All underdogs have one thing in common – they have all been dealt a bad hand at life. Some can struggle through the game and emerge victorious, while others sink and fail, becoming a lesson for all that try to challenge the rules. Randle McMurphy and Wyatt Walker are no different. Both were underdogs, thrown into different situations, but the victims of similar foes. While the factors that play into their powerlessness differ, these factors are all a direct result of the established system. When the early 1960’s rolled around, the African-American Civil Rights Movement was losing momentum. “[All] the moderates were gone. The statehouses were in the control of hard-line segregationists. The South seemed to be moving backwards,” wrote Gladwell. …show more content…
Indeed, the system of racism built over hundreds of years was still as strong as ever; policemen turned a blind eye to racially motivated crimes, and the city leaders continued to enforce the segregation that had so long been a part of culture (Gladwell). Even the leaders known by name due to their successes, such as Martin Luther King Jr., were powerless in this time. “King was outgunned and outmatched. He was the overwhelming underdog” (Gladwell). The system built on the back of prejudice made, not just King, but all of the leaders and participants of this movement underdogs. This same kind of powerlessness is what makes Randle McMurphy an underdog in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The prejudice-based system described in “Wyatt Walker” is similar to the system McMurphy faces. The system he faces, however, is one built on inadequate mental care and bias against the mentally ill, rather than a system built on racism, and the violence McMurphy faces is quiet, unlike the fires and bombings that Civil Rights activists faced (Gladwell). Despite these differences, the main similarity still stands – both Wyatt Walker and McMurphy are victims of oppression from a previously established …show more content…
system. Throughout the novel, however, McMurphy does not seem to be powerless. In fact, in most moments, he seems to be one of the most powerful forces present. “He sounds like he’s way above them, talking down, like he’s sailing fifty yards overhead, hollering at those below on the ground. He sounds big” (Hesey 16). A con man and a handsome sex addict, he has the power to manipulate most into doing whatever he pleases whenever he pleases. His silver tongue and iron heel makes McMurphy a force to be reckoned with. His headstrong personality leads him to go against Nurse Ratched, the head nurse and visible antagonist of the novel.
A cold, calculating woman, Ratched has held power over the patients of the ward for years. Small, quiet, calm, the polar opposite of McMurphy, Ratched’s reign is thrown out of balance when he arrives. Throughout the book, McMurphy constantly antagonizes Ratched, gaining a few small victories over her, and even winning a major victory against her at the end of the novel, taking her power from her completely before he was lobotomized. “She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings and singing in the latrines” (Hesey
269). Even with this apparent power, Ratched still has the upper hand. She controls everything that happens to him – where he goes, what he does, what medical procedures are administered to him. McMurphy realizes this when a lifeguard at the hospital pool tells him he has been here for almost nine years and still not been released (Hesey 147-148). Even if he takes her presence and her voice, he can never take her medical authority, which is what gives Ratched the power that she has. Ratched would not have this power if it were not for the health care system that stood behind her. She knows that she can do whatever she wants to McMurphy. This bigger foe that McMurphy cannot see is the foe he is trying to fight. By fighting Ratched, he is fighting everything that the system behind her stands for, and the main reason that McMurphy is rendered powerless. This is not the only reason that McMurphy is powerless, though. The patients on the ward also play a part in McMurphy’s weakness. The patients are powerless, as well, but they are powerless in a different way. They are partly powerless because of their own doubts and internalized mentalism. Seeing this power that McMurphy possesses, without realizing it, they begin to push him to do more for them, even long after he wants to stop fighting. “We couldn’t stop him because we were the ones making him do it. It wasn’t the nurse that was forcing him, it was our need…” (Hesey 267). This need from the patients, the constant pushing and belittling from the Nurse, and the pressure of being trapped under a subpar mental health system exhausts McMurphy, which is the final blow of weakness. We don’t see this exhaustion surface until the end of the novel, when the pressure finally makes him crack, and he tries to strangle Ratched. “He gave a cry…a sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance…” (Hesey 267). This is the most vulnerable we ever see him, and the moment that he is rendered the most powerless. Everything he has tried to keep from the patients finally surfaces through his rage. All of these factors can be seen as a result of the system. Because of the mental health care system, Ratched has complete control over McMurphy. Because of the mental health care system, the patients cannot feel powerful on their own, and therefore need McMurphy to feel powerful. Because of the mental health care system, McMurphy feels the need to fight long after his breaking point. Like the story of “Wyatt Walker” and the movement behind it, McMurphy faces a similar opposition; he faces an environment built by bias, by error, and by prejudice. Even an iron-heeled sweet-talking con man like him cannot fight a system backed by hundreds of years of prejudice. Even his best poker game could not save him from the hand he was dealt by Ratched, by his peers, and by the system.
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
He would always sneak in wine, gamble with them, and would have them play along on all his jokes. His need for freedom was refreshing to everyone else, that what kept them going. At points when he gave up from being a rebel, other patients gave up. McMurphy wins this war between him and Ratched because he helps other patients continue to be excited and helps them get out of there. McMurphy influences patients to stand up for themselves and not take orders from Ratched. Harding listened to McMurphy and did exactly that. He started to call her out on things and make fun of her, and she couldn't respond. It was clear that Nurse Ratched wasn't the same person and because of what McMurphy did, she couldn't get back in control. Ken Kesey writes, “She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings… she couldn't rule with her old power anymore… She was losing her patients one after the other” ( 320-321). McMurphy has always taught them to follow their own rules and not obey Ratched. In particular, he influenced Chief, a quiet patient that watches his surrounding carefully. After teaching Chief what it's like to follow your own rules, Chief begins to follow McMurphy’s role. After the incident of stripping Ratched’s identity, he learns that McMurphy was a hero to him and although he doesn’t physically help him out, McMurphy has taught Chief how to play this game. Chief tries to be like McMurphy by taking over. DOing so he tries on his cap, trying to be the new McMurphy. Ken Kesey writes, “I reached into McMurphy’s nightstand and got his cap and tried it on. It was too small” (323). Chief realized that no one could take over McMurphy's role, but that Chief would have to be in control over himself to make a statement. Chief does exactly that, he runs for it, making him happier than he has ever
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
Nurse Ratched is portrayed as the authority figure in the hospital. The patients see no choice but to follow her regulations that she had laid down for them. Nurse Ratched's appearance is strong and cold. She has womanly features, but hides them “Her Face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive… A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing putting those big, womanly breasts on what would have otherwise been a prefect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.” (11) She kept control over the ward without weakness, until McMurphy came. When McMurphy is introduced into the novel he is laughing a lot, and talking with the patients in the ward, he does not seem intimidated by Miss Ratched. McMurphy constantly challenges the control of Nurse Ratched, while she tries to show she remains in control, He succeeds in some ways and lo...
Initially the ward is run as if it was a prison ward, but from the moment the brawling, gambling McMurphy sets foot on the ward it is identified that he is going to cause havoc and provide change for the patients. McMurphy becomes a leader, a Christ like figure and the other patients are his disciples. The person who is objective to listen to his teachings at first is Chief Bromden (often called Bromden), but then he realizes that he is there to save them and joins McMurphy and the Acutes (meaning that they have possibility for rehabilitation and release) in the protest against Nurse Ratched, a bureaucratic woman who is the protagonist of the story, and the `Combine' (or society).
Mcmurphy's true character was lost in the writing of the screenplay, his. intelligence and cunning is lowered greatly by changes made by the screen. writers. The.. & nbsp; Ms. Ratched is a powerful woman in both the book and the movie. She knows how to play with people's minds and manipulate groups. She keeps a tight grip on the ward using subtle methods which cannot be ignored.
This also demonstrates how much power McMurphy has gained so far over Ms. Ratched. In the novel, Ms. Ratched tries to take away all of the power that McMurphy has gained over her by blaming McMurphy for making the lives of the hospital patients worse, and that McMurphy was the cause for the deaths of patients William Bibbit and Charles Cheswick. This angers McMurphy, and causes him to choke her with the intent to kill her, in the novel, Chief Bromden describes, “Only at the last---after he’d smashed through that glass door, her face swung around, with terror forever ruining any other look she might ever try to use again, screaming when he grabbed her and ripped her uniform all the way down the front.
In the end, they believe they have control over the other, but they do not realize that they both have lost control until it is too late. They both pay a harsh penalty for their struggle to gain control over the ward. Nurse Ratched forever loses her precious power status and authority over the institution, while McMurphy loses the friends he tired to help, his personality, and eventually his life. Throughout the novel, these two characters relentlessly fight to control each other. They both realize that control can never be absolute.
Nurse Ratched is the most daunting persona of the novel, due in large part to the use of her voice. Throughout the novel, both McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are continually trying to pull each other down. Nurse Ratched, using her dominant speaking skills, tries to prove to the patients that McMurphy is conning them with his vocalizations, “Look at some of these gifts, as devoted fans of his might call them. First, there was the gift of the tub. Was that actually his to give?
Randall Patrick McMurphy is the protagonist of this novel. He is also a manipulator but unlike Ratched, McMurphy has good intentions. He decides to step up and help the patients because he sees no one is going anywhere. His method to helping the patients was to change everyone’s opinion and help them realize Ratched’s strictness and useless methods. He does this by explaining the pecking party, “And you want to know somethin’ else, buddy? You want to know who pecks that first peck? ..Harding waits for him to go on.. It’s that old nurse. that’s who.” (Kensey,58)
It was not until the modern civil rights movement of the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, a period that some call the Second that these discriminatory laws and practices finally began to give way. During this period, African Americans and their allies finally confronted long-standing oppression, injustices, and prejudices as a unified movement for integration instead it became a total liberation and identity movement.
The main character, Randle Patrick McMurphy, is brought to a state mental institution from a state prison to be studied to see if he has a mental illness. McMurphy has a history of serving time in prison for assault, and seems to take no responsibility for his actions. McMurphy is very outgoing, loud, rugged, a leader, and a rebel. McMurphy also seems to get pleasure out of fighting the system. McMurphy relishes in challenging the authority of Nurse Ratchett who seems to have a strong hold over the other patients in the ward. He enters into a power struggle with Nurse Ratchett when he finds out that he cannot leave the hospital until the staff, which primarily means her, considers him cured.
Nurse Ratched gains much of her power through the manipulation of the patients on the
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!"
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.