Interactionist Perspective Essay

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

Madness, Power, Rebellion, and Conformity are some of the many themes that prevail in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Hamlet both express similar messages of sanity vs. insanity, control, and compliance through their characters.

McMurphy is a man bound to change the ward not only to benefit his sanity, but all the other patients who have lost theirs over the years from the tactics used by Nurse Ratched. He is being forced into being what others think he is, in order for the patients to recognize themselves through his actions. He gives them the ability to regain their power that was lost from Nurse Ratched, and even though McMurphy has a choice to obey the rules, instead he is rebellious and the voice of the patients. That being said, McMurphy has the responsibility to continue to give them hope in order to help them. He pushed the patients to fight for what they want. For instance, McMurphy states “But I tried though. “Goddammit, I sure as hell id that much, now

Randle picks up a woman who in her first greeting asks the patients if they are all “crazy” and they respond by nodding their heads. This shows that these individuals have come to adopt being “crazy” as part of their identity, because of being institutionalized and given that label. Further suggestion of this idea is in the scene where Nurse Ratched reveals to Randle that many of the in-patients are at the psychiatric hospital on a voluntary basis, and only few of them are committed, showing their internalization of their identity as mentally ill patients. Another point that can be drawn from the film is the way, which Nurse Ratched conducts the group therapy sessions. The sessions did not appear as beneficial or therapeutic to the individuals participating in them. It is evident that Nurse Ratched, an individual in a position of power, manipulates the patients into confinement in the hospital through her group therapy sessions. She consistently revisits past traumas and difficulties for the patients, which reinforces the symptoms they believe they suffer from which causes them to feel unstable and unable to leave the hospital. Thus, through these examples in the film, it is suggested that individuals admitted to psychiatric hospitals have come to adopt their mental illness as a defining feature of their identity.

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.

“McMurphy takes the "twelve of us towards the ocean," (page 239) just like Jesus' 12 disciples. Both McMurphy’s and Jesus’ trips were done to test and strengthen their trust in their leader; which turned out to work. When the trip is over, Chief describes how most of the patients changed for the better. Even the nurse is a little shocked at the way they are acting. “We waited this long to say anything, hoping that you men would take it upon yourselves to apologize for the rebellious way you acted. But not one of you has shown the slightest sign of remorse” (199). At this moment the nurse is maybe starting to question her power. The fishing trip is a prime example of how McMurphy led the patients; just like Jesus lead his

“People with mental health problems are almost never dangerous. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators. At the same time, mental illness has been the common denominator in one act of mass violence after another,” Roy Blunt, a United States senator, had said. Some individuals who are mentally ill are able to achieve their goals because they have the qualities associated with being a leader, such as having confidence typical of narcissism or willing to use others like psychopaths. The characters of Hamlet and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest focuses on these states of mental health and how it ties into the people and setting. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, characters

This does not stop her from trying to get in the way of their trip. She attempts to sway the opinion of the patients by telling stories of ships that wrecked at sea and by saying that they did not have enough cars to take all 12 patients. The fishing trip really was a therapeutic experience for the patients because for the first time they really laughed and enjoyed themselves without the stress of the nurse and of the ward. “While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water—laughing at the girl, the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier and the bicycle rider and the service-station guys and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy” (237). After the fishing trip it seemed like a turning point in McMurphy’s favor in the long lasting rivalry between the two. At this point in the story McMurphy has established complete dominance over the nurse and he finally understands his boundaries. After he realizes this he continues his rebellious behavior by doing the exact opposite of what the nurse tells him to do. “The most work he did on them was to run a brush around the bowls once or twice apiece, singing some

In One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the concept of insanity is proven as a state consipred by society, but is represented as an illness that one individual grants on another. Kesey’s writes his novel through the mind of Chief Bromden, a patient in a mental hospital, who becomes inspired to rebel against the ward by a character named McMurphy. Through characters like McMurphy and Chief Bromden, Kesey shows that the men are not mentally ill, instead they are disturbed by the corrupted treatment from Nurse Ratched. McMurphy and Bromden “are resocialized to play a passive and apathetic role rather than an active one in an effort to change troublesome patterns

Unlike Nurse Ratched, “McMurphy was clearly acting as part of a group rather than as an autonomous element. His leadership role in the group can be nicely illustrated throughout the novel in terms of his relationship to other patients” (Lena). Whether it was persuading patients to go deep sea fishing, inviting prostitutes to the ward, or changing the cleaning schedule to watch the World Series, McMurphy centralizes his actions around a group. He cares more about the patients as he does himself, as he was willing to risk his life for George in the bathhouse. When speaking to the nurses to protect George, McMurphy states, “‘You goddamned coon,’ McMurphy said, somehow sounding more tired than mad…

At the first meeting of the ward, Nurse Ratched exposes Harding’s problem with his wife and the other patients laugh and make fun of him. McMurphy sees this as a problem and talks to Harding, “is this this the pro-cedure for the Group Therapy shindigs? Bunch of chickens at a pecking party?” McMurphy is saying that the patients should be helping each other to take out the bigger authority rather than fighting each other. Later in the novel, McMurphy says he wants to leave the ward and go outside, so he bets with the other patients that he can escape the ward by lifting a fountain attached to the ground and throwing it at a wall to make an exit, even though this task is impossible.

Growing up in a psychiatric hospital as an adolescent you start to learn things about yourself, you face parts of your character that in the real world you could shut out easily but in here your faced with four walls of peeling yellow paint but you see through that paint and make it your own. Sometimes the only thing you can do is adapt when your placed with an odd set of cards.

The main character of McMurphy is often portrayed as a trickster in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In the first part, Chief Bromden sets the scene of the mental hospital to the readers as it occurs right after McMurphy has entered the room of the mental ward to join all of the other men, “They spy on each other. Sometimes one man says something about himself that he didn’t aim to let slip, and one of his buddies at the table where he said it yawns and gets up and sidles over to the big log book by the Nurses’ Station …” (Kesey 14). Just a few minutes ago, McMurphy has introduced himself to everyone by saying that he is a gambling fool which already

We feel that One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest is filled with many psychological connotations. This movie is set in a mental hospital where McMurphy was admitted to be psychologically evaluated because of violent behavior. Upon his arrival McMurphy noticed that the patients were very robot-like in their actions. The hospital is extremely structured where the patient’s daily life was monotonous. We will discuss the various connotations by answering the following questions that have been asked.

In summary, the idea of a psychiatric patient and his therapist going on the run, or going on a road trip, or a therapist being kidnapped by her patient has