients and McMurphy cannot understand one another so socializing with them is hard for him. When he begins to interact with them, he has a profound effect on the patients of the mental ward.
Everybody wants to be accepted, yet society is not so forgiving. It bends you and changes you until you are like everyone else. Society depends on conformity and it forces it upon people. In Emerson's Self Reliance, he says "Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater." People are willing to sacrifice their own hopes and freedoms just to get the bread to survive. Although the society that we are living in is different than the one the Emerson's essay, the idea of fitting in still exists today. Although society and our minds make us think a certain way, we should always trust our better judgment instead of just conforming to society.
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 men, after McMurphy’s death, hold onto his story and pass it on. He is a man, a myth, and a legend that forever remains in the hospital. Leaving an everlasting sting on the nurse and how she reigns over the hospital. McMurphy’s death also affected Bromden, giving him enough strength to set off into the world, breaking loose from the Nurse’s control and living life as McMurphy would have wanted him to. “I feel good, seeing McMurphy get that black boys goat like not many men could. Papa used to be able to do that” (Kesey 94) This is Bromden speaking of McMurphy making fun of the staff’s blind rule-following tendencies. This also, strongly shows how much Bromden, and the other men, think of McMurphy as a father figure. He is a man in their lives that gives them confidence and comfort. The men in the ward & especially Billy Bibbit and Bromden, like authority and power; for example, the Big Nurse, Billy’s mom, and Bromden’s dad. They like to follow a structure and have a power to look up to; McMurphy is a different kind of power that’s freeing to be lead by. When they see their leader ‘fight the power’ they see this as an invitation to follow suit and question their old ways of the ward, therefore not conforming. So, when the men in the ward make McMurphy like their strong father figure, that becomes their normal. This also speaks to Kesey’s underline analogy,
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.
He believed it was impossible to ever escape or defeat the Combine, until Mcmurphy came along. In Chapter 28 of One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, Chief Bromden has a vital realization, that “Maybe the Combine wasn’t all-powerful. What was to stop us from doing it again, now that we saw we could? Or keep us from doing other things we wanted?” (Kesey 305).This recognition that the Combine does not control him is extremely important to the story. Now that he knows this, there is nothing stopping him from escaping the ward. Kesey’s motif of Human vs Machine has finally come to a conclusion that man can in fact overcome machines and
The story provides two dramatically polar-opposite symbols of power: McMurphy and Ratched (and her fog machine). McMurphy displays and utilizes his power through leadership and inspiration to the patients. McMurphy leads the crew of patients on a fishing trip, which leads to relevations for all of them. By the end of the trip, the patients are described “They could sense the change that most of us were only suspecting; these weren’t the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse that they’d watched take their insults on the dock this morning” (196). This novel is based on the idea of power, and the idea of it is shown in every single chapter. However, to make the idea of power more dynamic, McMurphy was introduced by the author to display a certain type of power; power that is good and inspires others. By bringing in McMurphy, readers can see how truly changing the concept of power can be, but also show that power does not have to be evil and bad. McMurphy’s influence of the patients on the fishing trip shows that good power even has the capabilities of changing the lives of people. On the other hand, Nurse Ratched is also a symbol of power, but the power instilled by Nurse Ratched is very menacing and dark. An example of her power is when she “turns on the fog machine”. Nurse and her assistants are shown instilling their power like during moments “They’re at the fog machine again but they haven’t
Chief Bromden is a relatable and realistic character because of his struggle with self-image, as a man of six feet eight inches he knows people perceive him as small and invisible. Bromden feigns to be deaf and mute because he realized that people were not paying attention to him when he spoke, “it wasn’t me that started acting deaf; it was the people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.” The beginning of this problem occurs when officials came to his reservation and acted as if Bromden did not speak. This is to say that Bromden was not hiding behind something that he was not but rather adapting to it because of the conflict within himself of self-image. McMurphy is Bromden’s incentive for change because McMurphy helped him realize that he could be strong again and that there is such a thing as a choice. It is because of McMurphy that the haze that Bromden had been living with finally cleared up, “For the first time in years I was seeing people with none of that black outline they used to have, and one night I was even able to see out the windows.” McMurphy is the incentive that helps Bromden realize that there is more to life besides the set rules of the Combine and the asylum, he sees that he could be free and happy by escaping. The view of realism helps Chief Bromden finally realize that while the asylum is an