One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Interestingly, McMurphy loosely follows the path of Jesus Christ, where he begins a journey of unselfishness to help free his fellow ward members from the strong grips of the combine. With his fusion of an almost thuggish hero and a liberator, McMurphy cements himself as an archetype that was common in the psychological field from that time. In conjunction with the thoughts of many theorists, like Freud, McMurphy becomes a character that serves almost as role model for many young people. In the case of the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy’s fellow ward-mates are the figurative representation of the children McMurphy would appeal to. In the end, it is McMurphy’s rebelliousness and inevitable sacrifice that help portray him as a classical hero, while also allowing him to free society from the constraints of oppression.

In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, Nurse Ratched symbolizes the oppression of society through archetypal emasculation. The male patients at the ward are controlled, alienated and forced into submission by the superior female characters. Throughout the novel, there is a constant fear of female superiority; Randle McMurphy, the sexually empowered male protagonist, states how they are essentially being castrated. Castration, in the novel, symbolizes the removal of freedom, sexual expression and their identity. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched, the mechanical enforcer, represents American society: corruption, surveillance and the deterioration of individuality.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest comes out of a nursery rhyme - “one flies east, one flies west, and one flies over the cuckoo's nest". The “one flew over” represents McMurphy and the “cuckoo’s nest” depicts the psychiatric ward. McMurphy’s personality gives way a sense of freedom and enlightenment to everyone in the ward - just as a bird helps others gain the ability to fly. This novel contains lots of imagery and metaphors, but the most interesting aspect of it is how the Combine relates to society as a whole and how we as a people abide by it.

Randal McMurphy is portrayed as having many various personalities throughout Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy stumbles into the insane asylum as a boisterous new acute. From the start, he openly asserts his strong rebellious personality. McMurphy is a Savior to the other ward patients; rather than someone who brings them down.

Ken Kesey portrays McMurphy as a Chris-like figure in many different parts of the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In the book, McMurphy is viewed by some as a Christ-like figure, and for some, he is not. Ken Kesey intended for McMurphy to be a heroic, Christ-like figure because of events that occurred and the battle between McMurphy and the "evil" Nurse Ratched. A few events that occurred that demonstrated McMurphy's heroic, Christ-like figure was the Electro Shock Therapy and the fishing trip.

Many times throughout one of Ken Kesey’s most famous novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book uses animals as symbols to represent the story’s plot. The animals usually relate to individual characters and their current struggles within the story. Animal imagery provides us with great insight to the themes that Kesey is trying to have us explore, and is a very good tool that the reader can use to help better understand and relate to the characters.

Winston Churchill once stated, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” Social criticism is necessary to depict the flaws out in our society, so that we may fix them. Ken Kesey tried to bring attention to issues plaguing America in the 1950’s through his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It is a few times were a greatly honored work of literature demonstrates and promotes feminism. It is even greater when two different sides of the spectrum of feminism is highlighted. The novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is one of the first works to present Hester Prynne, a woman capable of raising a child alone, and influences altering discriminatory views against women. One the other side of the spectrum, Nurse Ratched, from One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, shows feminism but to an extreme level, so much so that she emasculates men whom already feel lessened by the societal norms from its time period. Both, Hawthorne and Kesey, use independent female characters to embody feminist ideals, through characterization

The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) was directed by Milos Forman. The film stars Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny Devito, Brad Dourif, Will Sampson and many more. The film is about a troubled man who instead of jail is sent to a psychiatric ward for his sentence. Randle McMurphy believes being in a psychiatric ward will be better and easier than jail. However, the head of the ward is Nurse Ratched and she rules with a stern hand and makes his time spent not so easy. There are many twists and turns and some sad moments for McMurphy. He tries to make the best of it and for the others patients but Nurse Ratched makes it extremely difficult. McMurphy has to try and stay sane in the ward for the time he is there. This film shows

CHIEF BROMDEN: He is the narrator of the novel and has been in the mental hospital longer than anyone else. He feels as though he has lost himself ever since he was placed into the mental hospital for his illusions and his mental instability. He often just quietly observes everyone in the word and pretends as though he can’t hear or speak. He doesn’t get in anyone’s way, but somehow manages to find out a lot about people in the mental hospital. Due to how analytical he is, he quickly notices how different McMurphy is from everyone else.

In Kesey’s 1950s novel ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest’ Nurse Ratched’s relationship with male patients is based upon differences they hold about gender and identity. Nurse Ratched is portrayed as a masculine misandrist figure that gains power from emasculation. She carries “no compact or lipstick or woman stuff, she’s got that bag full of a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties” . This implies nothing womanly about her as she prioritises her “duties”, suggesting that she aims to control her male patients by ridding her feminine qualities. In addition, she is shown in robotic with a chilling aura. This is evident when she slid “through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her” . This indicates that as a power figure her only concern is controlling her male patients, making sure they are obedient and abiding by her rules. “Gust of cold” implies that by doing so she wholly ruins her relationship with the males due to her “cold” and callous methods. Daniel J. Vitkus states she is “the Big Nurse, an evil mother who wishes to keep and control her little boys (the men on the ward) under her system of mechanical surveillance and mind control.” Yet, can be argued that she is fulfilling her role of working as a Nurse within a mental institution. However Vitkus’s critique is similar to when McMurphy says “Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter?” McMurphy is a hyper masculine force against Ratched’s emasculating norms. Their relationship is essentially a power

One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest describes a mental hospital where the patients housed within are restrained by the use of medication and a controlling nurse who reduces the patients wills. The patients over and over betray one another, which effectively draw them to further detachment within themselves. In an institution where no one seems to care about curing patients Nurse Ratched seems happy to break the will of each patient, making them manageable. In this way, the hospital’s day to day activities blackout all free will instead of creating comfort. The arrival of a new patient, McMurphy creates attention immediately in the ward as he acts out of routine. Due to his

Chief is the veteran of the ward. He has been there the longest, since the start of World War II, with the exception of Big Nurse. He has the mutual respect of everyone in the ward.

In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, readers are thrust into the unknown and sometimes terrifying world of mental patients at a psychiatric ward. In the novel, narrator Chief Bromden describes the events that happen in his day-to-day life after a new ward patient, Randle McMurphy, is admitted. Throughout most of the story, McMurphy constantly challenges the Big Nurse in charge of the ward, Nurse Ratched, and ridicules her futile attempts to force him to conform to the monotonous life shared by the other patients. Although McMurphy is able to change many of the patient’s lives for the better, Nurse Ratched ultimately wins by essentially turning him into a vegetable and regaining control over the ward. One of the biggest themes

After watching Ken Kensey film “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”, I came to the conclusion that this film has many controversial messages about what really goes on behind the doors of a mental institution. However, there is only one message that both the book and the film try to portray, and that is how people are perceived when they are given a label by society. In this movie, there are two characters that challenge the audience social perception. The first character that challenges the audience social perception is Ms. Ratched the head nurse of the mental because, in the begging of the film, she is perceived by the audience as a woman who is trying to help her patients get better. However, once we get to see her inside the mental institution,