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Analysis of one flew over the cuckoo s 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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In the second half of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, author Ken Kesey continues to illustrate and conclude the development of the themes of freedom and confinement. As McMurphy and several of his fellow patients continue to rebel against the enforced rules, the idea that they posses control advances. The suggestion that physical confinement is enforced, changes when the men demand they be allowed on a fishing trip, outside of the hospital grounds. Fortunately for McMurphy, it is granted and from the line “The salt smell o' poundin' sea, the crack o' the bow against the waves—braving the elements, where men are men and boats are boats" (209, Kesey), it is evident that he is satisfied with how the excursion plays out. Though Big Nurse is dissatisfied when McMurphy leads and escorts the men out on a trip, McMurphy does it anyway as he believes it is time for the men to have some "fun" beyond the boundaries of the ward. More importantly, the fishing trip serves as a turning point of the story’s plot because it is after this fishing trip that the men develop more profound faith in McMurphy's leadership. …show more content…
Furthermore, the fishing trip also liberates the men from the emasculation they experience in the ward as McMurphy notes the sea is "where men are men." McMurphy rejuvenates the masculinity within each male patient, further liberating them from the constraints of Nurse Ratched.
Thus, the fishing trip serves as a symbolic turning point for the novel's story plot by the bond McMurphy has created within the male patients. They are alone in the water, devoid of outside influences. The boat even goes out of control during the trip. The patients obviously become frightened - as for the first time in their lives they are forced to fend for themselves. With intuition and judgment as their only tools, they are free from the control of the asylum, Ratched and
society. As the characters in the novel go about their day to day life in the hospital, they are constantly reminded of the control the asylum has on them. Although, the control the ward has is all based off fear. A popular treatment that occurs in the ward is the Electric Shock Therapy (ECT). “Hoo-wee! Electricity through the head. That's like electrocuting a guy for murder,” (190, Kesey) is said by McMurphy when he learns just what the therapy involves. Unfortunately, Miss Ratched uses this treatment as an advantage, and practices it as a form of punishment. This gives her power and leverage above McMurphy
The development of McMurphy as a Christ figure deepends, when he leads the patients on a fishing trip. McMurphy takes the "twelve of us [patients] towards the ocean," (page 203) just like Jesus' 12 disciples, to test and strengthen their faith in him and empower them. Fish have also been an important religious Christian symbol, as the fishing trip is an important symbol of the novel. When the trip is over, the Chief describes the sense of change that most of the patients had and even claims that they "weren't the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse anymore." (Page 215). This really shows the way McMurphy is starting to guide and lead the patients, just as Jesus lead his disciples.
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...
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
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
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” The father of transcendentalism, Emerson believed that people who resist change to be what is most natural, themselves, are the true heroes of the world. Ken Kesey, another popular writer, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a similar spirit. His novel takes place on the ward of a controlling army nurse at an Oregon mental institution in the late 1950s. The storyline mainly follows the interactions between Nurse Ratched, a manipulating representation of society, and Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient, gambler, and renegade. Kesey echoes the transcendentalists and romantics in his work by
Ken Kesey presents his masterpiece, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with popular culture symbolism of the 1960s. This strategy helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Music and cartoons of the times are often referred to in the novel. These help to exaggerate the characters and the state of the mental institution.
Ken Kesey in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest question a lot of things that you think almost everyday. With this famous portrait of a mental institute its rebellious patients and domineering caretakers counter-culture icon Kesey is doing a whole lot more than just spinning a great yarn. He is asking us to stop and consider how what we call "normal" is forced upon each and every one of us. Stepping out of line, going against the grain, swimming upstream whatever your metaphor, there is a steep price to pay for that kind of behavior. The novel tells McMurphys tale, along with the tales of other inmates who suffer under the yoke of the authoritarian Nurse Ratched it is the story of any person who has felt suffocated and confined by our
In Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author refers to the many struggles people individually face in life. Through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, the novel explores the themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity. With these themes, Kesey makes various points which help us understand which situations of repression can lead an individual to insanity. These points include: the effects of sexual repression, woman as castrators, and the pressures we face from society to conform. Through these points, Kesey encourages the reader to consider that people react differently in the face of repression, and makes the reader realize the value of alternative states of perception, rather than simply writing them off as "crazy."
Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, is a novel containing the theme of emotions being played with in order to confine and change people. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is about a mental institution where a Nurse named Miss Ratched has total control over its patients. She uses her knowledge of the patients to strike fear in their minds. Chief Bromden a chronic who suffers from schizophrenia and pretends to be deaf and mute narrates the novel. From his perspective we see the rise and fall of a newly admitted patient, RP McMurphy. McMurphy used his knowledge and courage to bring changes in the ward. During his time period in the ward he sought to end the reign of the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched, also to bring the patients back on their feet. McMurphy issue with the ward and the patients on the ward can be better understood when you look at this novel through a psychoanalytic lens. By applying Daniel Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence to McMurphy’s views, it is can be seen that his ideas can bring change in the patients and they can use their
Since this bond of brotherhood is felt by all the men in the boat, but not discussed, it manifests in small ways as the men interact with each other. They are never irritated or upset with each other, no matter how tired or sore they are. Whenever one man is too tired to row, the next man takes over without complaining. When the correspondent thinks that he is the only person awake on the boat, and he sees and hears the shark in the water, the narrator says, “Nevertheless, it is true that he did not want to be alone with the thing. He wished one of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it” (Crane 212).
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. John Clark Pratt. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1996. Print. Viking Critical Library.
There are four men stranded on a boat who are introduced in the beginning of the story. The cook, the oiler, the correspondent, and the captain are all on a boat that "a man ought to have a bath tub larger than" (360). As the men fight the crest of each wave they encounter, it is obvious that this is a desperate situation. Showing their powerlessness the narrator describes a group of birds as sitting ."..comfortably in groups, and they were envied by some in the dinghy, for the wrath of the sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a thousand miles inland" (363). Even though the men are in grave danger, the sun rises and sets and a shark even swims by but seems to have no need for the men in the boat. The men even believe that the waves are harsh on them and want to capsize the boat. The narrator explains that "[the waves were] nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats" (361). Even though it is obvious that the ocean always has waves, it is hard fo...
Although Nurse Ratched tries to discourage McMurphy by making up excuses about how the weather’s rougher than usual, he suggests that “the salt smell o’ the poundin’ sea, the crack o’ the bow against the waves” can be good for the men and that the sea is “where men are men and boats are boats.”(177) This dialogue demonstrates McMurphy’s persistence to help the rest of the patients regain their masculinity. During the fishing trip, McMurphy and the group encounter many problems including the gas attendant that tries to take advantage of them and the sailors who pester Candy. However, McMurphy teaches the patients that their illnesses can actually be a source of power for them and that they’re not as weak as the Nurse has made them to be. The trip is a progressive event for the patients because after the trip they seem more sane than insane and garner respect from the sailors that were initially bullying them. This is also the moment where Billy finds himself to have feelings for Candy and where McMurphy sets them up on a
In the beginning, the four men in the boat view nature as evil and unjust. Crane portrays this through the men’s reactions to the waves and the seagulls. They describe the waves as "most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall" (245). Later in their journey, the correspondent notices "the tall black waves that [sweep] forward in a most sinister silence, save for an occasional subdued growl of a crest" (254). Each of these examples show that the men in the boat feel that nature is out to get him. The waves are seen as a living enemy force. The men also view the seagulls as threatening. They hover around the boat and when they finally fly away, the men feel relieved. In a critique of "The Open Boat", Donald Gibson explains that "as observers we know the sea is in fact not hostile, that the sea gulls are not actually gruesome and ominous. But the men in the boat have this to lea...
Therefore, the incessant troubles arising from human conditions often bring about unpredictable crises as "shipwrecks are apropos of nothing. " The tiny "open boat", which characters desperately cling to, signifies the weak, helpless, and vulnerable conditions of human life since it is deprived of other protection due to the shipwreck. The "open boat" also accentuates the "open suggestion of hopelessness" amid the wild waves of life. The crew of the boat perceive their precarious fate as "preposterous" and "absurd" so much so that they can feel the "tragic" aspect and "coldness of the water. " At this point, the question of why they are forced to be "dragged away" and to "nibble the sacred cheese of life" raises a meaningful issue over life itself.