One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest Analysis

McMurphy is at constant odds with Nurse Ratched, the antagonist of the story; she represents the anally fixated dictator. She has established system believed to find sanity by adjusting the patients to the outside world standards. Nurse Ratched tries to shape the patients not in their own image but an image that she sees all people should act. It is believed that what the Nurse is doing is helpful to the acute’s actually suppressing their individually. In the novel they are multiple power struggles between the Big Nurse and Randle Patrick McMurphy on Nurse Ratched side, she is trying to hold order among the ward to conform McMurphy. However, McMurphy acknowledges the way she runs the ward is not right and it is actually suppressing the acute’s masculinity and self-confidence. In one section Chief Bromden acknowledges why he believes McMurphy is so strong is because he is what he is. “I’d think he was strong enough being his own self that he would never back down the way she was hoping he would.” Nurse Ratched may have a hard time trying to make McMurphy conform but she has ease making the rest conform to her standards. These are the supposed standards that the patients believe they need in order to be accepted in society. However, they are the supposed beliefs that the majority of people believe in order to strive socially. It is not only the Combine’s Ward that there a sense of missing identity there is also. Compared to the society that humankind occupies, people

wo of the most prominent conflicts in the story are issues arising from person vs. person (Randle McMurphy vs. Nurse Ratched) and person vs. self (Dale Harding and Billy Bibbit.) Of the two topics, the arising issues between patient McMurphy and Mrs. Ratched seems to prompt for the largest problem. From the moment that McMurphy was admitted to the psychiatric ward, there was tension between him and Nurse Ratched. Upon his arrival, McMurphy established that he wanted to know who the “bull goose looney” (most influential man among the patients) was so that he could overpower him and gain power. Nurse Ratched seemed to disapprove of his thirst for power from the beginning, fearing that he may disrupt the flow of her ward. The tension between the

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.

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.

The use of perspective in showing Kesey’s worldview is prominent in the descriptions of conflicts between McMurphy and the other patients. The large differences between McMurphy's view on behavioral freedoms vs the rigid structure are seen on page 54 when McMurphy gets into an argument with another patient about the suppression of the men's speech by Nurse Ratched. McMurphy states that Nurse Ratched is a “ball cutter” and that she is trying to get the men to fight each other and place themselves in her control, the other man, Harding asserts that he is wrong and that Nurse Ratched is an “angel of mercy”. However, on page 56 Harding

1. Passage: “You are strapped to a table, shaped, ironically, like a cross, with a crown of electric sparks in place of thorns.” (Page 69)

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.

At this time, the Nurse believes that she had won after defeating McMurphy and is now able to easily assert her dominance again. However, she is not aware of the true effects of McMurphy’s character on other patients. “McMurphy's commitment to human freedom is a seed that will be nurtured into a tree in his relations with the men in the cuckoo's nest and will eventually bear the fruit of their freedom before it expires from the effort” (Porter 3). M. Gilbert Porter suggests the fact that others, namely Chief Bromden, had taken the beliefs of McMurphy to heart. Porter asserts that McMurphy’s strength and influence had accomplished its goal of reaching out and controlling the patients of the ward. People such as Chief Bromden are now aware of his wishes even after McMurphy had received multiple electroshock therapy sessions and a lobotomy. Unfortunately for the Nurse, she has underestimated the extent to which McMurphy’s strength had reached. Bromden is able to use this strength to lift the panel to break a window to success, a feat even McMurphy couldn’t accomplish. “The glass splashed out in the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping earth” (Kesey 324). By breaking the window to freedom, Bromden is able to break the boundaries that the Nurse had failed to strengthen after McMurphy’s loss. Ratched

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

Ratched the head nurse on the ward whose job requires her to be in control.

society, as well as sanity vs. insanity are greatly expressed through the characters actions and events in the novel, as seen from a patients eyes. Randle McMurphy, the main character of the novel portrays the theme of the individual against society through his dealings with Nurse Ratched and the hospital. “The main action of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest consists of McMurphy's struggles against Nurse Ratched. Her ward at the hospital is a society in itself. McMurphy challenges the rules from the beginning” (Malin 224). The effects of the battle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched is expressed in the reactions of both characters, as well as the changes brought to the ward. “But she stops. She was flustered for a second there. Some of the acutes hide grins, and McMurphy takes a huge stretch, yawns, winks at Harding” (Keasey 45). The individual vs. society theme is clearly displayed here though McMurphy's struggle against the rules of the asylum, and against the rule of Nurse Ratched. This represents a a man, or individual, fighting for his own rights when faced with the views and obstacles forced upon him by a tyrannical society with strict guidelines. The second major theme in this novel, tied to the individual vs. society, is the theme of insanity vs. sanity. “Sanity vs. insanity is a topic that is established by society itself, set by public values and rules on what normalcy should be and what insane should be qualified

Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a creation of the socio-cultural context of his time. Social and cultural values, attitudes and beliefs informed his invited reading of his text.

With the creation of this new theme, Nurse Ratched would not only create a bias but also doubt that she’s doing anything wrong or corrupt. She wouldn 't bluntly admit that she regularly enforces mandatory rules that will not be tampered with. In Nurse Ratched’s version of the story, McMurphy would be the villain. He would be portrayed as a huge ugly man with a huge lack of respect and education. When McMurphy is introduced to the novel, he welcomes and introduces himself to the other patients and staff in a bold and obnoxious manner, “My name is McMurphy, buddies, R. P. McMurphy, and I’m a gambling fool.” (Kesey 12) McMurphy continues to sing and laugh which gives Nurse Ratched the impression that he is unlike any other patient this ward has ever had and he is going to be an issue since he gambles. This impression of McMurphy could cause her to write in her journal about McMurphy’s recklessness and singularity compared to the other patients.