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 …show more content…
He views them as a form of unwinding and passing time. When the Big Nurse withdrawals cigarettes from him, his behavior turns from calm to aggressive and he breaks a window. This indicates just how far people will go for their beliefs. McMurphy’s belief is that a cigarette provides the amount of comfort needed to relax in an environment he finds so unnerving. I predict that despite the Big Nurse’s efforts to take one of the patient’s source of happiness, he will always make sure to get his vengeance on her one way or another. I think this because it happened in the situation with the cigarettes, so if she takes his poker games away, something similar will occur. The first sentence of the quote uses a simile to describe how McMurphy broke the glass window. By comparing the window breaking into shards with water splashing, the narrator indicates just how quickly and swiftly the event happened. Water splashes in one swift motion, and the smallest touch sends a ripple effect. McMurphy must’ve punched the window with such severity that it all broke at once and pieces of glass ended dispersed all over the …show more content…
He values this trait in others too, and when the Chief sees just how deceiving McMurphy can be, he is dumbfounded. Just as quick as he trusted McMurphy in the first place, Bromden lost his trust once he saw the con man for what he really is. This can be applied to everyday life as well, because there are so many scams out in the world that people are afraid to trust others. Once Chief Bromden sees what McMurphy is capable of, the Chief understands why the Big Nurse is so skeptical of him. McMurphy always acts according to his ethics, which consist of maintaining having the upper hand in all situations. The narrator provides indirect characterization for McMurphy. By describing his actions and how the man thinks, the reader can interpret McMurphy’s behavior to discover some of his traits. Since McMurphy plays with the thinking of others, I can infer that he is sly and calculating. Additionally, since McMurphy looked reluctant to bet, I can infer that the man is skilled in acting, because he obviously knew the outcome of the bet but pretended
Chief Bromden states “The air is pressed in by the walls to tight to let loose and laugh.” Before Mcmurphy arrives it is true. After his presence is recognized by the patients Mrs. Ratcheds grip over the institution starts loosing its hold. The first thing the patients do to start breaking her hold is start the gambling. They gamble for money even though it’s against ward policy. Little by little the patients show improvement with themselves it is portrayed by the ability not just to laugh but laugh at their own qualities.
Mc Teigue and Kesey use the characters V and McMurphy as recurring symbols to convey the concept that ideas are bulletproof. The character V is both physically and mentally strong, “Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”, the symbolic potential of V is made unquestionably aware to the audience, V is explicitly shown as the vessel of the idea. Similarly, Kesey uses McMurphy’s character as a symbol of the same concept, “that crummy sideshow fake lying there on the Gurney” Bromden is referring to McMurphy’s body, Scanlon calls it “fake” therefore denying the fact that McMurphy has passed. This shows that even though McMurphy is not physically present, his legacy still lives on in the patients’ minds. The idea which he represented of breaking free from the conforms of the corrupt authority at the hospital is stronger than him. Therefore, reinforcing...
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
White characters such as Nurse Ratched and McMurphy show surprise that he is able to speak and understand them while the black boys claim that Indians can't read or write. Bromden justifies that he is victim to racial inequality when people look "at me [him] like I'm [he’s] some kind of bug" (26) or when people "see right through me [him] like I [he] wasn't there." Throughout Bromden's childhood, he realized that the white people thought he was deaf and mute and that even if he spoke, no one could hear him. In order to survive through the dangers of the social hierarchy he existed in through the ward, he feigns deafness. Bromden points out that, "it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all." (178) Bromden, has also been constantly abused by the staff and other patients at the ward who call him Chief Broom, a derogation of his name as Chief and a mockery of his floor mopping “duties” in the ward that the black boys force upon him. Bromden's circumstances is illustrative of his race and of his entire tribe. The social criticism that Kesey portrays, emerges piecemeal through Bromden’s constant flashbacks and hallucinations of his village. Kesey compares Native Indian cohesion with the new estrangement accompanying the loss of Indian cultures and the adjustment of a white lifestyle to show the social unity once created by Indian traditions. By the end of
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
Bromden, the narrator, always vies himself as small, even though he’s actually a large person. To him, McMurphy is big, which he says metaphorically. In the passage, McMurphy makes the patients big: “It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger. I watched, part of them, laughing with them- and somehow not with them. I was off the boat, blown up off the water and skating the wind with those black birds, high above myself…” (Kesey 249-250). People who are small are weak and powerless, like Bromden and the patient’s, scared and willing to submit to power. Meanwhile, people who are big, like McMurphy, are confident and not afraid. McMurphy made the men “bigger”, more powerful, just by laughing and giving them confidence. All in all, the metaphor and contrast between being big and small reveal how McMurphy made them stronger and more confident just by being
In the book as McMurphy progresses, he goes through many stages where he is rebellious, then docile, then rebellious again. This is due to the fact that he learns exactly what it means to be committed and what it takes to be released. Then he begins to see that all his ward mates (I don't know what you want to call them) are counting on him. becomes rebellious again. These reactions to his environments encourage McMurphy is not crazy but intelligent and quick. This is exactly the case. way a character such as McMurphy should act. In the movie, McMurphy is not only wild but rude. He tried to never be outright rude in the book. aggravating for the nurse) yet in the movie he was. He never stopped being. wild in the movie, leading you to believe that maybe in fact he is crazy.
McMurphy’s resistance against Nurse Ratched begins to awaken Bromden’s own ability to resist the grip of the nurse. Bromden slowly starts to see that he is an individual that possesses his own free will; in turn the fog begins to fade. Through Clarisse’s love of nature she begins to open Montag up to a world outside conformity. She see’s that Montag is not like everyone else and that he has the potential to become a free thinking individual. Clarisse is able to force Montag to confront his deeper issues with reality eventually making him realize his own potential.
In the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the audience is shown the character of Mc Murphy who brought out the conflict of authority, obedience, and disobedience. The film introduces Nurse Ratched as head of the ward and the main authority figure. What this essay will focus on is if Nurse Ratched really ever is negligent? She is simply just doing her job. Would Mcmurphy be considered to be the so-called “evil” character in the film? When he arrives he causes so much chaos between the patients and the nurses. Would the audience agree Mcmurphy is even responsible for a patient's death within the ward?
Throughout the novel, women tend to be in control. “We are victims of a matriarchy here, my friend” Harding said. Harding tells McMurphy how the doctor is as helpless against anything as they are. He cannot fire or hire people or decide who gets to leave or stay. That decision is for the supervisor and she’s a woman, a good friend of Nurse Ratched, making the Big Nurse do anything she wants with them without the fear of losing her job. She uses rules she calls ‘ward policy’ to keep the patients in check. From listening to the same loud music
McMurphy’s dereliction of Nurse Ratched’s rules not only provides entertainment for Bromden and the other patients, but also acts as an impetus for their own rebellion.... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Fassler, Joe. A. "The Endless Depths of Moby-Dick Symbolism."
As he tries to conform to the ways of the hospital, he actually becomes more like the patients that he detests. In one last attempt to escape from the hospital, McMurphy uses his cunning wit and skills as a con man to persuade the orderly into opening a window to allow two women into the ward. As the nigh progresses and he has the perfect opportunity to flee he realizes the hospital is the only safe place to stay. Due to Randal McMurphy rebellious ways and non-conformist ideas, the hospital performs a lobotomy, which during the time of this movie, w...
The novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey depicts the ongoing war between the authoritative head nurse, Miss Ratched, and the cowardly patients in the psychiatric ward. This battle between staff and patients begins when Mcmurphy, a ………, is transferred to this mental asylum. He challenges Miss Ratched’s power and hardily reveals her intentions to the rest of the ward patients. Billy Bibbit, Harding, and Chief are some of the main patients in the story who are subject to her cruel and deceptive system. Nurse Ratched’s emasculates the patients in the ward by skill of manipulation in order to maintain control and power over the ward, yet her dominance is eventually defeated.
After reading Joyce Carol Oates story, “ The Night Nurse,” revenge is what is found. This story starts off by a woman by the name of Grace Burkhardt, collapsing at a shopping mall because of a reason that was unknown at the time. She is taken in an ambulance to a hospital where she undergoes an emergency surgery for a blood clot that is in her leg that could have traveled to her heart. Grace’s stay in the hospital that night was not how she expected. The worst pain a person can indure, is the one who is left out. In the beginning of the story Grace explains herself as being laid back. “I am behaving well, look how calm and civilized” (654). Grace never screamed out at the shopping mall. She tried to act as calm as possible. Even though Grace was in so much pain, she never sobbed to God or never did she ask, “Am I dying? Will I die” (654)? Shortly after the doctors took care of Grace, she went into surgery. After this is when her attitude begins to change.
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.