Cuckoo's Nest Mental Institution

Through the novel, Kesey illustrates McMurphy as an archetype to portray the parallels between McMurphy and a Christ Figure. Early on in the novel, McMurphy “brings to the ward a zest for life and an insistence upon individuality and exploration” (Vitkus 56). He allows for the patients to reawakened without fear of the consequence. He can serve as an enthusiasm causing the patients to smile and laugh with being frightened of being analyzed by the nurses. Another instance, McMurphy is crucified when he was sent to the electrical shock therapy, the way he laid on the table “ ironically, like a cross, with a crown of electric sparks in place of thorns” (Kesey).

His infectious personality helps him gain the status of leader almost immediately, but earns the role as “savior” with his determination to go against the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. McMurphy tests her patients through his laughter, antics, and gambling. His laughter, which Chief Bromden describes as “ free and loud and comes out of his mouth and spreads in rings till its lapping against the walls over the ward”, plays a dominant role in his teachings (p.11). He uses it as a tool to reintroduce happiness to the patients. However there is a price to pay for being a Jesus figure.

Although it may seem that Chief passively accepts the system and it’s methods, his accounts of the treatment implicitly convey Kesey‘s on critique of mental institutions. The cure administered by the hospital is described as the insertion into the patient’s brain of “head installations” (18) or “controls” (45) that produce a dull machine generated man. Once discharged, a fully adjusted patient and turns into a model worker and citizen who is warped in the ways of conformity.

     Mcmurphy was the one who started making people laughing in the ward. When he first came into the ward he was cracking jokes and shaking everybody’s hand. (p.16)

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a book in which he dealt with the issues of racism, sex and authority that is going on in a mental institute. In the novel, the women are depicted as the power figures who are able to significantly manipulate the patients on the ward. There are four ways of Ken Kesey’s using of “woman” as a subject: Superiority of male sexuality over female authority, matriarchal system that seeks to castrate men in the society, mother figures as counterpart of Big Nurse and “Womanish” values defined as civilizing in the novel.

Society is governed by a set of rules and laws that help to maintain order and efficiency. However, the rules and laws that are set may be given by one person and is not acceptable by society or an individual. This could lead to challenging authority and becoming an individual and not a statistic in society. Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one of the main characters, Randle McMurphy, defies all the rules given once entering the mental hospital. In doing so, he challenges Nurse Ratched's authority which disturbs the order in the ward. Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,a children folk rhyme, and a Beatles song, Tomorrow Never Knows, depict the power and control one may have over society or an individual.

1962 was known as the freedom summer, which developed the fight for civil rights among black people in the US and worldwide. This historical setting of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest influenced the ideologies throughout the inscription of this novel. Ken Kesey developed his conceptual ideas of isolation through the setting of the characters. These concepts are developed through the protagonists, B Randle Patrick McMurphy and Nurse Ratchet. McMurphy challenges all aspects of rules and regulations within the psychiatric ward. McMurphy’s rebellion forces the reader to observe his understanding of insanity. The ward is a metaphor of a social statement being made by the author, perceiving society as the same as the ward; controlled, under authority and McMurphy is an example of chaos, change, and hope for the patients within the ward itself. “I hide in the mop closet and listen, my heart beating in the dark, and I try to keep from getting scared, try to get my thoughts off someplace else-try to think back and remember things about the village and the big Columbia River” , (chapter 1, lines page, 121, line 23). McMurphy’s actions throughout the novel are foreshadowed thus positioning the reader to question if he’s truly insane “And the third boy mutters, "Of course, the very nature of this plan could indicate that he [McMurphy] is simply a shrewd con man, and not mentally ill at all." Chapter 2, Line.1, .Page 32-37).

Throughout the novel ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ written by Ken Kesey, and the poem ‘Advice to Young Ladies’ crafted by A.D. Hope, there is evidence to suggest that the discourses represented by the characters in the novel and poem unveil the ways discourses of conformity underpin the characters’ actions, perceptions and motives, as well as inviting and silencing beliefs, attitudes and values. The author and poet are able to strongly convey their beliefs to the reader from their personal experiences. The four dominant discourses that both the novel and poem share and represents: conformity, sexuality and religious. These will be analysed and compared.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a controversial novel that has left parents and school authorities debating about its influence on students since its publication in 1962. The novel describes the inner workings of a mental institution, how the patients are emasculated and mistreated by the terrifying Nurse Ratched, who will go to any length to control them. But in comes McMurphy, a criminal who chose to go to an asylum rather than serve physical labor; he disrupts the order of the hospital with his big personality and loud opinions, undermining the authority of Nurse Ratched and encouraging the patients to live their own lives, until he too, is silenced forever by authority. With his novel, Ken Kesey paints society as an oppressive

The suppression that the male patients face traces back to the suppression of American society. McMurphy refuses to be another robot following orders aimlessly, he fights to maintain his individuality and to spread that individuality to the other patients. Just as the novel, society in America is very mechanical, citizens follow mundane orders like machines and when a unique individual breaks through and expresses themselves, they are eliminated. The power that Nurse Ratched feels against the male patients is similar to the power that Society holds on their people, order and control is essential. Both entities fear individuals whom have original thought, those people cause a threat since they can influence others to think the way they do--control is then lost.

It is a man’s world, and the woman 's place is in the house. This popular misconception has plagued American society since the time of the founding fathers. It was believed that the man was expected to be the master, the leader, or the commander in chief, while the woman is supposed to be passive and subservient. Women did not have the right to dictate how they used their money, how they dressed in public, and how they behaved in the presence of men. For a long time, American society suppressed women with these conformations. It was not until the late-1970s that women were allowed to freely express themselves. However, the normal convention of omniscient male dominance is absent in author Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel that takes place between the 1950s and 1960s. During this time period women were still confined to the home and were required to be servile. Ironically, Kesey gives his female characters’ power over the male characters throughout the novel. The roles of men and women in Kesey 's characters are unconventional for their time period as a result of the powerful matriarchal environment, the emasculation of the men in the ward, and inferiority of a minority status.

Among hundreds of movie production every year there will always be a handful worth remebering. And maybe one handful out of them will in the future be called a classic or perhaps a must for all movie enthusiastics. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is not only an illustruation of a mental institution it also provides the viewers with a thought revolution against a social selection in a perfect society.

In the world and differing by culture, there are certain expectations for women and men which are defined by their behaviors and attitudes. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, men in a mental institution encounter a new patient that shows the rest of the patients a new world by challenging Nurse Ratched, the nurse who runs the ward. The battle between these two characters affects all the patients’ lives. Furthermore, gender roles are significant factors that help characterize each character. In the novel, Kesey illustrates gender reversal and reinforcement through his characters and argues that women and men should be expected to follow gender norms.

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

“People don't want other people to get high, because if you get high, you might see the falsity of the fabric of the society we live in.” This quote by Ken Kesey embodies his view of society in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest. He depicts the modern society through Nurse Ratched, a strong authoritarian figure, that embellishes the nature of society. Nurse Ratched is notorious in her endeavors to control the men and uses her power to regulate the men. In this domain the beams of society cause the men to shrink from individual freedom that is reawakened with McMurphy, who teaches the men to be bold in the face of society. In Kesey’s work he highlights several major ideas about society. He illustrates the repressive nature of society that causes men to conform to boundaries. Further, he depicts how society rejects those who are deemed defective in the system. Lastly, he also illustrates how society is a major cause of shame and indignity. Thus, Kensey delineates the nature of society as being repressive, selective, and a cause of diffidence.