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Recommended: Literary elements of one flying over the cuckoo's nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Lina Tran pd.2 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey begins with a short introduction by the narrator, Chief Bromden. Chief Bromden is a half Indian Chronic at the ward. Chronics are patients that have been in the ward for so long that people assume that they will never check out. During the time that Bromden was there, he acted as a dumb deaf mute without being caught by anyone. Though his condition does not seem as bad as some of the other Chronics—some were vegetables—it was evident that Bromden had problems with hallucinations and delusions from the final line of the first chapter, “But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” After the introduction by the Chief, the story proceeds to a normal morning at the ward. The patients are sitting in the Day Room after their morning pills. Then a new patient, Randall McMurphy, checks in. McMurphy was a big redheaded man who loved to gamble and got transferred to the ward from a work farm. From the beginning, McMurphy had been hard to control. He refused any of the traditional check in routines that any new patient needed to follow including taking his admission shower. The Black Boys, the orderlies of the ward, went to get Nurse Ratched in attempt to put McMurphy in line. Nurse Ratched was head nurse of the ward. She needed to have control over everything. All of the patients feared Nurse Ratched, or as they sometimes call her, “Big Nurse.” That is everyone feared her until McMurphy. Because he refused to listen to Nurse Ratched, the “ruler” of the ward, it showed that there will be dismay between the two throughout the story. McMurphy continued to diminish Nurse Ratched’s sense of authority when got Dr. Spivey to bring up the idea of... ... middle of paper ... ...onducted prison and asylum reform. I never actually thought about the fact that the conditions for treatment were still relatively bad. I had the same thoughts as most people would have had about mental health patients in the 1950s-1980s. I felt that I would not want to be associated with people with mental illnesses before I read this book. After reading it and understanding that many mental patients could still act like normal people, it made me realize that I was judging a group of people without really knowing what any of them were really like—which was something that I should have never done. Also, this book made me grateful that I do not have a mental disorder. It made me realize that people with mental health problems live a hard life coping with their disorder and that I should be thankful for all that I have instead of complaining about the little things.

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    Randle McMurphy is in a constant battle within himself, he is portrayed as a sociopath. He does not base his actions off of whether they will affect those around him, instead does as he pleases. His actions are based off of what is best for himself. McMurphy was first introduced as a savior to the ward, He soon uses the patients for his own benefit, the patients look up to him as one of their new proclaimed leader. McMurphy inspires hope into them and make them want to stand up for themselves. This give

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    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

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    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

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  • Women as Authority Figures in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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    Nurse Ratched is portrayed as the authority figure in the hospital. The patients see no choice but to follow her regulations that she had laid down for them. Nurse Ratched's appearance is strong and cold. She has womanly features, but hides them “Her Face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive… A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing putting those big, womanly breasts on what would have otherwise been a prefect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.” (11) She kept control over the ward without weakness, until McMurphy came. When McMurphy is introduced into the novel he is laughing a lot, and talking with the patients in the ward, he does not seem intimidated by Miss Ratched. McMurphy constantly challenges the control of Nurse Ratched, while she tries to show she remains in control, He succeeds in some ways and lo...

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  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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    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.

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  • Comparison of Book and Movie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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    Mcmurphy's true character was lost in the writing of the screenplay, his. intelligence and cunning is lowered greatly by changes made by the screen. writers. The.. & nbsp; Ms. Ratched is a powerful woman in both the book and the movie. She knows how to play with people's minds and manipulate groups. She keeps a tight grip on the ward using subtle methods which cannot be ignored.

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  • How Does Power Abuse Power In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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    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

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  • Control in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

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    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.

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  • Similarities Between One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest And The Great Gatsby

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    In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) The character McMurphy as played by Jack Nicholson, McMurphy’s is a criminal who is troubled and keeps being defiant. Instead of pleading guilty, McMurphy pleads insanity and then lands inside a mental hospital. Murphy reasons that being imprisoned within the hospital will be just as bad as being locked up in prison until he starts enjoying being within by messing around with other staff and patients. In the staff, McMurphy continuously irritates Nurse Ratched. You can see how it builds up to a control problem between the inmates and staff. Nurse Ratched is seen as the “institution” and it is McMurphy’s whole goal to rebel against that institution that she makes herself out to be.The other inmates view McMurphy like he is god. He gives the inmates reason to

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

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  • Obedience And Disobedience In The Film 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'

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    Gibson and Mika Haritos-Fatouros, they inform readers about psychologist Stanley Milgram’s studies. “Milgram proposed that the reasons people obey or disobey authority fall into three categories. The first is personal history family or school backgrounds that encourage obedience or defiance. The second, which he called “binding,” is made up of ongoing experiences that make people feel comfortable when they obey authority. Strain, the third category, consists of bad feelings from unpleasant experiences connected with obedience,” ( Milgram 247). Although the nurse isn’t harmful the patients still feel obligated to respect and obey her. The complication begins when McMurphy joins the group. First of all, Randle McMurphy is not disturbed, he’s not crazy. He’s just a rebellious man who doesn’t follow any orders. He had the group steal a bus and steal a boat to go fishing and so he could spend time with his old friend Candy. He doesn’t respect Nurse Ratched and always seems to have a problem with her. He causes everyone to speak up, which isn’t a bad thing but causes disorder and the patients act up. For example, the scene where Cheswick starts yelling at the nurse and disobeys her orders doesn’t sit down and pouts about not getting his cigarettes back. From the start of the movie to the middle it seems that they were gaining a new authority figure, McMurphy himself. “The Greek example illustrates how the ability to torture can be taught. Training that increases binding and reduces strain can cause decent people to commit acts, often over long periods of time, that otherwise would be unthinkable for them” (Gibson, Haritos-Fatouros 249). The rebellious Mac has an influence on the rest of the ward to think it is okay to be against the rules. The quote “You bargained your freedom for the comfort of discipline,” (Jones Gibson, Haritos-Fatouros 247) has a similar meaning to McMurphy's actions. Mac gets a bit out of

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  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Manipulation Essay

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    Randall Patrick McMurphy is the protagonist of this novel. He is also a manipulator but unlike Ratched, McMurphy has good intentions. He decides to step up and help the patients because he sees no one is going anywhere. His method to helping the patients was to change everyone’s opinion and help them realize Ratched’s strictness and useless methods. He does this by explaining the pecking party, “And you want to know somethin’ else, buddy? You want to know who pecks that first peck? ..Harding waits for him to go on.. It’s that old nurse. that’s who.” (Kensey,58)

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  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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    An exceptionally tall, Native American, Chief Bromden, trapped in the Oregon psychiatric ward, suffers from the psychological condition of paranoid schizophrenia. This fictional character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest struggles with extreme mental illness, but he also falls victim to the choking grasp of society, which worsens Bromden’s condition. Paranoid schizophrenia is a rare mental illness that leads to heavy delusions and hallucinations among other, less serious, symptoms. Through the love and compassion that Bromden’s inmate, Randle Patrick McMurphy, gives Chief Bromden, he is able to briefly overcome paranoid schizophrenia and escape the dehumanizing psychiatric ward that he is held prisoner in.

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  • The Power of Manipulation

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    Nurse Ratched gains much of her power through the manipulation of the patients on the

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  • McMurphy as Hero of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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    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.

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