Character Analysis: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

In Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, the nurse Miss Ratched is a fine example of a realistic fictional villain. Possession of three key components is essential in identifying what makes Miss Ratched a villian. Motive is what drives the villain to commit the very acts that allow them to be considered evil in the first place, and often drive their entire being as a character. While they must possess motive, they must also have a sense of morals that coincides with their motives (typically evil, or distorted) and follow their moral compass in a way that often causes trouble for those around them. Additionally, a villain is frequently associated with their opposite; the hero who combats them. Kesey’s character perfectly aligns with these three categories of what makes a villain, and it is unquestionable that she is the villain of the novel.

Many pieces of literature have comparable characteristics, including the use of literary elements to portray deeper meaning. “The Story of an Hour” and The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are great pieces of literature which keep their main focus around the use of symbolism, hidden in the plot. Whereas Mrs. Mallard, from “The Story of an Hour”, appears to be insane due to her husband, characters from The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest gains their insanity from Nurse Ratched, both authors incorporate symbolism in order to display themes and reveal character traits

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

Out of the four characters listed in this film, the one character that does not exhibit pretense is Billy. We first see Billy as a nervous, shy young boy with a speech impediment. Billy has weird relationships with women; he likes women and enjoys the company of them but is fearful of the women that are most close to him. Billy’s mother and especially Nurse Ratched are the women he is most afraid of. Nurse Ratched has a personal relationship with Billy’ mother, she has a special motherly power that she only has on Billy and not the other patients in the hospital. She can control him into doing stuff he doesn’t want to do because, Billy is afraid that Nurse Ratched will tell his mother about his

McMurphy was idolized by certain people in the ward, making him a threat to Nurse Ratched. Throughout the novel, One who flew over the cuckoo's nest, there was several symbolic representations of religion. But, how does McMurphy become a Christ figure towards the patients in the ward? When McMurphy entered the ward, he created disruption in the Disturbed room; therefore, the patients would copy his disruptive behavior, by over throwing the Big Nurse. Although, Part one is the exposition of the novel, demonstrating the main characters, and setting of the novel.

The first character introduced was Peter Holmes. Holmes is a Lieutenant- Commander of the Royal Australian Navy. Peter married to his wife, Mary, six months before the war. Peter comes across as a family-oriented character. He continues to not only make decision that benefited him, but he always keeps his family in his thought. The impending deployment of Peter shifted the Holmes household. Instead, Mary would retrieve the milk and keep the family running. On one of his last trips, Peter sets up with the farmer the future transaction. Peter set down a plan and told the farmer what to expect. While in his interview, Peter makes sure he pick the job right for his family. He aches for a seagoing job, but also recognizes Mary needs a change as

Literary elements play a very important role in literature discussed in How to read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. It adds richness to a novel helping convey complex concepts. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, Kesey loads the novel with insightful literary elements that bring dimension to his story. The book is also jam packed with literary devices that range from Chapter 1: Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not), to Chapter 14: Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too in Foster’s book. Focusing on Chapter 12: Is that a Symbol? , Kesey fills One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with several dynamic symbols that make it facile for his reader to analyze, interpret and connect to his work.

In the convoluted mess of the botched colonization of Mars in The Martian Chronicles and the horrors of mental institutions in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest arise many intricate similarities and differences. Both The Martian Chronicles and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest have characters who oppose change, strive for freedom, and oppose the status quo; however, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the maintenance of current norms is portrayed as evil while in The Martian Chronicles it is painted as an act of heroism.

Although Nurse Ratched’s guidelines and procedures have the ability of putting all of the members of the ward into a “fog,” a state of mind numbing acquiescence, this has not occurred since McMurphy has arrived. In fact, McMpurphy makes it his mission to break Nurse Ratched once and for all after witnessing her manipulation of his colleagues during a group therapy session. He comes to the final conclusion that Ratched a “ball buster, and even though Harding was the center piece of humiliation during the meeting, he struggles to admit that Nurse Ratched is a “bitch.” Eventually, McMurphy is able to persuade Harding to admit his true feelings about the wretched nurse. The spectacle she had made of Harding’s sexual inadequacies in regards to his wife causes him to finally snap. With this,

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.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kelsey, is a novel that exposed the mental hospitals in the 1960s. The main nurse in the story is Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched believes in three forms of healing known as group therapy sessions, lobotomy, and ETC, Electroshock therapy. The novel displays the use of therapy and how sometimes physical therapy isn’t the best therapy for patients.

Ken Kesey’s book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, takes us through Mcmurphy’s experience in the state mental hospital, taking place in Oregon’s state hospital. Chief narrates through the story, he is half native american who acts like a deaf dumb chronic. In the beginning of the story Mcmurphy arrives at the hospital as transfer. On Mcmurphy’s first day there he finds out Harding is top dog and intends on changing that. Then, during the first group meeting he sees Nurse Ratched; who is head of the ward, puts all the men against each other. After the meeting he describes it all as a “pecking party”, so he then makes a bet with the boys that he can break Nurse Ratched without destroying himself. One morning he asked the nurse if she could turn

Following my reading of Pride and Prejudice, I was ready for a new type of story, set in a different time and place with a very different writing style. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest caught my interest because of the unique plot and the complexity of the characters. At the end of quarter three, we were given another writing assignment to test our knowledge of the book and the characters. For this assignment, we were instructed to choose a character from our book and create a college application for her. The assignment was meant to give us a break from the traditional final book review assignments and get us thinking of the characters in a different way. We were expected to use all the information the book provided and use our knowledge of

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a critically acclaimed novel written by Ken Kesey and later on a movie adaptation, directed by Milos Forman, which was similarly critically acclaimed earning itself an extremely high 96% on rotten tomatoes. However said appraisal of both works, does not excuse the gleaming errors and artistic licensing seen throughout the entirety of the film. Granted there were no major plot holes and alterations present, the physical descriptions of the various characters within the story as well as their behavior differed quite a bit from their silver screen counterparts. The most critical physical and behavioral differences can be seen quite clearly

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest clearly shows the mindset of how the character Randle Patrick McMurphy has gone from the average, everyday man with slight problems that with determination and a steady plan could be solved. With the narration of Chief Brompton, being a patient on the ward for years, it proves that he can and cannot be trusted due to the idea of exposure to certain medicine killing the human mind. Within the ward and the idea of how things can work and how it crumbles due to the “wild animal” idea of the do as you must and do not make waves. When going into a different setting that is controlled by the mind becomes suffocated and turns to the caged idea of the world changes.