Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

Randle McMurphy, the protagonist, is introduced to break down the nurse’s oppressive ways. McMurphy, a con man who was sentenced to a work farm, was diagnosed as a psychopath and sent to the mental hospital, which he much preferred. Serving as a savior figure to the patients of the ward who have already been battered by the Big Nurse, McMurphy causes interference to the nurse’s control. He supports the men as they are ridiculed in meetings and supports their attempts to change policy. Although he does help other patients, he first looks out for himself. He cons the patients out of their money and then follows the nurse’s rules for awhile because of the threat of being kept on the

They are all subjugated to the jurisdiction of Nurse Ratched, the antagonist of the extolled novel, who is considered “normal”, according to society’s standards. At the first Group Meeting that includes McMurphy, Nurse Ratched opens up his file and reads, “McMurphy, Randle Patrick… history of street brawls and barroom fights… Disturbing the Peace, repeated gambling, and one arrest – for rape” (Kesey 45). Being ridiculed by the outside world has already weakened the mentally ill’s demeanor, but Nurse Ratched further downgrades them and uses their “flaws” to her own benefit. Upon McMurphy’s arrival, Nurse Ratched is already trying to undervalue him in an ironically covert, genially-seeming manner. It can be insinuated that she exploits every patient, like if it was part of a caustic admission process. Throughout the novel, Nurse Ratched garners the insecurities of each patient, writes them down in their file, and later uses them as ammunition to make sure that it becomes a propensity to behave and know that she is their superior. The style in which she disparages the patients in very ironic; the way she speaks makes her seem like an innocuous character, but many of the patients hold her in contempt and have a feeling of disdain towards her. Ratched imposes past traumatic events or significant people in the

As soon as McMurphy arrives on the ward, he challenges Nurse Ratched’s abusive regime in hopes of restoring humanity and the rights of the individual. It didn’t take long

The psychiatrists, with Ratched present, concluded: "He's not crazy, but he's dangerous." Ratched insists on committing Mac in spite of the danger, and her superiors defer. Thus we see Ratched's need to win trumps good judgment. She does win. Mac comes within seconds of crushing her windpipe. The ethical thing to do following the attack would have been to assign Mac to the disturbed ward or to have him released into the custody of the corrections dept. She doesn't. She arranges a lobotomy for Mac. That's how she wins. Ratched destroys Mac's ability to function at all; she neutralizes him; she takes away his humanity.

In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the lead protagonist, Randle McMurphy, changes over the course of the novel because of the characters that he meets and the effects they have on him. Originally, McMurphy was selfish, disrespectful, and inconsiderate, but then he forms closer bonds with the other characters and they change him and the way he views other people. The characters in the mental hospital struggle with conforming to the dictator in the ward, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy comes into the hospital as a way out of a prison sentence and tries to teach the patients that they need to stand up for themselves and do what they believe is right.

The struggle between Ratched and McMurphy takes on the symbolic overtones of a mythological, comic battle.

“A success, they say, but I say he’s just another robot for the Combine and might be better off as a failure…”(17).

One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, written by Ken Kesey in 1962 is a gripping multidimensional novel, set in an Oregon Mental Institution set deep in the countryside. The novel is narrated by an American half-Indian known as the “Chief”, who is a seemingly deaf and dumb patient with Paranoid Schizophrenia. By choosing Bromden as the narrator instead of the main character McMurphy, Kesey gives us a somewhat objective view, as its coming from only one perspective.

The reader can feel the change of tone in Chief Bromden narration throughout the novel, most of the other patients were helpless, not only because of their mental illness, but because of Nurse Ratched’s abusive use of her power, she convinced them that they cannot be helped. One of the other nurses in the institution once talked to McMurphy about Nurse Ratched, and how she is not really capable of running a psych ward. “Army nurses, trying to run an army hospital” (335) Nurse Ratched was previously a nurse in the army, and she used her abusive power to run a psych ward full of mental patients as if they were soldiers in the military, until McMurphy arrived at the institution and changed her game. Most of the patients were not really mentally ill, they were not even committed, they joined the hospital voluntarily because they were not able to face society, and they were too coward to face The Big Nurse.

People are always perceived as one or the other; You are good or you are bad, mean or nice. Then there are the sane and the insane. What decides whether a person’s actions are considered one or the other, depends on who is viewing them. In the circumstances of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, there is the argument between who is insane and who is considered sane between the Big Nurse and McMurphy especially. She sees him as insane because of his behavior and the way he knows how to get under her skin. He, and most of the other patients, don’t view him that way. He uses his “irrational” label of being insane to his advantage and to help the other patients.

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

The author of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Keasey, received his inspiration for the book while volunteering at a veteran's hospital. This is where he was first introduced to LSD. The moment he tried it, he became addicted, and began experimenting on himself with the drugs, observing the effects. The novel deals with the tyrannical rule of head Nurse Ratched in a mental hospital somewhere in Oregon. She runs all business and daily life in the asylum to her every whim and rules the ward by fear and manipulation. This has gone on for as long as the narrator, Chief Bromden, can remember. However a new patient, Randle McMurphy, enters the hospital and begins to wreak havoc upon the system

Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a creation of the socio-cultural context of his time. Social and cultural values, attitudes and beliefs informed his invited reading of his text.

In the film the main character's Randal Mc. Murphy, then there are the Nurse Ratchet and all patients who are within the structure. The story is focuses on how you evolve emotions and behaviours of Randal during his stay in the clinic.

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