Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

1249 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The concept of power

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a trip to the interior of a human mind that cannot fit into society. The book introduces us to several characters, and the author deepens each one of them, showing us how they came to the state they are in and how the patients can quickly lose their sanity. Of course, it also criticizes the way the psychiatric hospitals cared for its patients during that time, where the “doctors” could not understand that their treatments were harmful to the patients. Both the psychological side as the clinical side of a psychiatric hospital is very well portrayed in the book. The author shows us the daily routine of the patients, transporting the reader into a real sanatorium, showing the patient’s fears, anxieties, and …show more content…

Finding his sentence somewhat hard, being condemned to work in the Pendleton Farm for Correction, McMurphy plays smart and pretends to be mad, seeking escape from prison and leading a good and easy life in a psychiatric hospital while waiting for freedom. However, his attitudes don’t show any problems with his mental health, which instigates several discussions between him, Nurse Ratched, and the doctors at the clinic. McMurphy is a captivating character. He is a player, a born rebel, a lover of life's pleasures, and as he says, he is accustomed to “being top man” (19). McMurphy’s stormy ways of being completely changes the hospital’s climate, entering a fierce and never-ending fight with the head nurse Ratched. From the moment he arrives he goes against any employee system, which makes him a hero and a leader for the other patients, who could not challenge the rules of the institution. “I thought I might take advantage of this and maybe make both our lives a little more richer” (71), McMurphy tells the patients. What makes him such a special character is that he never treats the people as patients, as someone different from all that surrounded them, he treats them like “normal” people, shaking their hand, encouraging them to question the life they lead, and enjoy simple pleasures. “He has the superhero’s efficacious physical power but, like …show more content…

They are subjected to punishments such as electric shocks, and in more extreme cases, to lobotomy. These punishments seem to function not only to punish those who do not respect the rules, but also to horrify the patients, keeping them on absolute control. Most of the patients are confused about reality. And as Pratt mentions, “What one person accepts as reality may well be regarded as delusional and schizophrenic by another.” (Pratt’s Introduction xii). We also observe that although many patients are there voluntarily, they don’t really feel free. They are manipulated to think that they will never be ready to leave the hospital and face reality, making them lose their hope of freedom. One of the biggest examples of this is in Part 4, where Billy is repressed by the nurse Ratched in a way that he ends up committing suicide. “Oh, Billy Billy Billy – I’m so ashamed for you” (300), Ratched says. Whether the person that enters the hospital is completely crazy or completely sane, they will certainly get worse in

Show More
Related

  • Emotions In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    The author Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and went to Stanford University. He volunteered to be used for an experiment in the hospital because he would get paid. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey brings up the past memories to show how Bromden is trying to be more confident by using those thoughts to make him be himself. He uses Bromden’s hallucinations, Nurse Ratched’s authority, and symbolism to reveal how he’s weak, but he builds up more courage after each memory.

    Read More

  • Did Mcmurphy Change In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, patients live locked up in a restricted domain, everyday taking orders from the dictator, Nurse Ratched. Once McMurphy enters this asylum, he starts to rally everyone up and acting like this hospital is a competitive game between him and Nurse Ratched. McMurphy promotes negative behavior, such as, gambling and going against the rules, to mess around with the nurses and so he can be the leader that everyone looks up to. McMurphy soon learns that he might not be in control after all. Nurse Ratched decides who will be let out and when. After realizing why no one has stood up to Nurse Ratched before, he starts to follow rules and obey the nurses. This changes the whole mood of the hospital,

    Read More

  • Inside the Cuckoo's Nest

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a film directed by Czech Milos Forman in 1975. Using potent elements of fiction--characters, conflict, and symbolism--Forman illustrates the counterculture of the 1960’s. This film depicts American society as an insane asylum that demands conformity from its citizens. The film begins with a conniving convict being assigned to the asylum. R. P. McMurphy is sent to the asylum to be evaluated by the doctors and to determine whether or not he is mentally ill. He is unaware that he will be supervised by an emasculating woman named Nurse Mildred Ratched who watches the patients’ every motion from her nurse’s station.

    Read More

  • 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”.

    Read More

  • Human Nature In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Based in an asylum and told through the eyes of one of the insane patients, the reader builds a connection with the characters as they try to fight the cruelty and control of the hospital staff. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a book of high literary value, teacheing of man’s interminable struggle against society’s control over law and what it deems normal human behavior. It contains many literary devices that require readers to analyze the text in order to fully comprehend what is occurring in the story. Parents have made this book a very controversial subject, because of some of the inappropriate words and scenes in the book.The controversy over the banning of this book from school curriculum is a difficult situation because of what parents

    Read More

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is set in a mental hospital in Oregon. The novel is divided into four parts. Parts One, Two and Four are set in the hospital itself. In Part Three, the patients from the hospital go on a deep-sea fishing trip, and the setting is the boat. Except for a few outsiders, the characters are either patients or employees of the hospital. Kesey has drawn from his own experience to give the reader an insider's view of the hospital.

    Read More

  • Insanity: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Keyse

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a compelling tale that brings a warning of the results of an overly conformist and repressive institution. As the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chief Bromden, a paranoid half- Native American Indian man, has managed to go unnoticed for ten years by pretending to be deaf and dumb as a patient at an Oregon mental asylum. While he towers at six feet seven inches tall, he has fear and paranoia that stem from what he refers to as The Combine: an assemblage whose goal is to force society into a conformist mold that fits civilization to its benefit. Nurse Ratched, a manipulative and impassive former army nurse, dominates the ward full of men, who are either deemed as Acute (curable), or Chronic (incurable). A new, criminally “insane” patient named Randle McMurphy, who was transferred from the Pendleton Work Farm, eventually despoils the institution’s mechanical and monotonous schedule through his gambling, womanizing, and rollicking behavior.

    Read More

  • Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    2040 Words  | 5 Pages

    Kappel, Lawrence. Readings on One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Print.

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    76 Words  | 1 Pages

    One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, filmed in 1975, based on the 1962 novel of the same name, tell a story about the lack of autonomy for mental health patients due to rigid rules of conformity, manipulation and authority. The Institutionalised Mental Hospital is where the patients are mainly governed through a paternalistic and/or authoritative approach which results in a general lack of autonomy in the film. This leads to the following ethical problems such

    Read More

  • Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mcmurphy is first brought into the ward to be diagnosed for psychopathy. Although Mcmurphy is a prisoner for having an affair with a fifteen year old and having multiple violations against the law for fighting, he plays as the hero throughout the story by giving the patients a voice and standing up to nurse Ratcher. When Mcmurphy is first introduced he makes a lot the patients anxious due to his high energy but he breaks the ice and the sad mood of

    Read More

  • Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    677 Words  | 2 Pages

    McMurphy does so by exposing the hidden truth kept away by Nurse Ratched and reminding patients to stand up and rebel against the cruelty she imposes on them. First of all, McMurphy comes to the rescue when Nurse Ratched, whose main purpose is to help patients feel safe and reach their full potential; regardless she openly exploits patients to the point of humiliation making them feel unwelcome, and terrified from sharing their own opinions. For instance, when mental patients Dale Harding expresses his feelings of insecurity with his spouse, McMurphy reminds him that if “The flock geta sight of a speck of blood on some chicken they all go to peckin it…Till there is nothing left but blood and bones and feathers.”(24) Despite the fact that McMurphy is still an outsider at this point in the plot and his no relations or friendship with Harding, yet he still decides to advise Harding to stand up for himself or else it might come back to hurt him in the coming future. Secondly, when Nurse Ratched victimizes her patients out of their privileges, McMurphy is quick to help the patients realize they need to stand up to the Nurse in order to not get deceived. For example, when Billy solemnly agrees to Nurse Ratched’s orders, however McMurphy tells Billy to “Don’t move” and just “sit down”

    Read More

  • Who Is The Antagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1186 Words  | 3 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest guides the audience through the unforgettable story of the protagonist, Randle McMurphy. McMurphy is an incarcerated convict who pleads insanity with the hope of getting transferred to a mental ward. Unbeknownst to McMurphy, the cosy prison time he imagined turns out to be not only a physical prison but also a prison of the mind. The devilish antagonist, Nurse Ratched, rules this ‘prison' with an iron fist, but the newly admitted McMurphy soon opposes her. McMurphy and Nurse Ratched fight for influence over the ward's patients; however, during McMurphy's battle with Nurse Ratched, he feels within himself a strong emotion towards the ward's

    Read More

  • 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.

    Read More

  • Hidden Failures of Institutionalized Care in Kesey’s Novel

    416 Words  | 1 Pages

    One of the central themes in Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, surrounds the ward institution’s hidden failure at performing its civic duty. An institution for the mentally insane is designed to help treat and cure people that are mentally wounded and are not able to function and adapt to the current society. Many patients are convicted to these institutions, but like a majority of the acutes in the novel, they are volunteering because they are aware of the fact that if they were living in the real world, they could not survive. Where the ward fails is with the strict rules and regulations that Nurse Ratched implements that have the appearance of being helpful to the patients, but are actually restricting them from fully healing.

    Read More

More about Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Open Document