Analysis Of 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest'

2. McMurphy is a non-conformist in a setting that forces the individuals to conform to Nurse Ratched standards. Because of McMurphy’s urge to

With McMurphy’s continuous outburst or rebellion, Nurse Ratched sentenced him to receive Electroshock Therapy, the second worse punishment patients would receive for misbehaviour. Determined to put on a strong exterior “he insisted it wasn’t hurting him. He wouldn’t even take his capsules. But every time that loudspeaker called him to forgo breakfast and prepare to walk to Building One, the muscles in his jaw went taunt and his whole face drained of colour, looking thin and scared-” (Kesey 241). Enduring the excruciating experience of Electroshock therapy only heightened the image the other men upheld for McMurphy and contributed to his heroism. Through the fight with the black boys and his fight to stay strong through Electroshock Therapy, McMurphy’s determination was evident to the other patients of the ward.

Kesey has also given this novel great Symbolic value. As an opposer to the McCarthy scheme, he has used the mental hospital as a scale model of how society breaks free of society's conformity. McMurphy acts as the ‘liberator', or rebel of the ward's excessively strict conformity. He saves the patients from "the

McMurphy can also be considered a tragic hero. Although he could almost always take control of a situation and never let the combine get the best of him, he could not always control his temper. It was the one think that could get him in trouble because Nurse Ratched could not punish him with electric shock therapy unless he had an outburst. The best thing that McMurphy could have had in the hospital was patience and a calm temper because the only weapon Nurse Ratched had was to try to frustrate him. Since she has ultimate power on the ward, she could do anything she wants and make any rules. For instance, when the patients wanted to watch the world series and they clearly had a majority, she didn’t let them because she wanted them to know that she has authority

After leaving the hellish work farm where he serving his prison sentence, McMurphy arrives at the ward, which is exponentially more dull and drab in comparison. The impact of his arrival at the ward is seen instantly. The enthusiasm and energy he brings to the ward is so uncharacteristic, that even some of the Chronics, who are longstanding patients that have become “machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired,” show some life (Kesey 10). In his typical westernized fashion, McMurphy arrives at the hospital with the aura of “a frontier

Along with the other patients, they are locked away and deemed crazy. However, to the keen eye of others, he is far from it, “…and they would ask him if he felt like he was ready to come around and face up to his problem and come back to the ward…and he’d tell the nurse he regretted that he had but one life to give for his country before he’d give up the goddamn ship.” (Kesey 289). It is so clear that trying to make him go against everything he has worked at will never happen. He refuses to let anyone try to talk him down and make him do something he does not deem acceptable. Every action leading up to this was for the men, and he will not let his actions be labeled crazy. McMurphy has done so much for these men and will put himself in harm’s way if it means they have a voice. Similarly, to most, McMurphy may take things too far. To the ones that matter, he is doing everything for the greater good and is never selfish. Even so, the consequences are not even on his mind anymore, “Only at last-after he’d smashed through that glass door, her face swinging around, with terror forever ruining any other look she might ever try to use again, screaming when he grabbed for her and ripped her uniform” (Kesey 318). McMurphy again resorted to getting physical to prove his point. At this point, he has had enough and does not care what anyone will do or say to him. He has more than proved to the men that he

McMurphy learns that involuntarily committed patients cannot leave the hospital without staff approval. Therefore, he cannot leave at the end of his six months sentence, but when Nurse Ratched says he can and he begins to submit to her authority. However, by this time, he had become the leader for the other patients. Their sanity, their claim to manhood lies in the balance. Cheswick, dismayed by McMurphy’s surrender, commits suicide.

As seen in the story of the Coyote, McMurphy defies authority in order to achieve his own personal goals and create disorder. From his first encounter with nurse Ratched, McMurphy makes it clear that he bows to no one. When she reminds him that he must submit to his admission shower and follow the ward’s rules, he replies: “Ya know, ma'am, ya know — that is the ex-act thing somebody always tells me about the rules... just when they figure I'm about to do the dead opposite” (Kesey, 24). What this first impression describes in McMurphy is not only that he will not be molded by the authorities, but he will in fact disrupt their system. Much like the Coyote, if certain rules do not agree with his objectives, he will have no trouble breaking them.

Although he is so different from everyone else in the combine, that doesn’t stop him from being fearless. Instead of hiding from the black boys like Chief, McMurphy goes out of his way to bother them. He does the exact opposite of Chief, he won’t back down from anyone. Therefore, McMurphy inspires all of the other patients on the ward because of how confident he is of being different. He is a man on a mission to take down Nurse Ratched and won’t let anyone stand in his way although such a thing is unthinkable to all of the others on the ward. He commands the respect of his peers through his unthinkable actions. In fact, Chief praises him so much that he thinks of him as some inhuman figure when he asks, “How can McMurphy be what he is” (Kesey, 161) rather than asking, “How can McMurphy be who he is.” Seeing McMurphy as something higher than humanity says a lot about how unique and unafraid he is of everything that sets foot in his

McMurphy places a bet with the other men on the ward that he can break Nurse Ratched without a) getting sent to the Disturbed Ward, b) getting treated with electroshock therapy, or c) being lobotomized. Slowly, McMurphy undermines Nurse Ratched’s system of control while remaining Mr. Nice Guy. She’s no fool, however. What McMurphy doesn’t understand is that Nurse Ratched has a lot of control over the situation. Since he’s a patient in the asylum, she can keep him locked up as long as she wants. As long as he’s under her rule, she has the power to send him

In Ken Kesey’s One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, before McMurphy enters the hospital, it was all in perfect order, everyone would talk about their experience and what went through their heads. At one time, Randle McMurphy, a new patient at the hospital speaks about his own insanity with pride, ““Don’t overlook the possibility that this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of the work farm.” He looks up at McMurphy. “And what about that, Mr. McMurphy?” “Doctor”-he stands up to his full height, wrinkles his forehead, and holds out both his arms, open and honest to all the wide

When McMurphy finds out that he is one of two patients that are involuntarily committed to the hospital, it makes him realize that he alone is fighting for his freedom, and the others have been repressed by Ratched to the point of being afraid to rebel against her or simply leave. McMurphy fights until the end to free these men of their emasculation even if it

When McMurphy came to the institution, he was seen as being a problem. This is because he was going against Foucault’s argument of being docile. He did not want to conform to that. McMurphy soon realized that many of the patients were in the institution voluntarily, which caused for him to become more disobedient. He always tried to go against the nurses by telling the patients that they aren’t lunatics. He would consistently break the rules by trying to change the routine, by taking the patients fishing, teaching them to play basketball, and by sneaking in alcohol and girls during the hours of dark. Foucault would say that McMurphy was an anarchist rather than a conformist.

McMurphy is a gambling Irishman and convict, who grows tired of laboring at the Pendleton prison farm. To escape prison life, he feigns insanity and gets himself involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Oregon. He tries to bring about a change at the hospital, for he does not like the fact that grown men act like "rabbits" and are scared of the Big Nurse. He tries as hard as he can to "get her goat", by not doing the duties he is given. He also ironically ends up serving as a

Time passes and McMurphy continues to rebel. As he does so, many of the other patients follow. They break the Nurse’s Station window a couple times, start a basketball team,and even go on a fishing trip. When they return from the trip, the staff says they need to be cleaned so they are sent for “special showers.” A fight breaks out and McMurphy and Chief are sent to the Disturbed ward. Up in the Disturbed ward, McMurphy is given many “treatments” of electroshock therapy. The only way to stop the therapy is to admit that he was wrong. He refuses to admit this and continues to get the electroshock. When Chief says he should just play along, McMurphy says, “‘When I get out of here the first woman that takes on ol’ Red McMurphy the ten-thousand-watt psychopath, she’s gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars! No, I ain’t scared of their little battery-charger’” (Kesey, 250). Though he is going through torture, McMurphy continues to resist Nurse Ratched’s methods of conforming him. He is persistent in not giving in to the society. McMurphy continues to fight, even when everyone knows it’s a losing battle.