“The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak” (Kesey 60). This quote from Ken Kesey’s (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) illustrates that the weak are simply prey to be eaten and used by those with more power; the weak are used as a stepping stool for the strong to gain more control. In this novel the patients are the weaklings, whereas the staff of the mental hospital are the strong who are preying on the weak. Randle McMurphy, a boisterous rebel, turns the hospital upside down by convincing the other patients that Nurse Ratched is brainwashing them. Kesey is known for bringing his characters to life, by incorporating many realistic scenarios to show the audience just how their life works. Kesey …show more content…
does this by applying several literary devices to create this theme. He includes an analogy to compare the similarities of chickens at a pecking party to how The Big Nurse manipulates the patients to turn against each other. Kesey also incorporates an antagonist and a protagonist in the novel, imagery to get the reader to picture the environment the patients are housed in , and provides a setting which is in a mental hospital in Oregon. The protagonist, McMurphy, is always testing his limits in the hospital. The way he works the staff and The Big Nurse reveals that he is trouble. When the story begins, McMurphy is a new patient at the hospital who already has everyone’s attention. The Big Nurse is convinced that he will try to overthrow the hospital, so her and her staff play along with McMurphy and his games. McMurphy is a gambler who does not lose, he placed a bet with the other patients that he would be able to crack the Big Nurse and expose her for who she really is. Kesey uses a simile to portray the Big Nurse, for example, he describes the Big Nurses as big as a damn barn and tough as a knife metal. The Big Nurse is a dictator and McMurphy knows it, but the other patients do not. Therefore, when McMurphy gets out of the shower, he wraps his towel around his waist and the Big Nurse internally blows up. During McMurphy’s plan to crack the Big Nurse with the towel, the Big Nurse hid behind her calm smile, but the patients and McMurphy knew her smile was an act. In this scene Kesey uses figure of speech to describe the Big Nurses fury, for instance, “I can smell the hot oil spark when she goes past, and every step hits the floor she blows up a size bigger, blowing and puffing, rolling down anything in her path” (Kesey 87). When the book begins, it is narrated and told through the eyes of Chief Bromden who is half Indian that acts dumb and deaf, so the ward and the patients do not bother him. Chief Bromden is a schizophrenic who sees things that are not there, for instance, he hallucinates a fog. This fog is released when the patients try to escape reality due to The Big Nurse antagonizing them. Even though the fog is a hallucination, Bromden believes that Nurse Ratched releases this fog to keep him and the patients in check. Kesey uses the fog to symbolize the clouds that blur the world to how the patients live. “The fog is protective; but it also serves, by isolating man from man, to keep the patients in a state of cooperative docility” (Sassoon 1992). In the beginning of the novel, McMurphy attends his first Therapeutic Community meeting, where he acknowledges The Big Nurses control over the patients.
According to the doctor and the nurse the purpose of Therapeutic Community is a democratic ward, run by the patients and their votes, working towards turning the patients into citizens. McMurphy uses an analogy to describe the meetings, for example, the meetings are a bunch of chickens at a pecking party. He says this because at the meetings The Big Nurse addresses a problem concerning a patient and then gets the rest of the patients to attack that person, so she can get whatever information she needs. During the meeting Nurse Ratched brought up an issue Harding had with his wife, which resulted in the group ripping Harding apart. After this incident, McMurphy questions Harding to why he let everyone chop him into pieces like that. Harding claims it is for therapeutic reasons and for his own benefit. This is an example of how Nurse Ratched manipulates and demoralizes her patients with her power. Kesey includes imagery to describe the patient’s role in life, for instance, “The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong. In defense the rabbit becomes frightened and digs a hole and hides when the wolf is about” (Kesey 60). The patients are the rabbits whereas the nurses and doctors are the
wolves. Throughout the course of the novel, McMurphy befriends the other patients in the ward and the patients begin to look up to McMurphy. They all begin to question the ward policies, such as, the television time. In this scene McMurphy wants to change the cleaning time so he can watch the World Series and the Big Nurse refuses his request due to the schedule routine. Then McMurphy tries to vote on it, but the patients did not raise their hands during the vote because they did not want to get on The Big Nurse’s bad side over a game. This is an example of the control Nurse Ratched has on the patients. After the meeting McMurphy was upset with the patients because they did not vote, so he had a revote on watching the TV in the afternoon. The patients begin to raise their hands out of the fog, but instead of raising their hands for the World Series they raised their hands against The Big Nurse. There were twenty patients that raised their hands and The Big Nurse ruled the vote defeated because a majority vote was needed and there are forty patients in the ward, and only twenty voted. In this scene Nurse Ratched is portrayed as the antagonist. After the meeting, McMurphy and the patients sat in front of the TV, even though it was off and pretended the game was on. The Big Nurse was furious that they were rebelling against her and that she could not do anything. This proves to show that McMurphy’s behavior is causing the patients to rebel against The Big Nurse and that they are coming out of their shells. “Yet McMurphy’s rebelliousness has roused many of the other patients from psychotic apathy” (Moynahan 1995).
The author Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and went to Stanford University. He volunteered to be used for an experiment in the hospital because he would get paid. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey brings up the past memories to show how Bromden is trying to be more confident by using those thoughts to make him be himself. He uses Bromden’s hallucinations, Nurse Ratched’s authority, and symbolism to reveal how he’s weak, but he builds up more courage after each memory.
In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, role reversal puts a woman, Nurse Ratched, in control of the ward, which is important in creating a contrast to traditional power. Within the ward Ratched has ultimate power by “merely [insinuating]” (p. 63) a wrongdoing and has control of the doctors. Soon after the first confrontation with Randle McMurphy (Mack), her power is demonstrated through the submissive and obedient manners of all there (152). Ratched is shown as having great power within the ward and outside, despite that time periods constriction of being a women, showing an important contrast to traditional power structures.
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
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...
In Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, he engages the reader with Nurse Ratched’s obsession with power, especially against McMurphy. When Nurse Ratched faces multiple altercations with McMurphy, she believes that her significant power is in jeopardy. This commences a battle for power in the ward between these characters. One assumes that the Nurses’ meticulous tendency in the ward is for the benefit of the patients. However, this is simply not the case. The manipulative nurse is unfamiliar with losing control of the ward. Moreover, she is rabid when it comes to sharing her power with anyone, especially McMurphy. Nurse Ratched is overly ambitious when it comes to being in charge, leaving the reader with a poor impression of
Power and control are the central ideas of Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. There are examples of physical, authoritative and mechanical power in the novel, as well as cases of self-control, and control over others. Nurse Ratched is the ultimate example of authoritative power and control over others but R.P. McMurphy refuses to acknowledge the Nurse’s power, and encourages others to challenge the status quo. The other patients begin powerless, but with McMurphy’s help, learn to control their own lives. Many symbols are also used to represent power and control in the book, such as the ‘Combine’, ‘fog’, and the imagery of machines.
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 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.
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
Everybody wants to be accepted, yet society is not so forgiving. It bends you and changes you until you are like everyone else. Society depends on conformity and it forces it upon people. In Emerson's Self Reliance, he says "Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater." People are willing to sacrifice their own hopes and freedoms just to get the bread to survive. Although the society that we are living in is different than the one the Emerson's essay, the idea of fitting in still exists today. Although society and our minds make us think a certain way, we should always trust our better judgment instead of just conforming to society.
The novel, which takes place in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, centers around the conflict between manipulative Nurse Ratched and her patients. Randle McMurphy, a transfer from Pendleton Work Farm, becomes a champion for the men’s cause as he sets out to overthrow the dictator-like nurse. Initially, the reader may doubt the economic implications of the novel. Yet, if one looks closer at the numerous textual references to power, production, and profit, he or she will begin to interpret Cuckoo’s Nest in a
Through McMurphy’s attempt to lift the control panel in the tub room, Kesey is demonstrating one’s need to do the . During his attempt, McMurphy reliazes that the control panel would be impossible to lift; however, he tried despite the impending failure. Even though he might not have achieved his goal, he had the courgae to try. Currently, the entire ward is too afraid to try to fight for their rights. They live under the control of Nurse Ratched. Her “sure power that extends in all directions on hairlike wires” reassures her that she has absolute control over the entire ward (Kesey 29). The patients are too afraid of her control to fight for their rights. This mental hospital is depicted to run more like a prison. “The flock
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.