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One flew over the cuckoo's nest analysis
Analysis of one flew over the cuckoo nest
Explain what Ken Kesey wanted the readers to learn as a result of reading One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
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Why do you have to protect yourself in a mental hospital? The setting in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is in a mental hospital in Oregon. The narrator is Chief Bromden, who tells the story about different characters but mostly about a guy named McMurphy. Every person has a story of why they are there and what are they considered Acutes or Chronic, each person is treated differently according to their being. Each person is using a method of defense against Nurse Ratched or the other patients. Many patients are in the hospital because they are considered dangerous to the general population.
The narrator, Chief Bromden, is considered a minority and is schizophrenic patient. Chief Bromdem defense is pretending to be deaf and dumb. He also has
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a big statue I considered him a dumb brute. Many of the patients treat him differently because he is a chronic and a minority. I feel the defense they use in the story is a real world feeling. The defense they have to guard themselves with is unnecessary. The money they use to contain criminals should be put to use of the mentally ill. The patients in the book are forced to live this way because they are no better options. They also are afraid of the consequences that’ll face because standing up for what you want makes you seem crazier. Until McMurphy comes to the scene he believes this is not the way humans should live so he takes a stand. All the other patients including Chief have become accustomed to the living standards, after them seeing Murphy in action they learned to take a stand. McMurphy messed up their daily routine so the patients were left with awe and became disrupted.
So every moment they spent with McMurphy they became more and more like him. Their defense was not following the orderly routine in which Nurse Ratched had set. Nurse Ratched pays McMurphy no attention but soon to catch on to what he is trying to do. She uses her authority to restrain McMurphy from committing his actions further into the future. Nurse Ratched liked an orderly mental institution with daily routine someone who messes that up receives consequences. McMurphy didn’t won’t to follow the rules, because he felt they were unfair and didn’t treat he patients according to how he …show more content…
felt. “The nurses look at one another and what’s got into this man,” they think they man is insane to be talking ever so loudly and still continues to talk.
The nurses have rarely seen this behavior and Nurse Ratched usually handles these situations appropriately. That day she didn’t and every one was surprised. Everyone’s defense to Nurse Ratched has been questioned. Because of one man that carries himself as if he wasn’t a mentally ill. Everyone has a defense against her but never thought of acting themselves instead of routinely. Even the nurses have nothing to say because all their defenses have been questioned.
They all say to themselves if I’m acting slow she treats me terribly. If I act Smart she’ll treat me with respect and let me do what I please. Well Kesey writes as if the feelings of everyone are deep. Kesey talks with very descriptive writing and talks more about fiction than what is probably happening. I’m not sure to believe everything he has wrote but I have to take in the content that he has written.
After McMurphy’s arrival everyone’s defense has changed especially Chief Bromdem. Chief trusts McMurphy with his biggest secret of not really being deaf and dumb. Chief has let his guard down when doing this but quickly pulls it back up in the ending. Chief has learned from the mistakes of others and has learned the ways of the system to use to his own
benefit. Chief may be ill but he is neither dumb nor deaf. This is meaning that if someone is defending themselves, they now a little bit more then you will think. I say this because people that carry guns for protection know that they have a nice chance of being harmed. You not carrying a gun mean you do not know the chances of you being harmed. The defense in the Cuckoo’s nest is way out of proportion; people shouldn’t have to protect themselves from the people that are caring for them.
The novel that Kesey wrote is focused on how Bromden’s past memories should not let him down, but to gather his strength and let go of the past to start anew. Kesey builds up the encouragement through the help on McMurphy in order for Bromden to face reality with the hallucinations, to Nurse Ratched’s authorities, and the use of symbolism.
Chief Bromden’s development in the story was evident mostly by his narrations throughout the story. Kesey created Chief’s initial character to be anxious and uncomfortable. This is most evident when he speaks about a certain “fog” in his narrations. The “fog” he hallucinates about may have been included as imagery of his inner apprehension and nervousness. "It's still hard for me to have clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen"(13). Bromden had come to the conclusion that the fog was not real, but had trouble trying not to think about it. “When the fog clears to where I can see, I’m sitting in the dayroom” (9). This quote makes the reader feel that Bromden’s angst may cloud his perception and represent his desire to hide from reality. Besides the fog, Bromden als...
Chief Bromden is a six foot seven tall Native American (half) who feels very small and weak even though by physical description, he is very big and strong. Chief does not have enough self-confidence and he is not independent. That is what makes him so small and weak. When Randle McMurphy, the new inmate in the asylum comes in, Chief is reminded of what his father used to be: strong, independent, confident and big. "He talks a little the way papa used to, voice loud and full of hell " (16) McMurphy helps Chief gains back his self-confidence and teaches him to be independent.
White characters such as Nurse Ratched and McMurphy show surprise that he is able to speak and understand them while the black boys claim that Indians can't read or write. Bromden justifies that he is victim to racial inequality when people look "at me [him] like I'm [he’s] some kind of bug" (26) or when people "see right through me [him] like I [he] wasn't there." Throughout Bromden's childhood, he realized that the white people thought he was deaf and mute and that even if he spoke, no one could hear him. In order to survive through the dangers of the social hierarchy he existed in through the ward, he feigns deafness. Bromden points out that, "it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all." (178) Bromden, has also been constantly abused by the staff and other patients at the ward who call him Chief Broom, a derogation of his name as Chief and a mockery of his floor mopping “duties” in the ward that the black boys force upon him. Bromden's circumstances is illustrative of his race and of his entire tribe. The social criticism that Kesey portrays, emerges piecemeal through Bromden’s constant flashbacks and hallucinations of his village. Kesey compares Native Indian cohesion with the new estrangement accompanying the loss of Indian cultures and the adjustment of a white lifestyle to show the social unity once created by Indian traditions. By the end of
He values this trait in others too, and when the Chief sees just how deceiving McMurphy can be, he is dumbfounded. Just as quick as he trusted McMurphy in the first place, Bromden lost his trust once he saw the con man for what he really is. This can be applied to everyday life as well, because there are so many scams out in the world that people are afraid to trust others. Once Chief Bromden sees what McMurphy is capable of, the Chief understands why the Big Nurse is so skeptical of him. McMurphy always acts according to his ethics, which consist of maintaining having the upper hand in all situations. The narrator provides indirect characterization for McMurphy. By describing his actions and how the man thinks, the reader can interpret McMurphy’s behavior to discover some of his traits. Since McMurphy plays with the thinking of others, I can infer that he is sly and calculating. Additionally, since McMurphy looked reluctant to bet, I can infer that the man is skilled in acting, because he obviously knew the outcome of the bet but pretended
Nurse Ratched is a former army nurse who works in the ward, she has manipulates the men in many ways. One way is having the patients “spy on each other” making them write things down, they think she would want to hear, or know. Bromden described Nurse Ratched as having the ability to “set the wall clock to whatever speed she wants”, a metaphor for her control, showing how the patients lose track of time. Nurse Ratched acts authority on the ward shows controls how superior over the person who would normally be her Superior, such as, Dr. Spivey.
Chief Bromden, a tall American-Indian mute is the central character that symbolizes the change throughout the text and also throughout society. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest uses this character that is subject to change as the narrator event though his perceptions cannot be fully trusted.
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.
Nurse Ratched uses her voice throughout the novel to intimidate the patients. She is the antagonist of the novel. The patients obsequiously follow Ratched’s command, until McMurphy comes along. They all fear that she will send them for shock therapy if they don’t obey her. Nurse Ratched is the most daunting persona of the novel, due in large part to the use of her voice.
The background of Chief Bromden’s life makes him a likely target for mental illness. Conflict that Chief’s father faced also negatively impacted Chief. His father was Chief Tee Ah Millatoona of the Umpqua tribe and his mother was a white woman. Chief’s father took his mother’s last name, “Her name is Bromden. He took her name” (214). This suggests her domination in the relationship, but it is made clear that her extreme belittling had negative psychological effects: “It wasn't just her that made him little. Everybody worked on him because he was big, and wouldn't give in, and did as he pleased... He fought it a long time until my mother made him too little to fight anymore and he gave up" (220). Just like his father, Chief was a big man crushed into a tiny man by the pressures of society. Chief grew up living a normal life, without schizophrenia, on the Columbia Gorge in an Umpqua village led by his father. The first memorable trigger of Chief’s schizophrenia came when government officials were inspecting his vil...
Nurse Ratched and her new patient, McMurphy, are in every way opposed to each other, she demanding control, he basking in freedom and independence. Inevitably, as the Nurse asserts her power, McMurphy rebels against it in both intentional and unintentional ways. Nurse Ratched had defeated past troublemakers with electro-shock therapy, or with lobotomies, the latter an operation that makes patients docile members of society at the expense of their individuality. McMurphy was asking for more and more freedom and awakening the other patients to things they have been missing. Nurse Ratched was intent on quelling this disturbance before it became a major issue.
On the morning of the fishing trip on Nurse Ratched's ward, one of Ratched's aides called Bromden illiterate because he was half-Indian. The General statement made by the aid, which was in the quote "`Why, who you s'pose signed chief Bromden up for this foolishness? Inniuns ain't able to write.'" (191), describes Kesey's racism toward Indians. The quote reflects how Indians in Kesey's novel are portrayed as illiterate. Bromden also represents the Indians as imprisoned at the mercy of white people. In Kesey's novel Indians, such as Bromden's father were forced to hand over their land to white people. The Indians' land was very important to them and being forced to give up land was essentially giving up their freedom.
To keep the ward from being rowdy, she chronically reminds the patients of their weaknesses. In the story, the Nurse becomes referred to as “Big Nurse” because of her ample power and capabilities. She sets up a logbook in which the patient’s write the secrets they here about one another. Big Nurse claims that this logbook will have therapeutic value and interest to the whole ward. Chief the narrator of the book impugns the Nurse’s theory. Chief states, “Sometimes one man says something about himself that he didn’t aim to let slip, and one of his buddies at the table where he said it yawns and gets up and sidles over to the big log book by the Nurse’s Station and writes down the piece of information he heard--- of therapeutic interest to the whole ward, is what the Big Nurse says the book is for, but I know she is waiting to get enough evidence to have some guy reconditioned at the Main Building, overhauled in the head to straighten out the trouble.” (Kesey- ch3) This quote reveals the fact that Big Nurse uses their secrets as weapons against themselves. She does this to curb the ward in a unified manner. Chief enhances his point about Nurse Ratched’s fictitious intentions by making an allusion to the outcome of the use of the logbook. Chief knows from past experience that if someone’s behavior goes against the conduct, Big Nurse has the ability to call for a
Majority of the patients in the ward have been underestimated and undermined their entire lives, giving them absolutely no willpower to ever push boundaries of what they can accomplish. When you have someone like Nurse Ratched constantly watching you and judging you, it takes away a lot of self esteem, if any of them had in the first place. McMurphy pushed these patients to finally pave their own path rather than travelling one that was already made for them. But, in many ways McMurphy tried to use the idea of insanity to his and the other patients’
He evidently models the narrating framework established by Kerouac. Chief Bromden, like Sal, relies on performance and pretends to be “deaf and dumb,” thus inadvertently granting him access to all of the details that take place in the ward (Kesey 3). Yet, it is his sole interest in McMurphy that dictates his story. Additionally, the reader is also presented with a similar symbolic moment where the narrator establishes an emotional connection to the hero. When the Chief notes how McMurphy, the heroic figure of the novel, is “not fooled for one minute by [his] deaf-and-dumb act” he is surprised because it is the first time anyone has paid him any attention (Kesey CITE). Considering that this is the first time the two meet, it is also apparent to the reader that the Chief regards McMurphy as different from everyone else for his ability to see through the performance and thus, automatically attributes a heroic quality to him. Although the two novels utilize a similar narrating structure, they differ in the way the narrators idolize the