One Flew Over The Cuckoo 's Nest

2. McMurphy is a non-conformist in a setting that forces the individuals to conform to Nurse Ratched standards. Because of McMurphy’s urge to

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

McMurphy can also be considered a tragic hero. Although he could almost always take control of a situation and never let the combine get the best of him, he could not always control his temper. It was the one think that could get him in trouble because Nurse Ratched could not punish him with electric shock therapy unless he had an outburst. The best thing that McMurphy could have had in the hospital was patience and a calm temper because the only weapon Nurse Ratched had was to try to frustrate him. Since she has ultimate power on the ward, she could do anything she wants and make any rules. For instance, when the patients wanted to watch the world series and they clearly had a majority, she didn’t let them because she wanted them to know that she has authority

Sam Jefferson English 495 Ms. Chase 12 November 2015 Chief’s Savior In Ken Kesey’s classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, relationships play a major role in better understanding individual characteristics of members of the mental institution. One of the more complex relationships that develops throughout the book is the relationship between Chief Bromden, the silent Native American, and McMurphy, the boisterous newcomer to the ward. McMurphy’s confidence in himself and in Chief help Chief become “bigger,” and leads to a close friendship between the two. McMurphy’s rebellious attitude leads Nurse Ratched to give McMurphy a fate worse than death by having him lobotomized, but Chief dignifies McMurphy by killing him before the other patients can see his current state.

After leaving the hellish work farm where he serving his prison sentence, McMurphy arrives at the ward, which is exponentially more dull and drab in comparison. The impact of his arrival at the ward is seen instantly. The enthusiasm and energy he brings to the ward is so uncharacteristic, that even some of the Chronics, who are longstanding patients that have become “machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired,” show some life (Kesey 10). In his typical westernized fashion, McMurphy arrives at the hospital with the aura of “a frontier

He says, “Just as I said: any of you sharpies here willing to take my five bucks that says that I can get the best of that woman, before the week’s up, without her getting the best of me?” (73) This quote shows that McMurphy is very self-assured that he can accomplish what he sets his mind to. The ward was not used to this kind of behavior in a man. Most of the men that were already there needed to be there because of an actual insanity problem, but McMurphy was there because he would rather have been there than where he was before and the court had allowed him to be transferred. McMurphy took them completely by surprise with his resistance to follow their instructions and to do what he was expected to do. At his arrival, he immediately exhibited disobedience. He refused to take a shower, which was the asylum’s policy for new admissions. This instantly put Randle McMurphy under the staff’s radar for them to watch out for.

Nurse Ratched, the ward supervisor, personifies the forces that seek to control the individual by subduing their right to think and act for themselves. She acts as a dictator who is constantly manipulating her patients to gain an advantage over them. Because Nurse Ratched supervises a mental hospital, she is expected to tell her patients what to do, but “the novel suggests that Nurse Ratched goes beyond mere supervision and instead seeks to rule all elements of the patients lives” (“Oppression in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”). Nurse Ratched and her staff dehumanize the patients, and this eventually causes the patients to become broken inside.

In Part I of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest McMurphy enters the ward as self-absorbed and self centered. He doesn’t care if he takes advantage of the people and only cares about himself. His track record proves this; “ A dishonorable discharge, afterward, for insubordination. Followed by a history of street brawls and barroom fights and a series of arrests for Drunkenness, Assault and Battery, Disturbing the Peace, repeated gambling, and one arrest - for Rape” (Kesey 42). All of his convictions and arrests show that he wasn’t ever worried about anyone else, especially his charged of rape. McMurphy also shows his self-centered personality right away when he was talking to the patients. He tells them; “Why, one of the big reasons I got myself sent here was because I needed some new suckers.... I thought I might take advantage of this and maybe make both our lives a little more richer. I’m starting level with you. I’m a gambler and I’m not in the habit of losing” (71). McMurphy comes straight out and tells the patients that he is a gambler and plans on taking their money. He doesn’t care about what they might think about him and it also doesn’t bother him to take advantage of people like mental handicaps. He just wants to win their money and plans on doing so. Overall, in Part I McMurphy is self-absorbed and self-centered and proves this with his life history and with what he tells the other patients.

Regarding Miss Ratched, she seems to show signs of passive-aggressive behavior throughout the book. This behavior adds to her manipulative ways and contributed to the decrease of the patients’ progress (mental/physical state). Passive-aggressive behavior is used to maintain control and power because it’s a way for her to not display any signs of weakness. Miss Ratched, also known as the Big Nurse to the patients, fights hard to remain as the top authority figure in the Ward due to her thirst for power. To maintain the control over the men, she emasculates them, stripping them of their masculinity, in various ways to prevent the chance of an uproar against her. For instance, after a group meeting regarding Harding’s problem with his wife’s breasts, the patients attack Harding. In response, McMurphy provides an analogy of a pecking party to the current

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.

McMurphy learns that involuntarily committed patients cannot leave the hospital without staff approval. Therefore, he cannot leave at the end of his six months sentence, but when Nurse Ratched says he can and he begins to submit to her authority. However, by this time, he had become the leader for the other patients. Their sanity, their claim to manhood lies in the balance. Cheswick, dismayed by McMurphy’s surrender, commits suicide.

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

In the movie his highest form of authority is Nurse Ratched. One could almost say that she stands in a way for the government as far as influence goes. Another interpretation is that the “asylum was a metaphor for the Soviet Union” and this was “embodied as Nurse Ratched” (Dirks). Either way you look at it, both the hospital and Nurse Ratched herself are the source of authority in the movie. Some examples of McMurphy’s rebellion against Nurse Ratched include him challenging her to rearrange the schedule so that he could watch the World Series, escaping with the other patients by themselves for a boat trip, and throwing a late night party with alcohol and prostitutes.

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

Time passes and McMurphy continues to rebel. As he does so, many of the other patients follow. They break the Nurse’s Station window a couple times, start a basketball team,and even go on a fishing trip. When they return from the trip, the staff says they need to be cleaned so they are sent for “special showers.” A fight breaks out and McMurphy and Chief are sent to the Disturbed ward. Up in the Disturbed ward, McMurphy is given many “treatments” of electroshock therapy. The only way to stop the therapy is to admit that he was wrong. He refuses to admit this and continues to get the electroshock. When Chief says he should just play along, McMurphy says, “‘When I get out of here the first woman that takes on ol’ Red McMurphy the ten-thousand-watt psychopath, she’s gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars! No, I ain’t scared of their little battery-charger’” (Kesey, 250). Though he is going through torture, McMurphy continues to resist Nurse Ratched’s methods of conforming him. He is persistent in not giving in to the society. McMurphy continues to fight, even when everyone knows it’s a losing battle.