Metaphors of Society in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

757 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Metaphor is pervasive and universal in everyday life, not only in language but also in thought and action; our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is metaphorical in nature”

Metaphors of Society in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey's use of description and symbolism not only enhance the depth of the narrative, but they provide the reader with amazing insight into the character’s minds, hearts and souls. In fact, the characters themselves can be viewed as metaphors of society; not just the institution. R.P. McMurphy, for example represents the rebellious faction of society that was so loudly expressing itself during the sixties and seventies. He, like the hippies, challenges authority and brings about change by inciting others to rebel as well. He is both dynamic and crude, both funny and pitiable, as he rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Big Nurse. He encourages gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women and openly defies authority whenever possible. In the end, Nurse Ratched teaches him the ultimate lesson on authority, which could be seen as a warning against rebellion. His lobotomy is “the establishment” way of quieting the unruly protests of those brave enough to speak their minds. The character of Billy is also meant to show us that disobedience can have disastrous consequences, when the evil Nurse Ratched drives him to suicide. The Chief, who acts as the narrator, is a tall and strong Native American who pretends to be mute and deaf in order to protect himself from pain. His character is representative of the way society was very silent in the fifties until people finally couldn’t take it anymore and let their feelings be known with a vengeance. McMurphy rescues the Chief from his silence, and he returns the favor by rescuing McMurphy from life as a vegetable.

Converse...

... middle of paper ...

...the Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka case which struck down legal barriers to school integration. This was the first major success that black activists had enjoyed and it gave hope to the author that people really could make a difference when they were united, organized, and had justice on their side. It was in part, because of her enthusiasm about the outcome of the case that soon after the Supreme Court's Brown decision in 1954, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson wrote a letter to the mayor of Montgomery, W.A. Gayle, stating that "there has been talk from 25 or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses." By 1955, the Women's Political Council, the same council who had previously be disinterested in Robinson’s plight, had plans for just such a boycott. I found this to be personally inspir ing in the sense that one person really can make a difference.

Show More
Related

  • Corrption of Power On All in One Flew Over the Cuckoo´s Nest

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kesey through changing the structure of power in a society showed the similarity between the oppressed and the oppressor. This was a demonstration of the corruption of power, and a push back to the era. It symbolized an era of radical thinking of changing the power structure, but he advocated making all equal. In addition it exemplified the communist views of the era and the oppressive regime of those with absolute control. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest advocates the quest for equality in a time where disparity in power was great.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Individualism In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Crazy Horse Thesis

    660 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today Custer’s last stand is one of the most famous events in American History. Two Thousand Sioux Native Americans slaughtered General George Custer’s army of 600 men armed with guns. Crazy Horse was a very important leader in the Great Sioux War of 1876.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Individualism In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1919 Words  | 4 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental institution in the Pacific Northwest. The narrator of the novel is Chief Bromden, also known as Chief Broom, a catatonic half-Indian man whom everybody thinks is deaf and dumb. He often suffers from hallucinations in which he feels that the room is filled with fog. The institution is dominated by Nurse Ratched (Big Nurse), a cold, precise woman with calculated gestures and a calm, mechanical manner. When the story begins, a new patient, Randall Patrick McMurphy, arrives at the ward. He is a self-professed 'gambling fool' who has just come from a work farm at Pendleton. He introduces himself to the other men on the ward, including Dale Harding, the president of the patient's council, and Billy Bibbit, a thirty-year old man who stutters and appears very young. Nurse Ratched immediately pegs McMurphy as a manipulator.

    Read More

  • Symbols and Symbolism in Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    The cartoon symbolism demonstrated in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest helps create dynamic features and traits in each character. Bromden indicates early that the ward is "Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys..."( 31). Technicians in the hospital speak with voices that "are forced and too quick on the comeback to be real talk - more like cartoon comedy speech" (33). Kesey chooses to describe some of his characters as symbolic caricatures, and others as stock figures who outgrow their black outlines (Twayne). The Big Nurse remains a cartoon villain, funny in her excessive frustration and hateful in her manipulations towards the patients.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: 3 Points

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    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."

    Read More

  • One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Psychological Analysis

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • How Did The Montgomery Bus Boycott Impact The Civil Rights Movement

    1290 Words  | 3 Pages

    On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans perceived freedom and equality. Though the boycott ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional, this was not directly caused by the refusal to ride buses, and thus cannot be defined as the primary triumph of the boycott. Instead, the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeeded in changing the consciousness of millions of Americans, specifically southern blacks. A revolution of the mind was the greatest success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and this transformation occurred due to the small validations throughout the boycott that African Americans, as unified, free citizens, had power.

    Read More

  • 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

  • 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

  • Success and Failure of the Civil Rights Movement

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case, during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement.

    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

  • Napoleon Bonaparte

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    To some, he was an extraordinary military commander who led an army to victory. To others, he was a distinguished civil administrator, and yet others thought of him as a great man that was tossed complicated twists in his short life. He is both a historical figure and a legend and it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. There have been many successful military leaders through out time but no leader has ever taken over the whole world. This task was nearly accomplished by the greatest military leader in history better known as Napoleon Bonaparte was. In his lifetime, he took over most of Europe before conquering Moscow. History Place the publishers of the internet site napoleon Emperor of France had this to say about the way napoleon acted, "Having that much power can sometimes makes a man lose control and do bizarre things but in his short lifetime he was so puzzling to his opponents it drove them mad." All of these things help explain why Napoleon was a very complex person.

    Read More

  • The Role of African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement

    2574 Words  | 6 Pages

    Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson, and David J. Garrow. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: the Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson. Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1987. Print.

    Read More

More about Metaphors of Society in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Open Document