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This passage is significant, because it is mentioned for the first time that the institution is in the countryside, which demonstrates a direct contrast between the freedom of nature and the restricted, mechanized world that nurse Ratched tries to retain within the walls. The authors heavily utilities techniques such as specific details and imagery, which are used as symbols that, are representing a bigger picture of how society actually works. The author’s use of sentence lengths and punctuation also served to emphasize the symbolism and overall impressions of this scene. As a whole, this moment symbolizes how McMurphy has opened the eyes of many people in the ward and have given them a bit of freedom, for this is the first time that Bromden …show more content…
was aware that the hospital was in the countryside. The scene is first set up as quite ominous and mysterious with the mention of “something” moving and casting a “long spider of a shadow” which creates a creepy type of feeling. This creature only ends up to be a dog, characterized using the words “young, gangly mongrel” which implies that this dog is most likely a stray, an outcast of society, so to speak, much like the guys in the hospital who don’t conform to societies standards. The dog is also essentially free for he seems to be able to do whatever he wants without “a notion.” Descriptions used such as how the dog has “butt up in the air” and would constant “dash” form one place to another accentuates this dog’s almost playful demeanor, which goes hand in hand with the freedom. The freedom is also apparent in how the author uses long, free flowing sentence to describe the actions and characteristics of the dog. The dog also serves as a contrast from the hospital, in that it is “wild” compared to the perfectly manicured lawn of the hospital and even seems to blemish it with splattered “dark paint.” The playful, free, harmless nature of this dog also seem to be contrasted with the dark and creepy surroundings where the moon “glistened” and the lawn seems to be full of shadows. Not unlike McMurphy, the dog does not understand or care about the strict nature of his surrounding, but instead is determined to find his own contentment, which he obviously is able to, for the dog is described as a “young dog drunk.” The author also employs a simile to compare the dog to a fish, which demonstrates its freedom once again, but then seems to be fit into the dogs surroundings by mention how the spray of the dog glittered like “silver scales” which is surreal, and not exactly a warming image. While the dog is certainly freer when compared to the hospital, another animal introduced is the Geese, which are a great deal freer than even the dog and are a part the wild, undomesticated world.
The geese are described as having come from a “long way off” and are free to go anywhere the like; they even are characterized as having a “laughing gabble” which is an important detail, because the acutes in the mental hospital do not seem to be able to laugh. Despite the geese being a part of nature, it is also emphasized that they are not completely free for they have a lead goose in the center, which is “bigger than the others” which demonstrates that nothing is completely free, there will always be some retrain tint the world. This dog is seemingly caught between these two worlds, one of complete control, and one of relative freedom, for the dog is a domesticated creature. Even when the dog attempts to chase the freedom of the geese, his efforts are useless for he and the car are headed for “the same spot of pavement,” which implies that the dog will be ran over by this larger machine, which is symbolic to the “combine” or society. This runs parallel to McMurphy’s situation and suggest that you can only defy society for so long before you either become a part of it, or are annihilated by it. The author’s utilization of shorter and more declarative sentences in the final paragraph give this belief an unavoidable, matter-of-fact type feeling. In the end, McMurphy and other like
him are unavoidably doomed, it just a matter of time.
Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and film Girl, Interrupted directed by James Mangold display the hospitals act as a microcosms for society. This idea is shown through characters that promote non-conformity, the showing of prejudice against minorities and when authority figures rule absolutely. The audience respond to this idea which is common to both, this idea is mainly presented through the stylistic techniques dialogue, camera angles, sound, and literary techniques, as each reflect the idea of the hospitals acting as microcosms for society.
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...
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
Physical surroundings (such as a home in the countryside) in works of literary merit such as “Good Country People”, “Everyday Use”, and “Young Goodman Brown” shape psychological and moral traits of the characters, similarly and differently throughout the stories.
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.
... Nurse Ratched hides her sexuality by trying to hide her large breasts with her heavy white uniform. Kesey seems to share the same point of view, which the author of the Rocking Horse Winner had. That was, we do not pay enough attention to our sexuality. These themes and may others are consistent and scattered evenly throughout the story, which again emphasizes the quality of this novel. The setting was explained with the greatest of detail, the characters were always true to their nature and the themes dealt with in this novel were in fact very real. A quite disturbing piece, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, makes you think about how people in such institutions live. However, as grim as his descriptions of the hospital may be, Kesey is not simply writing a book that criticizes such mental health facilities, for we realize that the outside world is not much better.
Rules rule. Without things like stoplights and driving etiquette, we’d be one disaster-prone society. When we are in kindergarten, we learn how to color inside the lines and paint by the numbers, because we might be told that pretty pictures are those that are neat and tidy. We have terms like “good” and “sane” and “insane” because these words help us keep our lives organized and mess-free. No need to debate it or get into messy arguments. But One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest challenges all of that. It makes us look at who makes the rules. Now we want to know: who defines what behavior is "sane" or "insane"? McMurphy helps us realize just how arbitrary "sanity" can be, especially when the poster child of sanity happens to be the one and only Nurse Ratched. So just what does it mean to be "sane" or
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey presents a situation which is a small scale and exaggerated model of modern society and its suppressive qualities. The story deals with the inmates of a psychiatric ward who are all under the control of Nurse Ratched, ‘Big Nurse’, whose name itself signifies the oppressive nature of her authority. She rules with an iron fist so that the ward can function smoothly in order to achieve the rehabilitation of patients with a variety of mental illnesses. Big Nurse is presented to the reader through the eyes of the Chief, the story’s narrator, and much of her control is represented through the Chief’s hallucinations. One of these most recurring elements is the fog, a metaphorical haze keeping the patients befuddled and controlled “The fog: then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s lost in the fog, like everyone else” (Kesey 69). Another element of her control is the wires, though the Chief only brings this u...
Nurse Ratched and Hester are characterized by the views of others and their relationships with them. Much of who the Big Nurse depends on Chief Bromden’s narration and the opinions expressed by the other patients. Randall McMurphy, the rebellious new admission patient, argues right away that Ratched is something other than what other patients had previously thought. He claims that she falls into the category of “people who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, [and] to live like they want you to” (60). According to McMurphy, she exercises her power by abusing and manipulating the fragile male patients. This is possible because she avoids exposure to the world outside of the hospital, which is a patriarchy, and thus is able to make her own rules.
Mac, a man with no real purpose in life but to sail through it somehow, is sent to a mental institution for doctors to determine whether he is crazy. There he makes an enemy of the head nurse in the ward, whose methods of taking care of the patients are harsh and rigid. What intrigues me most about the Ms.Ratched’s (the nurse), character in this film is the fact that even though so much out of the ordinary happens, she returns to her normal self in a matter of seconds. It seems that years of routine and monotony have taken over her and she simply cannot have things any other way. Anything out of the ordinary is repugnant to her, thus her firm resolve to not allow the patient’s to view a ball game during the World Series. Which is why when she encounters Mac, she feels she needs to suppress his “outrageous” acts in any way possible. She goes to the extent of sendin...
The staff of the hospital also have their mission, and that is to keep the patients living as they always have, under conformity and military manner. Conformity has taken over and anyone who steps out of line will be punished. hen McMurphy first arrives to the hospital he immediately attracts attention for he was something the patients were not acccostumed to see. McMurphy represents sexuality, freedom, and self-determination—characteristics that clash with the oppressed ward, which is controlled by Nurse Ratched. He came in big and strong and laugh which came to be known as a symbol of freedom. after he observes the patients attack one another in his first meeting as a group he explains to a patient;Afterward, McMurphy tells the other patients that they were like “a bunch of chickens at a peckin’ party,” attacking the weakest one with such blind fury that they a...
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
Nothing is ever as simple as it first appears. Because many people take great pride in the army and those who serve in it, the description of the army in Catch 22 has made the novel vulnerable to much criticism. In Catch 22, the army is portrayed as a bureaucratic system, and Joseph Heller has changed the perception of the army in the eyes of readers. The idea of keeping the army in the war depicts the evil nature of army commanders, therefore those who praise the army and its people have created the argument that the language used in Catch 22 is ludicrous and disrespectful, leading to the idea that the novel should be banned. However, the
Even though McMurphy's own sacrifice of life is the price of his victory, he still attempts to push the ward patients to hold thier own personal opinions and fight for what is ethically right. For instinace, McMurphy states, "But I tried though,' he says. 'Goddammit, I sure as hell id that much, now didn't I?" McMurphy strains to bring the 'fellas' courage and determination in a place full of inadequacy and "perfection." McMurphy obtains a lot of courage in maintaining his own sort of personal integrity, and trying to keep the guys' intergrity and optimistic hope up.
She reoccurs with features described as “ Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll, skin like flesh-colored enamel, blend of white and cream and baby-blue eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils—everything working together except the color on her lips and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.”(Kesey 23). In this statement not only do we begin to develop a physical understanding of Nurse Ratched, but a mental understanding as well. She obviously has some deep insecurities with her physical appearance, and that was no mistake on Kesey’s part. He aims to expose his characters-representing nurses and such of the mental institutions- own personal need for power, in other words her lack of control of her body is reinforced by her control over others. Here Kesey inn directly preparing us for Ratched’s role as the leader but instead chooses to prepare us with the why. Later on, we get a better idea of Kesey’s message when he says, “Even the best-behaved Admission is bound to need some work to swing into routine, and, also, you never can tell when just