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Analysis of one flew over the cuckoo nest
Critical analysis of one flew over the cuckoo's nest
Critical analysis of one flew over the cuckoo's nest
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey Ruined ECT
"It gave voice, gave life, to a basic distrust of the way in which psychiatry was being used for society's purposes, rather than the purposes of the people who had mental illness," Dr Pittman told The Discovery Channel. In this quote Dr. Pittman is expressing that the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey wrongly defined the use of ECT as a punishment instead of a cure for people who have severe mental illnesses. Throughout Ken Kesey's novel the patients in the mental hospital are often silenced by the power hungry Nurse Ratched. The patients are mentally and physically abused when they disobey any order from the nurses. Nurse Ratched constantly uses her power to administer ECT as a punishment for patients that rebel against her. These scenes in the book causes society to have a falsified view on Electroconvulsive Therapy. Ergo, the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey diminishes any hope of
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future societal respect of Electroconvulsive Therapy. There are many benefits of ECT that the book has failed to mention. Scientific American states, “...most data suggest that when properly administered, ECT is a relatively safe and often beneficial last-resort treatment for severe depression, among other forms of mental illness.” This proves that ECT is in a fact an effective way to treat severe mental illnesses. ECT should be known as a great treatment that can help thousands of people who suffer with harsh depression. Often times ECT is more successful than medicine. Mental Health America states “...the numbers are extremely favorable, citing 80 percent improvement in severely depressed patients, after ECT.” This number is better than the 60 percent of patients where medicine doesn't work. These various assets are never stated in the book. Therefor the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey created the stereotype that ECT is harmful. The book exaggerated the incorrect use of this therapy and the side effects constantly. Every time ECT is used in the book, it often leaves patients confused and in a daze. Chief states “About the only time we get any let-up from this time control is in the fog; then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s lost in the fog like everything else.”(Kesey 71) After every time a patient in this book undergoes the ECT they get lost in a thick fog of their own thoughts. Earlier on this page, the therapy the Chief goes through is explained with great detail. “And they brought him back to the ward two weeks later, bald and the front of his face an oily purple bruise and two little button-sized plugs stitched one above each eye. You can see his eyes how they burned him out over there; his eyes are all smoked up and gray and deserted inside like blown fuses” (Kesey 15). At this point in the novel the author is describing the ECT that was used on a character named Ruckly as punishment. He has been subjected to the ECT so many times by the nurses as a way to get his behavior under control. The stereotype of ECT is relatable to what the movie Jaws did to Sharks. It applies a false statement to something, and makes the public believe it. Even one scene in the movie shows Nurse Ratched holding down a patient, who is awake, and giving them ECT. The flutter their arms and their legs and and are obviously in excruciating pain. This has scared many people into the belief that ECT is only a form of torture and punishment. Contrary to the book, ECT is not meant to be administered this way. According to Mental Health America, “Prior to the actual treatment, the patient is given general anesthesia and a muscle relaxant”. The patients in the book never received anesthesia and were always awake during their treatments, causing horrendous amounts of pain. Hence, the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey ruins future societal respect of Electroconvulsive Therapy. Throughout the whole book ECT was only used as a punishment, not as a cure.
A major example of this is when McMurphy was receiving the treatments. McMurphy attempted rebel against nurse Ratched, and as a result she administer ECT to him numerous times. Another time ECT is used in the book to establish power is when Chief received the treatment. Before Chief goes into detail about his treatment, he makes a general statement: “ She’ll turn that dial to a dead stop and freeze the sun there on the screen so it don't move a scant hair for weeks, so not a leaf on a tree or a blade of grass in the pasture shimmers. The clock hands hang at two minutes to three and she's liable to let them hang there till we rust.”(Kesey 71) The treatment was not used to improve the mentality of the patients, but it silenced them into confinement and made them more manageable. Ergo, the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey diminishes any hope of future societal respect of Electroconvulsive
Therapy. Other people could argue that ECT is torture no matter the circumstance. According to the Mayo Clinic, it can cause confusion and memory loss. However, these are shown to subside within a few months after the treatment. In addition, this treatment offers a backup for people where medicine doesn't work to treat their depression. All the patients that receive ECT all have consented. These people are often so depressed they can't get out of bed to do their daily activities. For them, this is their last chance for a happy life and many believe the result outways the symptoms. This treatment also offers a backup treatment for people where medicine doesn't work to treat their depression. Ergo, the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey diminishes any hope of future societal respect of Electroconvulsive Therapy. To conclude, the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey alters the way people think about ECT. Throughout the book, it is often given as punishment and not as a cure. In addition, the nurses administer the ECT incorrectly, putting the patients in excruciating pain. Finally, there are many benefits to the therapy; it can treat severe depression and other mental illnesses. Ergo, the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey changes the way people think about electroconvulsive therapy.
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.
Mark Twain best described courage when he said that, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear” (Twain). Both in The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and Watership Down by Richard Adams, the authors deal with the topic of courage and each share a similar view on it as this quote. Indeed, both authors suggest that courage is not accumulated simply by acts of heroism, but rather by overcoming fears and speaking one’s mind as well. These books are very similar in the way that bravery is displayed through the characters in an uncommon way. Firstly, an example of bravery
This essay will be exploring the text One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey and the film Dead poet’s society written by Tom Schulman. The essay will show how the authors use over exaggerated wildcard characters such as McMurphy and Keating. The use of different settings such as an insane asylum and an all-boys institution. And Lastly the use of fore shading to show how the authors can use different texts to present similar ideas in different ways.
In 1962, when One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the Nest), was published, America was at the start of decade that would be characterized by turmoil. Involvement in Vietnam was increasing, civil rights marches were taking place in the south and a new era of sexual promiscuity and drug use was about to come into full swing. Young Americans formed a subgroup in American society that historians termed the “counterculture”. The Nest is a product of time when it was written. It is anti-authoritarian and tells the tale of a man's rebelling against the establishment. Kesey used metaphor to make a social commentary on the America of the sixties. In this paper I will deal with three issues that seem to strike out from the novel. First; is the choice that Kesey made in his decision to write the novel using first person narration. The second part of this paper will be an analysis of some of the metaphors and Kesey uses to describe America in the sixties. Finally I will speak about the some of the religious images that Kesey has put in the novel.
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.
Throughout society, there are many individuals who influence the growth/development of others. Ones influence on others could either have a positive or negative impact on an individual's life. Throughout Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy's arrival on the ward influences the way the patients seek their own freedom. McMurphy sympathizes for the patient, not wanting to see them suffer in this “cuckoo nest” of a hospital. Such oppressive control is too much for McMurphy to bear and therefore he begins to challenge the Nurse’s control over all the patients in the wards, symbolically, all of mankind. Kesey’s title, One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, signifies how the patients in the ward are able to free themselves under Nurse Ratched’s oppressive
As all movies are created based on a book, there always seems to be changes and conflicting ideas. However, they still have the same main idea to the story line. The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey and the movie directed by Miloš Forman deal with the main idea of society's control of natural impulses. The author/director want to prove that this control can be overcome. Although the movie and the book are very different from each other, they still have their similarities.
“Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge,” verbalizes Andrea Dworkin. Gender-roles have been ingrained in the every-day life of people all around the world since the beginnings of civilization. Both One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Hamlet portray typical female stereotypes in different time periods. Due to the representation of women in literature like Hamlet by William Shakespeare and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey, and pop-culture, evidence of classic gender-based stereotypes in a consistently patriarchal world are still blatantly obvious in today’s societies.
Due to the development of safer and less traumatic ways of administering ECT, the treatment has made a comeback, is greatly used, and proves to be effective. B. Historical Context The original use of electricity as a cure for “insanity” dates back to the beginning of the 16th century when electric fish were used to treat headaches. Electroconvulsive therapy on humans originates from research in the 1930’s into the effects of camphor-induced seizures in people with schizophrenia ( Guttmacher, 1994).
An absence of education on the treatment is one of the most major reasons why electroconvulsive therapy is so strongly detested. Furthermore, individuals are not typically informed by psychiatrists on a technique such as ECT unless they are experiencing it personally, or someone they know is going through it. Consequently, countless individuals end up getting exposed to ECT for the first time through movies and other media depictions where it is, more often than not, portrayed negatively. Kellner states, “There have also been frequent misrepresentations of ECT in the media, and individuals and groups with particular social and political agendas have continued to convey distorted information about ECT (2)” (p. 1238). Education on ECT is so desperately needed for the reason that the information the majority of people seem to be given is incorrect or not based on fact. Additionally, these representations of the procedure are most always made to attack the treatment and render it inhumane. Moreover, the populous needs to be receiving their information from actual practitioners of this procedure, as opposed to those who are not, as it can help eliminate any inconsistencies or fallacies. By removing these misconceptions, numerous electroconvulsive therapy debates can be resolved, and a large amount of negative stigma towards the procedure can be
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.
Throughout the sixties , America- involved in the Cold War at this time- suffered from extreme fear of communism. This caused numerous severe changes in society ranging from corrupt political oppression, to the twisted treatment of the minority. Published in 1962, Ken Kesey ’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , manages to capture these changes in the variety of ways. Kesey’s novel incorporates some of the main issues that affected the United States during the early and mid 60s. The government had no limits and was cruel to those who did not fit into society, including the mentally ill. The wrongful treatment of the people caused an eruption of rebellion and protest- thus the Beatnik era was born. The novel, written during this movement, sheds light on Kesey’s personal opinion on this chaotic period in US history . The treatment of mentally ill patients, the oppressive government, and uprising in the 1960s inspired Kesey while writing his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Cyrzyk, T. (2013). Electroconvulsive therapy: Why it is still controversial. Mental Health Practice, 16(7). (Cyrzyk, 2013)
Fred Wright, Lauren's instructor for EN 132 (Life, Language, Literature), comments, "English 132 is an introduction to English studies, in which students learn about various areas in the discipline from linguistics to the study of popular culture. For the literature and literary criticism section of the course, students read a canonical work of literature and what scholars have said about the work over the years. This year, students read One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, a classic of American literature which dates from the 1960s counterculture. Popularized in a film version starring Jack Nicholson, which the class also watched in order to discuss film studies and adaptation, the novel became notable for its sympathetic portrayal of the mentally ill. For an essay about the novel, students were asked to choose a critical approach (such as feminist, formalist, psychological, and so forth) and interpret the novel using that approach, while also considering how their interpretation fit into the ongoing scholarly dialogue about the work. Lauren chose the challenge of applying a Marxist approach to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not only did she learn about critical approaches and how to apply one to a text, she wrote an excellent essay, which will help other readers understand the text better. In fact, if John Clark Pratt or another editor ever want to update the 1996 Viking Critical Library edition of the novel, then he or she might want to include Lauren's essay in the next edition!"
Electroconvulsive therapy was used in the 1900s as a psychiatric treatment when medication would fail to ease patients’ symptoms of clinical depression, suicidal thoughts, or psychiatric illnesses. Using this type of therapy puts the patient at risk for a great amount of side effects when the equipment is misused or under improperly trained staff. The ECT treatment in most cases administered in the morning, or before breakfast. Electroconvulsive therapy has changed, it somewhat still poses risk of side effects. The therapy is more refined today rather than how it was back in the past times.