One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Rhetorical Analysis

Contrast. Tone. Metaphors. These literary elements are all used in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s in relation to a larger theme in the novel – confidence. In the book, a man named McMurphy is put into a mental ward run by Nurse Ratched, who has complete power and control over the men. They all fear her and submit to her due to fear, suppressing their confidence and manhood. When McMurphy came, he was like a spark that ignites a roaring fire in the men; they gain back the confidence that they lost and become free. In one passage, McMurphy takes the men on a fishing trip where he helps them stray away from the Nurse’s power and learn to believe in themselves. Throughout the passage, the use of contrast, positive tone, and metaphors of

size reveal how McMurphy’s presence in the ward invokes a manly confidence and rebellious attitude in the patients.
In the beginning of the passage, the boat is in chaos. Everything is in a rush, but through it all, McMurphy laughs: “This scramble of action holds for a space, a second there on the sea - the men yammering and struggling and cussing and trying to tend their poles while watching the girl; the bleeding, crashing battle between Scanlon and my fish… While McMurphy laughs” (Kesey 249-250). There is a contrast between what the men are going through and what McMurphy does. While there are in a scramble, McMurphy is laughing. Through the chaos, McMurphy is calm and joyful. He anchors the patients in the storm of life, keeping them calm and confident. Like in the ward, there is a clear contrast between McMurphy and the rest of the patients. Instead of being willing to submit to Nurse Ratched like the rest of patients, McMurphy rebels against her in any way he can. While the patients are weak, McMurphy is strong and brave, the perfect example of a man. Because of this, he is able to teach the patients to stand up to the nurse and gain back their manhood and confidence. It is obvious that in the passage and throughout the novel, contrast is used to display how McMurphy leads the patients to become more confident.
Furthermore, the passage creates a positive tone that also shows how McMurphy changes the patients. McMurphy’s attitude toward life gives the passage an upbeat and optimistic tone: “Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy” (Kesey 249-250). The word choice in this passage reveals the positive tone - words like laugh and balance suggest a bright, confident outlook on life. This is what McMurphy gives to the patients. His laughter, even through the pain and stress of life, is what keeps him sane in the world. Some of the patients are in the ward by choice, and can leave whenever they want, but choose to stay under Nurse Ratched's power because they are scared of society and too fearful to face it. McMurphy passes on laughter, positivity, and confidence to the men, which makes some of them brave enough to face the world. Bromden and others eventually escape the ward at the end because McMurphy helps them become confident enough to do that. Overall, the optimistic tone in the passage shows how McMurphy gives the men confidence that helps them view life differently and more positively.
Lastly, Kesey uses metaphors of size to display McMurphy’s effect on the men.

Bromden, the narrator, always vies himself as small, even though he’s actually a large person. To him, McMurphy is big, which he says metaphorically. In the passage, McMurphy makes the patients big: “It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger. I watched, part of them, laughing with them- and somehow not with them. I was off the boat, blown up off the water and skating the wind with those black birds, high above myself…” (Kesey 249-250). People who are small are weak and powerless, like Bromden and the patient’s, scared and willing to submit to power. Meanwhile, people who are big, like McMurphy, are confident and not afraid. McMurphy made the men “bigger”, more powerful, just by laughing and giving them confidence. All in all, the metaphor and contrast between being big and small reveal how McMurphy made them stronger and more confident just by being

himself.
During a class discussion on March 27, a classmate talked about how McMurphy’s confidence is “contagious” to the patients. They described McMurphy as a “reservoir of confidence”; he passes his confidence on to the patient’s, making them bigger, but in the meantime, he becomes smaller. However, even in this case, McMurphy still helps the patients, like Bromden, dig deep into their minds to discover who they are and change. Another student on March 27 viewed it as McMurphy doing things for himself and his own advantages, but at the same time giving the patients a sense of self as a side affect. They said he was not deliberately trying to help them, only trying to make things better but only for himself so he doesn’t go insane. However, looking at how McMurphy helps the patient’s at the expense of his own energy and confidence, this cannot be the truth. His laughter and positivity through the passage and the big vs. small metaphors show that he could not have been doing those things for himself. He took the patients on a fishing trip to help them gain back confidence and masculinity after being stuck under the power of Nurse Ratched. McMurphy sacrificed his own wellbeing to teach Bromden and the other patient’s to find and express their true selves without fear or submission.
In conclusion, the author’s use of literary elements such as contrast, tone and metaphors displays the effect McMurphy had on the patients of helping show them how to believe in themselves and their abilities.

The contrast between the chaos and calm of the boat and McMurphy shows how he helps the men to stay calm and believe in themselves in tough situations. He didn’t doubt himself, so neither did they. The positive tone of the passage reveals McMurphy’s effect on the patients by making them see a brighter side of life, and by doing this gave them confidence. Also, the metaphor of being big vs. being small shows how McMurphy turns the patients from weaker, scared individuals into strong, self-assured men who had control over their lives. All they needed was someone to pull them out the fog and show them what they could be. Maybe all people need to create change in their lives is a little push to start a chain reaction of

transformations.