One Flew Over Cuckoo

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

In Ken Kesey’s book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there were two main characters that were in a battle to have the majority of control over the ward. Throughout the story, they engaged in different acts of stubbornness to see who could display the most power and which of the two could stand their ground the longest without giving in to the other. These two characters were: Randle McMurphy, a new patient who was determined to change the ways of the ward, and Nurse Ratched, the head nurse of the asylum who preferred to have complete control over everyone and everything.

Works of literature innately embody the author’s ideology and the historical context of the given time period. Within the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, the author furthers his ideals against the issue of oppression as he attempts to take stabs against its deteriorating effects and support those who rebel. Set in the microcosm of a small mental hospital, he establishes man’s external struggle to overcome tyranny. At the head of the head of the ward is the corrupted character of Nurse Ratched, who rules with an iron fist and the help of her machine like aides. It also features the nonconformist character, McMurphy, as he works to break Nurse Ratched’s endless cycle of tyranny. Although the novel shifts between the

“…She’s somethin’ of a cunt, ain’t she Doc?” Although Milos Foreman’s character, Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), put his opinion of Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) in the most vulgar of terms, he was not so far from the truth. In the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Nurse Ratched’s treatment and care of the patients was unethical when compared to the standards one would expect of a health care administrator. She used control over her patients to ensure order, without regard to the feelings and concerns of the patients. This issue is presented by the director, Milos Foreman, through symbolism, characterization and scenes. This, in turn, determines how the director wants us, as viewers, to feel about the issue.

An exceptionally tall, Native American, Chief Bromden, trapped in the Oregon psychiatric ward, suffers from the psychological condition of paranoid schizophrenia. This fictional character in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest struggles with extreme mental illness, but he also falls victim to the choking grasp of society, which worsens Bromden’s condition. Paranoid schizophrenia is a rare mental illness that leads to heavy delusions and hallucinations among other, less serious, symptoms. Through the love and compassion that Bromden’s inmate, Randle Patrick McMurphy, gives Chief Bromden, he is able to briefly overcome paranoid schizophrenia and escape the dehumanizing psychiatric ward that he is held prisoner in.

Would you ever accept a leadership role to a group of beat down patients at a mental institution knowing the consequence would be death? Randle Patrick McMurphy does just that. McMurphy, a con man who seeks institutionalization, becomes a role model for the inmates at a hospital. These male patients are lifeless human beings who fear the institution and its ruler, Big Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched runs the ward like an army prison camp with harsh and motorized precision. Nurse Ratched controls the inmates in every way possible, and they have no freedom. When McMurphy comes along, the inmates realize he is their rescuer,

In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, Nurse Ratched symbolizes the oppression of society through archetypal emasculation. The male patients at the ward are controlled, alienated and forced into submission by the superior female characters. Throughout the novel, there is a constant fear of female superiority; Randle McMurphy, the sexually empowered male protagonist, states how they are essentially being castrated. Castration, in the novel, symbolizes the removal of freedom, sexual expression and their identity. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched, the mechanical enforcer, represents American society: corruption, surveillance and the deterioration of individuality.

Many times throughout one of Ken Kesey’s most famous novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book uses animals as symbols to represent the story’s plot. The animals usually relate to individual characters and their current struggles within the story. Animal imagery provides us with great insight to the themes that Kesey is trying to have us explore, and is a very good tool that the reader can use to help better understand and relate to the characters.

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

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

The portrayal of sanity and insanity, consciousness and unconsciousness, clarity and opacity in one’s psyche is one of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s most examined themes. The analysis of this theme, and Kesey’s commentary that extends from it, further asserts this novel as a classic according to Sainte-Beuve’s definition. Insanity is first introduced as a central theme in the novel through with the inherent unreliability present in Bromden’s retelling of the novel, as it is all told in a flashback, and even he admits that his memory still isn’t “clear”. Kesey explores altered states of consciousness in his novel through both insanity and hallucinogenic medication, with one of the first examples of hallucination being Bromden imagining that,

Directed by visionary Miloš Forman, the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest fully takes advantage of the film medium to convey differing tones. One such example is during the final scene of the film; Chief Bromden, after smothering McMurphy to death, lifts a heavy marble sink, throws it through a window, and escapes. During this scene especially, the use of lighting and sound expresses a sense of freedom and salvation. Forman’s deliberate application of lighting in certain areas and colors add meaning to his final scene. During the scene where Bromden sneaks into the room with the marble sink, all lights in the room are turned off and the room is shrouded in darkness.

This worker, named Moses, comes to be a very important person in Mary's life when he is taken to be a servant for the house. Mary does not fear her servant Moses but rather reserves a great deal of disgust, repugnance, and avoidance for him. Often Mary does all she can to avoid having any social proximity with him. After many years living on the farm together, Dick and Mary are seen to be in a condition of deterioration. Mary often goes through spells of depression. In her frailty, Mary ends up relying more and more on Moses. As Mary becomes weaker, she finds herself feeling endearment towards Moses. On a rare visit from their neighbor, Slatter, Mary is seen being carelessly and thoughtlessly kind to Moses. This enrages Slatter. Slatter demands that Mary is not allowed to live with that worker as a house servant. Slatter sees himself as defending the values and integrity of the white community.

Hello and welcome, as you know I’m your host Annelise da Costa and tonight I will be addressing marginalised groups and their representation in two different texts; the film Gattaca and the novel one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest is a story from the frightening past of the mental health system. Set in a mental hospital, the marginalised group is the clinically insane. However, even within the patients, there are varying degrees of insanity and therefore varying degrees of marginalisation. Gattaca in contrast, is based in the not too distant future, a fictional society that has developed their culture around science and genetic manipulation. The marginalised group is those who are imperfect, or who have not been

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey is an incredibly powerful book. It falls under the genre of fictional drama, with a realistic plot and relatable characters. It is set in the 1960’s, in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon. The beginning explains life in the facility and describes the patients and the difference between them. You are introduced to the men who are functional and communicable, then you are informed of the other side. These gentlemen include those who mainly sit, stare and drool, all of their lives. The reader is then clued into one specific patient, Chief Bromden, a half-Indian, who is actually telling the story and reflecting on his time in the mental hospital. He explains the rough and quite honestly, horrific living