More handpicked essays just for you.
Themes of one flying over the cuckoo's nest
Themes of one flying over the cuckoo's nest
Themes of one flying over the cuckoo's nest
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“Then why? Why? You’re just a young guy! You ought a be out running around in a convertible, bird-dogging girls. All of this” - he sweeps his hand around him again - “why do you stand for it?”(Kesey 31)In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a major theme is societal pressure vs self. Ken Kesey captures this classical conflict between expectations and reality through his portrayal of, Billy Bibbit. Questioning society’s definition of sanity, Ken Kesey portrays his disagreement with the norms with his characterization of Billy Bibbit, the influence and legitimacy of society’s views, and the constitution of normal behavior. Billy Bibbit is characterized as a young man who manifests his lack of confidence with a stutter. Nurse Ratched, the matron
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.
In my opinion the main theme of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is conformity. The patients at this mental institution, or at least the one in the Big Nurse’s ward, find themselves on a rough situation where not following standards costs them many privileges being taken away. The standards that the Combine sets are what makes the patients so afraid of a change and simply conform hopelessly to what they have since anything out of the ordinary would get them in trouble. Such conformity is what Mc Murphy can not stand and makes him bring life back to the ward by fighting Miss Ratched and creating a new environment for the patients. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest represents a rebellion against the conformity implied in today’s society.
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
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.
Ken Kesey presents his masterpiece, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with popular culture symbolism of the 1960s. This strategy helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Music and cartoons of the times are often referred to in the novel. These help to exaggerate the characters and the state of the mental institution.
As medical advances are being made, it makes the treating of diseases easier and easier. Mental hospitals have changed the way the treat a patient’s illness considerably compared to the hospital described in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Hunt, John W. "Flying the Cuckoo's Nest: Kesey's Narrator as Norm." Lex et Scientia 13 (1977): 27-32. Rpt. in A Casebook on Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1992. 13-23.
In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey argued that this presumed model society was actually quite the opposite. Kesey argued this through the use of the characters in the novel. Nurse Ratched was a character who symbolized the communist rule in Russia, and she displayed absolute power over the patients in the ward. She was depicted as what was wrong with society, and the patients feared her as the Americans feared communists. Randle McMurphy retaliated against Nurse Ratched in order to challenge her control, just as the Americans fought against Communism in the Cold War. Although it seemed as though there were some positive aspects of domestic life in the 1950s, Ken Kesey argued that American society at the time was tainted due to the roles of fear, the rejection of those who were different, and t...
The main female presence throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched, expresses her dominance over male patients, thereby deviating from the expected role of nurses in society. Most often, the nurse’s strict rules and punishments emasculate the men rather than empower them. Generally, nurses are perceived to be caring and compassionate towards their patients and compliant to doctors or higher ranked co-workers. Nurse Ratched clearly defies the stereotypical roles of a nurse by completely emasculating men. Because the nurse was a former military nurse, her ward runs similar to those run in the military: “Army nurses, trying to run an Army hospital” (Kesey 240). She implemented rigid rules and policies that can be seen as both necessary yet unjust. Within these policies are strict punishments she often imposes on the male patients unwilling to
Viktus, Daniel J. "Madness and Misogyny in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics Madness and Civilization 14 (1994): 64-90. Web. 12 May 2017. http://www4.ncsu.edu/~leila/documents/VitkusonKesey.pdf
Malin, Irving. “Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Critique 5.2 (1962): 81-84. Rpt. in Kesey 440-444.
When Billy Bibbit was caught by Nurse Ratched with candy the prostitute he blamed McMurphy for forcing him to do that because he was scared the nurse would tell his mother." What worries me, Billy,” she said I could hear the change in her voice-”is how your mother is going to take this.” (Kesey pg.301) ”Duh-duh-don’t t-tell, M-M-M-Miss Ratched. Duh-duh-duh-----””Billy, I have to tell. I hate to believe you would behave like this, but, really, what else can I think? I find you alone, on a mattress, with this sort of woman.” ”No! I d-d-didn’t. I was--” (Kesey pg.301) “Billy this girl could not have pulled you in here forcibly.” She shook her head. “Understand, I would like to believe something else--for your poor mother’s sake.” (pg.302) “She d-did.” He looked around him. “And M-M-McMurphy! He did And Harding! And the-the-the rest! They t-t-teased me, called me things!”(Kesey pg. 302) “They m-m-made me! Please, M-Miss Ratched, they may-may-May---!”(Kesey pg.302)
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."
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
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.