One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Analysis

The masculine approach of the text creates a dichotomy between the males and females of the ward. During his shock therapy, Bromden recalls a tune he used to sing with his grandmother, which provides insight into the division between the male patients and Nurse Ratched:

Hospitals are meant to help some people heal physically and others mentally. In the novel One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey published in 1962, readers are introduced to a mental hospital that has goals that do not align with helping people. Within the hospital, characters with varied personalities and opinions are intermixed with three main characters playing specific roles with supporting characters close by. With the characters’ motivations, themes develop such as the emasculation of the men in the hospital by an oppressive nurse. Symbols, such as laughter and the “combine”, are also pertinent to themes as the readers watch the men transitioning from being oppressed to being able to stand up for themselves causing change in hospital policy.

Chief Bromden is the main character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Chief Bromden, also know as “Chief Broom” is mentally ill in a mental ward. Chief suffers from Schizophrenia, lack of identity, and oppression. Chief Bromden changes throughout the novel by coming out of his fog, becoming aware of his surroundings, and even leaving the mental ward with the help of his friend Mcmurphy.

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.

The 1960’s was a period of great dissatisfaction from people who felt their rights were being violated. Millions of Americans, young and old, black and white, came together to fight against racial discrimination and protest the Vietnam War. The government suppressed the southern black population the right to vote, while sponsoring a war in Vietnam that was widely unpopular. Reflecting the anti-establishment movements of the 1960’s, Ken Kesey wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It has since become an American classic for its themes of rebellion and nonconformity against an over controlling authority that does not respect individualism and humanity.

In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the lead protagonist, Randle McMurphy, changes over the course of the novel because of the characters that he meets and the effects they have on him. Originally, McMurphy was selfish, disrespectful, and inconsiderate, but then he forms closer bonds with the other characters and they change him and the way he views other people. The characters in the mental hospital struggle with conforming to the dictator in the ward, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy comes into the hospital as a way out of a prison sentence and tries to teach the patients that they need to stand up for themselves and do what they believe is right.

In this book written by Ken Kesey, the main character is a man named R.P. McMurphy who tricks people into thinking that he is a psychopath. To McMurphy, the asylum is a get out of jail free card, which quickly turns out to be something else entirely. However, one vital aspect of this book is the way in which it addresses and provides insight upon several contemporary issues relating to the American healthcare system, by illustrating the ways in which our modern healthcare system has improved and grown in the last five decades. This includes the following areas of healthcare: the need for a healthcare reform, the lack of healthy doctor-patient relationships, and the murky definition of mental illness.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, the climax occurs when Nurse Ratched, the antagonist, forces the men who return from the boating trip to shower, causing a violent melee that leads to the book’s resolution. McMurphy, one of the protagonists in the story, arranges a special boating trip to let the other men in the ward have a sense of happiness and independence. As Nurse Ratched discovers that the men interact with a prostitute, she furiously demands the men to cleanse their bodies. George expresses his disapproval of the nurse’s demand due to his phobia of cleanliness, and McMurphy and Chief Bromden physically fight the nurses as a part of their protest. In the end McMurphy and Chief Bromden relocate to the Disturbed Ward for their extreme behavior: “They kept talking like that, to cheer us up and make us feel better, about what a fight, what a victory—as the Big Nurse helped the aides from Disturbed adjust those soft leather cuffs to fit our arms” (234). The main theme of the novel, the overthrowing of authority comes to a close, and Nurse Ratched finally captures McMurphy, the man who encourages the rest of the patients to resist her oppression. This climatic scene contributes to the resolution: the weaker party, or the patients, win by proving their point of intolerance towards authority, yet Nurse Ratched remains the ultimate person in control. Shortly after the incident, Nurse Ratched metaphorically and literally sucks the life out of McMurphy with

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

Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, depicts Nurse Ratched as an antagonist of the novel, and many reviewers believe that as well; I believe Nurse Ratched is, at times, heroic in her journey. Nurse Ratched is only seen as the antagonist because she defies McMurphy and the patients throughout the novel. She is never noticed however, for dealing with the constant bad behavior of McMurphy. The other patients in the ward would not have followed McMurphy and his ideas if he wasn’t so persuasive. Nurse Ratched should be praised for taking on the challenge of trying to help McMurphy and the patients in these hard times and crosses six pivotal stages during her journey.

With regards to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, R.P McMurphy is presented. When McMurphy arrives on the ward, he realizes how Nurse Ratched controlled the patients for so long to the extent that they do not make any decisions for themselves. He therefore decides rebel against Nurse Ratched and give them their manhood they lost and teach them what the outside world has to offer. He builds up the patients spirit and demostrates to them that Nurse Ratched is just like any human that are made of flesh and bones and not some sort of machine by teasing, interrupting the daily discussion and uses vulgar language to draw out her inner

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

Nowadays there is a hot debate on what exactly causes mental illnesses. The two main suspects are society and genetics. Proponents of the genetics theory believe that there is a physical ailment of the brain which causes mental health issues. Those who support the society ideology believe that mental health is shaped by the society in which the person lives.

The author of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Keasey, received his inspiration for the book while volunteering at a veteran's hospital. This is where he was first introduced to LSD. The moment he tried it, he became addicted, and began experimenting on himself with the drugs, observing the effects. The novel deals with the tyrannical rule of head Nurse Ratched in a mental hospital somewhere in Oregon. She runs all business and daily life in the asylum to her every whim and rules the ward by fear and manipulation. This has gone on for as long as the narrator, Chief Bromden, can remember. However a new patient, Randle McMurphy, enters the hospital and begins to wreak havoc upon the system

Characters like Billy Bibbit, who is too timid, with a speech impediment and Harding who is a closet homosexual and was less avert in sexuality were seen as having mental problems, and were committed to the asylum. McMurphy demonstrated the treating of these patients like normal people, helped them to become more in line with society then Nurse Ratched’s rules and group therapy meetings, or pecking party as Chief Bromden would call it. Chief Bromden was a Native American and wasn’t insane until he was institutionalized and withdrew himself from everyone else pretending he was deaf and dumb to protect himself. Ken Kesey’s message here with Chief Bromdens silence, was to portray the natives of the time having no voice in the country and to show the controlling and manipulative manner of Nurse Ratched that emasculated and de-socialised these grown men.