Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” illustrate that mentally ill people can be manipulated by the power of authority. For example, when Mr. Harding falls victim to the regular stream of embarrassing questions and accusations posed by the Acutes during a Group Therapy session, Randle McMurphy is disgusted by what he sees. He compares the meeting to a “pecking party,” in which “the flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds” (57). He implies that Nurse Ratched – the dominant head of the mental institution – instigates the violence by “peck[ing] that first peck” (58). She has convinced the patients that interrogation …show more content…
will benefit Harding’s recovery process and, despite feeling ashamed of themselves for condemning a friend, the men are unwilling to question her superior wisdom. It can even be argued that McMurphy’s allusion to chickens symbolizes the patients’ lack of control under Nurse Ratched, as chickens are commonly exploited as livestock.
Similarly, in “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” Metallica references the aggressive treatments performed by a mental institution as a means for both curing the sick and inspiring rebellion. The singer declares, “they think our heads are in their hands / But violent use brings violent plans / Keep him tied, it makes him well / He's getting better, can't you tell?” A mentally ill man refers to the violent methods with which he is treated as the inspiration for his equally “violent plans” to revolt against his oppressors. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy decides to challenge Nurse Ratched after discovering how she manipulates the patients into attacking one another during Group Therapy. He recognizes the effect she has had on the other men and refuses to be influenced by her …show more content…
supremacy. Furthermore, as it is often suggested that McMurphy is not a psychopath – only pretending to be one –, he alone may possess the ability to resist the Nurse’s command. In addition, whether literally or metaphorically, Nurse Ratched has the power to manipulate time within the ward.
When a man is being visited by his wife, for instance, she seems to increase the speed of time so as to limit his enjoyment. More often, though, Chief Bromden states that “she’ll turn that dial to a dead stop and freeze the sun there on the screen so it don’t move a scant hair for weeks… The clock hands hang at two minutes to three and she’s liable to let them hang there till we rust” (77). This example shows that, with Nurse Ratched altering time throughout the hospital, she holds complete control over her patients. They are bound to an endless cycle of meals, appointments, meetings, and games of Monopoly, without any way of taking charge of their own lives. Time is constant and unchangeable; therefore, any question of the Nurse’s control would only be dismissed as a symptom of insanity. Likewise, Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” refers to a psychiatric patient’s frustration at his daily, inflexible routine. He sings, “welcome to where time stands still / No one leaves and no one will / Moon is full, never seems to change / Just labelled mentally deranged.” In his “mentally deranged” state, the man feels as if time has frozen, lengthening his years of confinement and preventing the possibility of release. His perspective is similar to that of Chief Bromden, who has faced the tediousness of the hospital and the time-freezing of Nurse Ratched for over ten
years. However, as a patient – and especially one deemed “deaf and dumb” –, Bromden is defenseless against the undertakings of the Nurse. Thus, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” illustrate that authoritative figures can often succeed in taking advantage of the mentally ill.
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 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,
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
In the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the characters are in a mental hospital for various reasons. Narrated by Chief Bromden, a large Native American man, the story tells mainly of a newcomer to the hospital, Randle McMurphy, who is not actually mentally ill, but pretends to be to escape work detail. A much-feared middle-aged woman named Mildred Ratched runs the hospital. She runs the hospital like a concentration camp, with harsh rules, little change, and almost no medical oversight. The “prisoners” have a large amount of fear of Nurse Ratched, as she rules the place like she is a soulless dictator, the patients get no say in any decision made. This is exemplified when McMurphy brings up the World Series, and the patients take a vote on it. Though everyone wants to watch it, they have so much fear for Nurse Ratched that they are too afraid to speak out against her wishes.
So no matter how patriotic Clevingers tear filled speech was death is death and nobody wants that fate. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest McMurphy tries to make the outside world seem so good which is true to the reader because of the reader’s knowledge of the evil plans that Nurse Ratchet has in store. However, the characters are not mentally ready for the outside world. They have been locked up for so long in the "prison" that they could not handle the evils presented to them by other people. Nurse Ratchet has taken away their self-confidence and they can not deal with other people criticism. In the part of the novel when McMurphy takes them on a fishing trip, it is seen how fragile they are. In the bait shop they are torn down buy the loafers there and they really loose confidence. The prison has impacted them and will leave a permanent scar mentally.
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.
Throughout the Cuckoo’s Nest Chief Bromden is stuck in the “fog” living in his past memories. Bromden views Nurse Ratched as the time keeper, able to speed up or slow down the clock in turn making time unbearable at times. The only escape he has is the “fog” where time does not exist (Kesey 75). These hallucinations of the fog have Bromden believe that the other patients are lost in the fog as well. These thoughts are delusional of Bromden; however, metaphorically they hold true. Nurse Ratched maintains a status quo that tends to dilute the patients senses and her routine makes the time seem to go by too fast or too slow. These situations are the reason Bromden uses the fog to escape; it provides him a haven and often times a happy place where he reminisces of the times he spent with his father. Although the fog helps Bromden escape it also sometimes brings back memories of the war and the sounds he heard when he was under attack. There’s a similarity between the enemies of war and Nurse Ratched in which he feels he can’t be harmed when he’s hiding in the fog.
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
In Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author refers to the many struggles people individually face in life. Through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, the novel explores the themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity. With these themes, Kesey makes various points which help us understand which situations of repression can lead an individual to insanity. These points include: the effects of sexual repression, woman as castrators, and the pressures we face from society to conform. Through these points, Kesey encourages the reader to consider that people react differently in the face of repression, and makes the reader realize the value of alternative states of perception, rather than simply writing them off as "crazy."
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
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
“Power comes from temperament but enthusiasm kills the switch”. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken kesey reveals how the struggle for power and authority is shown in the psychiatric hospital. Ken kesey expresses this mastery through Nurse Ratched and McMurphy and their effect on the patients in the ward. Nurse Ratched has all the power due to her technically being in charge of the ward. The patients “men” are powerless with their acceptance and obedience to her actions. However, everything changes when McMurphy arrives. His confidence and charisma give him some type of power that challenges and disrupts the Nurse’s drunkening thirst for power. Power in this novel is lost, gained and repossessed.
Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a story about a band of patients in a mental ward who struggle to find their identity and get away from the wretched Nurse. As audiences read about the tale, many common events and items seen throughout the story actually represent symbols for the bigger themes of the story. Symbols like the fishing trip, Nurse, and electroshock therapy all emphasize the bigger themes of the story. The biggest theme of the story is oppression. Throughout the course of the story, patients are suppressed and fight to find who they really are.
Goodfriend, Wind. "Mental Hospitals in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”." "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" Psychology Today, 22 May 2012. Web. 01 May 2014.