In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, insanity leads to power in the ward that the novel takes place. Mental illness often leads many people to lash out and give people a sense of power in the community. It leads them to make the wrong choices that get them into trouble because they feel they are doing what is right. Characters that go through mental issues are protagonists in the novel because we focus in on these characters and see how they develop and gain their power throughout the whole novel. The narrator of the novel is Chief Bromden. Chief suffers from hallucinations due to having multiple electroshock therapy treatments. Chief has been stuck in the hospital for nearly ten years, the longest of any patient in the ward. Chief …show more content…
sees the ward as this place that he calls, “The Combine”, which he feels is used as a home for people that can’t conform to society outside of the ward. The main protagonist of the novel is Randle McMurphy. McMurphy was sent to the ward after being deemed a psychopath for too much fighting and drinking. McMurphy chose the ward over a prison work farm because he felt it would be a more comfortable living situation, better than working on the farm every day. McMurphy was a gambler and a con man and he proved that after being in the ward for not too long. McMurphy along with many other patients in the ward would play poker for whatever they had, mainly cigarettes. Nurse Ratched was the head of the ward, she is the antagonist in the novel. She watches over the ward with an iron fist, accepting all her patients to listen and respect every word she says. She breaks down her patients with a program that is set to destroy their self-esteem. Her programs are meant to diminish the patients ability to be a normal factor in society, leaving the patient to want nothing more but to stay in the ward. This is until Randle McMurphy entered the ward. McMurphy was a rebel amongst the patients, often disregarding what he was told, and not following the orders of Nurse Ratched and her helpers. Due to McMurphy’s heavy gambling problem along with the other patients in the ward, Nurse Ratched confiscated everyone’s cigarettes and kept them away from the patients. She allowed them to take smoke breaks throughout the day. The impact of mental illness in the novel is used to show the different ways that the patients are able to adapt inside the ward. Many of the patients have fell victim to the evil mind manipulation of Nurse Ratched and have lost sense of life outside the ward. Many of the patients in the ward deal with mental illness and feel that life in the ward is better than life on the outside. They feel that they are in a safer environment and they are more comfortable living amongst people like themselves. With the weak-minded patients in the ward, some of the patients are more clever than others. There are some patients in the ward that while being mentally ill, are able to outsmart and manipulate not only the other patients in the ward, but even Nurse Ratched and her helpers. Randle McMurphy shows how mental illness can lead to power by the way his presence in the ward managed to change the way the ward functioned. McMurphy entered the ward and from the beginning became a main problem for Nurse Ratched. McMurphy managed to convince many of the patients to rebel against Nurse Ratched, it made working in the ward extremely difficult because these patients were basically uncontrollable. McMurphy was always causing trouble but Nurse Ratched often did not reprimand him, she felt if she had attempted to punish him and give him electroshock therapy, she would be letting McMurphy get the best of her. If she punished McMurphy, she would be showing the patients and the helpers in the ward that she can be broken. It would show that any of the patients could push her far enough so that she would show her weakness. The novel also shows the weakness in mental illness throughout the ward. Cheswick is one of the first patients to defend McMurphy on his rebellion against Nurse Ratched. Cheswick is a character who suffers from mental illness, and he is manipulated by Nurse Ratched and makes him go crazy. In an argument where Cheswick attempts to take a stand against Nurse Ratched, McMuryhy does not support him. Cheswick commits suicide by drowning in the pool. Cheswick’s death shows McMurphy the type of influence that he has on the other patients. Cheswick killed himself because he did not get the support he felt he deserved due to the fact that he gave McMurphy the support in his original attempt to rebel against Nurse Ratched. Another example of how mental illness can show the weakness in the patients on the ward is with Billy Bibbit. Billy is a patient that keeps to himself and has a speech problem. He has a hard time keeping conversations because of his stutter. Billy is dominated by his mother, he is afraid of her and doesn’t want her to know of the bad things he may do while in the ward. Billy is in the ward voluntarily, meaning he can leave whenever he’d like; but he stays due to the fact that he is afraid of the outside world and what it has to offer. Billy is a people pleaser and wants everyone to like him. At the same time he wants to be his own man and stand up to these people. He has troubles balancing these conflicts until McMurphy comes along. McMurphy encourages Billy’s interest in woman and sets up a visit between Billy and Candy. When Nurse Ratched confronts Billy of the situation, he is sent right back to where he feels shame and fear. Billy is so ashamed and embarrassed with himself that he commits suicide. His death leads into McMurphy’s final confrontation with Nurse Ratched. Disability plays the main role in the novel due to all of the characters having some sort of mental or physical disability.
While much of the confrontation is expressed between many of the patients who have disabilities, Nurse Ratched and her helpers have trouble controlling these patients because of their unpredictable behavior. “In One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the psychiatric ward and the outside world are poles apart. The opposition between madness and sanity can be interpreted metaphorically and can be related to the oppression of individuals in any social institution, as well as in society as a whole. Only a thin line is created between society and institution, between madness and sanity. The tension between scene and purpose is central in the course of the narrative. In the beginning the patients are represented as prisoners of the psychiatric institution, but it becomes clear that some reside there more or less voluntarily.” (Rutten 640). This quote shows that there was a difference between some of the patients. Many of the patients were manipulated enough to have no fight over their own control. They could not rebel against Nurse Ratched, but there were some patients that were sane enough to give their efforts in going against Nurse …show more content…
Ratched. “McMurphy is quick to become the arch enemy of the despicable nurse Ratched, who has successfully reduced the rest of the men to sheep-like creatures through her patronizing, authoritarian manner. From the beginning, McMurphy is unswerving in his attempts to undermine her authority over the ward.” (Van Nostrand 24). This quote shows that McMurphy was the main factor in the wards push against Nurse Ratched. Once McMurphy arrived on the scene he was able to influence all of the patients to go against her word and routine. McMurphy managed to push the other patients that had been manipulated to the point where they would rather be in the ward than outside in the real world to fight against Nurse Ratched’s ways. “When McMurphy arrives at the ward and begins challenging her, everything we suspect of Ratched as a soul-sucking representative of authority gets confirmed. Everything is tossed at her, even to comic effect: "Hoowee, I've seen some bitches in my time," exclaims McMurphy to the men. One patient's response seems curiously self-aware of the overreaching done to demean her. "A bitch? But a moment ago, she was a ball-cutter, then a buzzard—or was it a chicken? Your metaphors are bumping into each other, my friend." (Munoz 670). McMurphy tries to undermine Nurse Ratched throughout the novel, trying to get under her skin by any means necessary. The more McMurphy gets on the nerves of Nurse Ratched the more he loosens her control over the ward; allowing him to gain more of a control over the patients. That is how mental illness can give people an advantage over people, and how it can show the true weaknesses in people.
Randle McMurphy shows the advantages of having mental illness. His disability gives him the ability to feel more powerful than he really is. Gives him the sense of ability to not be brought down by rules and regulations the ward offers. It also gives him the ability to control the patients in the ward. Since McMurphy gives all the patients a sense of hope and a feeling of freedom, they often make their decisions based on his influence. While McMurphy has the ability to do this, all of the patients still have the side of shame and fear of Nurse Ratched. Many time’s while breaking the rules, Nurse Ratched will undermine the patients which sends these characters into a state of shock. When they are being put down it makes them feel worse and worse about themselves and they look to McMurphy for a sense of direction. Nurse Ratched has a hold over the ward like no other, and even Randle McMurphy’s cunning ways aren’t going to stop her from ruling over the ward with an iron
fist. WORKS CITED - Munoz, Manuel “ "A Veritable Angel of Mercy": The Problem of Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” - Rutten, Kris “The rhetoric of disability: a dramatistic-narrative analysis of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” - Van Nostrand, Jillian “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: a portrait of despair in one dimension”
In the story, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, patients live locked up in a restricted domain, everyday taking orders from the dictator, Nurse Ratched. Once McMurphy enters this asylum, he starts to rally everyone up and acting like this hospital is a competitive game between him and Nurse Ratched. McMurphy promotes negative behavior, such as, gambling and going against the rules, to mess around with the nurses and so he can be the leader that everyone looks up to. McMurphy soon learns that he might not be in control after all. Nurse Ratched decides who will be let out and when. After realizing why no one has stood up to Nurse Ratched before, he starts to follow rules and obey the nurses. This changes the whole mood of the hospital,
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...
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...
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 novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the characters are in a mental hospital for various reasons. Narrated by Chief Bromden, a large Native American man, the story tells mainly of a newcomer to the hospital, Randle McMurphy, who is not actually mentally ill, but pretends to be to escape work detail. A much-feared middle-aged woman named Mildred Ratched runs the hospital. She runs the hospital like a concentration camp, with harsh rules, little change, and almost no medical oversight. The “prisoners” have a large amount of fear of Nurse Ratched, as she rules the place like she is a soulless dictator, the patients get no say in any decision made. This is exemplified when McMurphy brings up the World Series, and the patients take a vote on it. Though everyone wants to watch it, they have so much fear for Nurse Ratched that they are too afraid to speak out against her wishes.
R.P. McMurphy is a lively, rebellious, and rational patient that has recently been escorted into the insane asylum. Once in the bin, Randle becomes the self-proclaimed champion of the rights of the other ward patients, his adversary being Nurse Ratched (New York Times). He scrutinizes the asylum and the patients deciding that he needs to lighten the atmosphere. According to Filmsite, Movie Review McMurphy encourages the patients to participate in activities that will heighten their spirits and change their monotonous routines. McMurphy decides to challenge Nurse Ratched when he notices that the patients of the ward are overly organized and controlled through a rigid set of authoritarian rules and regulations that McMurphy questions: “God Almighty, she’s got you guys comin’ or goin’. What do you think she is, some kind of champ or somethin’?”--- “I bet in one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don’t know whether to s—t or wind her wrist watch” (OFOTCN). Entertainment Weekly implies that McMurphy is unwilling to surrender to Nurse Ratched’s belittling power and rebels against corr...
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.
Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental hospital. The main character, or protagonist is Randle P. McMurphy, a convicted criminal and gambler who feigns insanity to get out of a prisoners work ranch. The antagonist is Nurse Ratched also referred to as The Big Nurse . She is in charge of running the mental ward. The novel is narrated by a patient of the hospital, an American Indian named Chief Bromden. Chief Bromden has been a patient at the hospital longer than any of the others, and is a paranoid-schizophrenic, who is posing as a deaf mute. The Chief often drifts in and out between reality and his psychosis. The conflict in the novel is between McMurphy and The Big Nurse which turns into a battle of mythic proportion. The center of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is this battle between the two, which Kesey uses to represent many of our cultures most influential stories. The dominant theme in this novel is that of conformity and it's pressure on today's society. In the novel conformity is represented as a machine , or in Chief Bromden's mind a combine . To the Chief, the combine' depicts the conformist society of America, this is evident in one particular paragraph: This excerpt not only explains the Chiefs outlook on society as a machine but also his self outlook and how society treats a person who is unable to conform to society, or more poignantly one who is unable to cope with the inability to conform to society. The chief views the mental hospital as a big machine as well, which is run by The Big Nurse who controls everyone except McMurphy with wires and a control panel. In the Chiefs eyes McMurphy was missed by the combine, as the Chief and the other patients are casualties of it. Therefore McMurphy is an unconformist and is unencumbered by the wires of The Big Nurse and so he is a threat to the combine. McMurphy represents the antithesis to the mechanical regularity, therefore he represents nature and it's unregularity. Another key theme in Kesey's novel is the role of women is society and how it contradicts the males. In keeping with the highly contrasting forces of conformity verses creativity Kesey proceeds to compare the male role to spontaneity, sexuality, and nature and the female role to conformity, sexual repression and ultimately the psychological castration of the male. Nurse ...
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.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) The character McMurphy as played by Jack Nicholson, McMurphy’s is a criminal who is troubled and keeps being defiant. Instead of pleading guilty, McMurphy pleads insanity and then lands inside a mental hospital. Murphy reasons that being imprisoned within the hospital will be just as bad as being locked up in prison until he starts enjoying being within by messing around with other staff and patients. In the staff, McMurphy continuously irritates Nurse Ratched. You can see how it builds up to a control problem between the inmates and staff. Nurse Ratched is seen as the “institution” and it is McMurphy’s whole goal to rebel against that institution that she makes herself out to be.The other inmates view McMurphy like he is god. He gives the inmates reason to
The hospital in this novel is a scaled down version of the outside world and is equally corrupt. A system with strict policies is created forcing patients to conform to its standards, stifling individuality. The narrator is a mute patient named Chief Bromden, who refers to the hospital as the ?Combine? because it?s mechanized to create uniformity among the patients. Chief believes the Combine?s purpose is to fix the ?impurities? by transforming them into identical and perfect packages. The ones who are unable to conform to the rigid norms must remain in the Combine, patients are only allowed to return to society when they are completely ?fixed up and new? (40). Nurse Ratched, the antagonist, is in charg...
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."
Insanity is a blurred line in the eyes of Ken Kesey. He reveals a hidden microcosm of mental illness, debauchery, and tyranny in his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The remarkable account of a con man’s ill-fated journey inside a psychiatric hospital exposes the horrors of troubling malpractices and mistreatments. Through a sane man’s time within a crazy man’s definition of a madhouse, there is exploration and insight for the consequences of submission and aberration from societal norm. While some of the novel’s concerns are now anachronous, some are more vital today than before. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a compelling tale that brings a warning of the results of an overly conformist and repressive institution.
The men begin to not only trust him but assert him as their leader. Although the patients were skeptical in the beginning, towards the middle of the novel it's clear to the reader that McMurphy has a hold over them that is so strong it defies the rules of a Nurse Ratched, something that had never been done before and ultimately steals her power. But Nurse Ratched does not go down without a fight. Throughout the novel the power struggle intensifies between the two leaders as Nurse Ratched does everything in her power to make obtaining the things McMurphy wants- nearly impossible. We see an example of this with the fishing trip facilitated by McMurphy. Despite McMurphy obtaining 10 signatures from men willing to go Nurse Ratched dismisses it, stating the meeting was closed and any songstress obtained is invalid. Despite Nurse Ratched's attempts to delay the trip, it goes on. We see McMurphy bashing his power in this situation too, as he makes a profit off of the boat