One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Sociological Analysis

The movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was a great movie and showed many ways that it could be related to sociology. Elements such as deviance, social control, ritualism, rebellion, and secondary deviance. The movie was about a group of men that were inside of a mental intuition which after watching the movie, it was obvious that it was being referred to as the cuckoo’s nest. All of the men were there for many different reasons and one of the main characters entered the intuition as well. His name was McMurphy the reason he came into the mental institution was because he believed that it would be easier there than a prison work farm. Another reason he went to the mental institution was because he had a goal of staying focused and helping

the patients out. Though he had no clue that he would have ran into such a horrible woman, Nurse Ratchet. Throughout the movie, he tried many ways to show the men that there was more to live for in the world. In this essay, there will be many examples from the movie, as well as chapter four and how they complement one another.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest showed an important way that secondary deviance was used.

The term basically states that once a person is labeled by another he/she starts to get used to it and takes on that label. Meaning he/she starts to act as if he/she was everything that the person said he/she was. This is also known as self-fulfilling Prophecy. That could a good or bad thing, but in this case, it was a horrible thing. Inside of the mental intuitions men are labeled criminals, crazy, drug addicts etc. The definition of self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the terms of the prophecy itself. This can be because of positive feedback between behavior and belief. The men started to believe what they were being labeled as and that is how they ended up acting down to the label they began to believe and internalize. Locked inside of an institution with guys who barely spoke or knew where they were half of the time. Another way that the movie showed any example of secondary deviance was with Dr. John Spivey and McMurphy. Dr. John asked him, “Do you think there’s anything wrong with your mind really?” He wanted to label McMurphy as something, but there was nothing to label him as because there was not anything wrong with him. McMurphy didn’t want to be labeled, he knew that he was nothing like the other guys inside of the

intuition.
Inside of the intuition, the patients were not getting help for many reasons. They needed help, but they were being doped on drugs every time they got out of control. The reason the nurses made the patients take pills were so that they could have control of them all the time. A lot of times Nurse Ratchet lost track of her goals at the mental intuition. She holds very unhealthily group therapy session that makes the men go against one another. Which was very unhealthily because she encourages the men to be mean to another and she never tried to break up the arguments. There are many times that she pushes the men to their breaking point and that is not how it is supposed to be. There was a scene in the movie where they were having a meeting and the men are supposed to be able to say how they feel without being pressured. On the other hand, that doesn’t stop Nurse Ratchet from pushing them to their limits.

Towards the end of the movie, there were many times that the men were being rebellion. An example of this was, McMurphy convincing one of the of the guards to let women come into the mental intuition and bring alcohol. Bringing the women inside was wrong, but also bringing inside alcohol put the icing on the cake as well, once the morning came. That event the night before, ended up causing a lot of problems. The Chief and McMurphy were going to break out, but they ended up getting caught because they fell asleep near the window. Once all the men were in one area, Nurse Ratchet wanted to know exactly what happen that night and wanted to know who was the blame for everything. At the end of the movie when the men were being rebellion, with inviting the women over. Billy ended up having sex with one of the prostitutes and Nurse Ratchet found out. When Nurse Ratchet asked if he was he embarrassed about what he did he quickly replied, “no.” But once she mentioned that she would tell his mother about his behavior, he began telling all the details that happen and right after that, he ended up committed suicide.
There were many quotes that stuck out throughout the movie. An important quote was when McMurphy told the guys about his idea of them breaking out so that they could watch the game and told them that he could lift a sink that was in one of the rooms. After he realized that he couldn’t do it, he yelled out, “I tried, goddammit. At least I did that.” The reason he said that was because the men inside of the institution followed all the instructions Nurse Ratchet gives and never questioned her. At that point of the movie, they were all ritualists. Nor do they ever try and do anything different. The outcome of that was McMurphy teaching the guys how to stand up for themselves and questioning Nurse Ratchet with her decisions. On the other hand, Nurse Ratchet didn’t like it, but the guys now had some type of pride. He also helped the men understand that they were being victimized by Nurse Ratchet’s power and the men were now empowered by McMurphy’s rebelliousness.
In the movie, there was a man that never spoke.

His name was Chief Bromden, he was a huge Indian man. All the guys and nurses thought that he was deaf and mute. After an hour into the movie, the audience learns that he isn’t deaf, nor mute. The first thing the audience ever heard him say was, “ah, Juicy Fruit.” This is a sign of being rebellion, which is rejecting both the cultural goals and the initialized means and substitute new norms for them. The reason that was an example of rebellion because he was lying all this time to everybody. There were many things that he heard that the guards probably thought he didn’t hear, but Chief probably didn’t want anything thing to do with

them.
At the end of the movie, the plan was for McMurphy and Chief to escape together. But after everything that happened the following night, McMurphy ended up getting lobotomized and could not control his self. Chief noticed that he would never be the same and he didn’t want him to suffer so he suffocated McMurphy with a pillow. The reasoning he cared so much was because from the time McMurphy came into the mental intuition he helped him learn how to play basketball and was the first person he ever spoke to in the intuition, which shows that he trusted him enough to share that secret. Based on the story line, the Chief was probably the one that flew over the cuckoo’s nest. Without the confidence that McMurphy helped the men with, none of that would have been possible. He helped them realize that there was more to life than just the mental intuition and that they needed to stop allowing the nurses to take advantage of them so much.
Towards the end of the movie, there was a lot that changed between character A and character B. Those two characters were Mc Murphy and The Chief because McMurphy had a goal, but his motions went nowhere. The Chief was okay where he was, but towards the end realized that that isn’t where he wanted to be and that is why he left mental instruction. At the beginning of the movie Mc. Murphy was at the top but ended up at the bottom and Chief was at the bottom but ended up at the top. Chief not speaking was a form of restrictive, which is being rebellion because he made everyone believe that he was a mute.
In summation, there were many similarities with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the different terms used in Sociology. There were many characters that were rebellion, retreatism, innovation, and ritualism.