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Cuckoo nest character analysis essay
Analysis of one flew over the cuckoo nest
Metaphor in one flew over the cuckoo's nest example
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This passage in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, displays the distrust that the other Acutes, patients in the mental ward, begin to have for McMurphy. They question McMurphy’s intentions for helping the patients of the ward. He gets rules lifted for the other men and acquires them things from outside of the mental ward, such as magazines. All the questionings from the patients are insinuated by the Big Nurse and the rumors she spreads. The major theme that is being displayed in this portion of the novel is the absolute power that an authority controls. The theme is highlighted throughout the passage through use of plot and how drastically things changed in the ward over time. It is pivotal to first understand the theme of this …show more content…
passage, before the literary elements used can be used to put it into the context of the rest of the book. In the novel it is stated that, “the next time she made her play she made sure it wasn’t at the meeting” (Kesey 263). This is an important line in the passage because it shows how much power the Big Nurse truly holds as an authority figure in the mental ward. It shows how she would had been able to manipulate the men in the ward had it not been for the intrusion of McMurphy at the meeting prior to this quote. This is further supported by exercising her authoritative power when she had planned to, “see to it that the Main Building made an investigation of the dirt that had been brought into the hospital” (Kesey 263). Her beginning able to undo McMurphy’s scheme to bring in magazines with seemingly no effort supports the claim that she has absolute power in the hospital. These are examples, in the passage, of the Big Nurse using her power as an authoritative figure, which coincides with the theme of absolute power in the passage. The overarching plot of the novel must also be taken in to consideration when looking at the theme of absolute power.
At this point in the novel, the other men of the ward are enamored by McMurphy. He provides them with a sense of what society is like outside of the ward. Thus, they back him up when he makes acts of rebellion against the Big Nurse, such as when he protested the men having their cigarettes taken away. With that in mind, the men’s question of his motives is a stark contrast from the relationship to McMurphy they had previously. In this passage it says that when, “matching her fixed plastic smile with his big ornery grin, they weren’t exactly laughing” (Kesey 262). Here the Big Nurse uses her power turn the men against Murphy who, prior in the novel, is established to be very close with the other men at the ward, as seen on the fishing trip they went on. The Big Nurse had, earlier in the novel, set up rumors about McMurphy and his intentions which, subsequently, made the men begin to question McMurphy. The sheer amount of power she wields as an authority figure is staggering when considering she was able to turn the men against McMurphy with a rumor, whereas McMurphy has been building his trust with the other ward mates since he arrived at the ward. By taking into context the plot of the novel, from before this passage took place; it is made clear how the Big Nurse embodies the theme of absolute power as an authority
figure. The Big Nurse’s rule over the ward mates is absolute when considering the rest of the events of the plot. She uses this authority to not only control the interworking of the ward, but the people who reside in the ward as well. It is critical to look at the theme of absolute power in authority figures because of the context it further provides to the rest of the novel. Through use of the plot, and its relationship to the rest of the novel, the power of the Big Nurse could fully be explored. The use of her manipulation of the ward mates, when taking into consideration the bonds of friendship that were formed with McMurphy, go to show how easily the Big Nurse is able to change the way everything around her works, not only in this passage of the book, but in the entire novel itself.
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
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 a staff meeting, Nurse Ratched gains her composure, and decides to use her position of authority to her advantage, when other professionals question whether McMurphy should be sent back to the working farm: “I expect her to get mad, but she doesn't; she just gives him that let’s-wait-and-see look...we have weeks, or months, or even years if need be. Keep in mind that Mr. McMurphy is committed. The length of time he spends in his hospital is entirely up to us” (157-158). The Big Nurse is only keeping McMurphy under her jurisdiction so that she can redeem herself, and come back full force, towards McMurphy. The more time that she has with McMurphy, the more likely she is to win the battle against
The Big Nurse thrives from the power she holds over the men in the ward. When her power, the thing she values the most, is challenged, she cannot function properly. This not only affects her regular behavior, but the order that the ward is run with too. Chief Bromden comments that “all the machinery is quiet,” indicating the lack of force the nurse is exerting on the patients. This is to say, she isn’t able to influence the patients once her superiority is put to the test by McMurphy. Even the fog, which drugs the men into following her commands, seems to not be functioning. I predict that the Big Nurse is insecure about her practices, and pretends to be so cold and fearless, when in reality, she isn’t so fierce. The nurse can be compared to
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
The word “power” is defined in many ways. There is not a specific statement that defines what power is or what it’s supposed to be. Power can make or break a person or even an entire nation. Power is a measure of an entity’s ability to control the environment around itself, including the behavior of other entities. Ken Kesey, the author of the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, shows us the difference in power and control among the strong nurses and the men in the psychiatric ward. The men who are placed in the ward are controlled by Nurse Ratched, who takes control of situations the same way she did when she was an army nurse. Nurse Ratched is used to the men on the ward obeying her until a man named R.P. McMurphy is admitted. McMurphy is a strong man who had power and control in the outside world and continues to show his power and control once he is in admitted which creates a lot of conflicts within the story. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
In the novel, Ms. Ratched just removed the tub room, which was used as a game room, from the patients, this angered McMurphy, so he decided to do something subtle to get revenge on Ms. Ratched. In the novel, it says, “The Big Nurse’s eyes swelled out as he got close . . . He stopped in front of her window and he said in his slowest, deepest drawl how he figured he could use one of the smokes he bought this mornin’, then the ran his hand through the glass . . . He got one of the cartons of cigarettes with his name on it and took out a pack . . . ‘I’m sure sorry ma’am,’ he said ‘Gawd but I am. That window glass was so spick and span I com-pletely forgot it was there’” (201). This quotation demonstrates that, even though Ms. Ratched has more power than McMurphy, she is still frightened of him, and that he might do something to either take away her power, or he might do something to hurt her physically. This also demonstrates how much power McMurphy has gained so far over Ms. Ratched. In the novel, Ms. Ratched tries to take away all of the power that McMurphy has gained over her by blaming McMurphy for making the lives of the hospital patients worse, and that McMurphy was the cause for the deaths of patients William Bibbit and Charles Cheswick. This angers McMurphy, and causes him to choke her with the intent to kill
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.
They both realize that in order to get their own way, they must gain control over their rival and the ward. McMurphy and Nurse Ratched have different methods of attaining and using what control they have. They have different motives for seeking control over others. They also have different perceptions of the amount of control they possess. Throughout the novel, these two characters engulf themselves in an epic struggle for the most control.
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
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey presents a situation which is a small scale and exaggerated model of modern society and its suppressive qualities. The story deals with the inmates of a psychiatric ward who are all under the control of Nurse Ratched, ‘Big Nurse’, whose name itself signifies the oppressive nature of her authority. She rules with an iron fist so that the ward can function smoothly in order to achieve the rehabilitation of patients with a variety of mental illnesses. Big Nurse is presented to the reader through the eyes of the Chief, the story’s narrator, and much of her control is represented through the Chief’s hallucinations. One of these most recurring elements is the fog, a metaphorical haze keeping the patients befuddled and controlled “The fog: then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s lost in the fog, like everyone else” (Kesey 69). Another element of her control is the wires, though the Chief only brings this u...
Nobody like him had ever been in the ward before. He came in singing and
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, 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
In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Randle Patrick McMurphy blustered his way into the world of a mental hospital and takes over the stringent rule of Nurse Ratched. McMurphy is perceived as a Christ figure in this book as Kesey uses prefigures to develop the characters in this book.