One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Chapter 2 Summary

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey during a time in our society when pressures of our modern world seemed at their greatest. Many people were, at this time, deemed by society’s standards to be insane and institutionalized. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a ward of a mental institution. The major conflict in the novel is that of power. Power is a recurring and overwhelming theme throughout the novel. Kesey shows the power of women who are associated with the patients, the power Nurse Ratched has, and also the power McMurphy fights to win. By default, he also shows how little power the patients have.

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

“She aint honest … She likes a rigged game” (Forman One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Film). Power can be used as a source of evil or heroism. It has the capacity to control and manipulate people. However, it also has the capability to champion freedom and rights for others. In the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratchet’s controlling power came from her ability to emasculate the male patients and maintain a sexless façade. She also held in place an extensive system of rules and regulations, as well as an ordered routine. McMurphy’s liberating power derived from his rebellion against the ward rules and his open sexuality which granted him confidence.

Bromden mops and sweeps most of the time while he is at the ward due to the fact that people believe he is deaf and dumb. The Big Nurse, Miss Ratched, enters with her confident attitude and immediately gets mad at the black boys standing in the hall. However, she does not want the other patients to see her in this state, so she calms herself. The woman gets angry any time her schedule is ruined or something does not go according to plan. She tells the black boys to shave Bromden, and they obey. Bromden does his best to hide, and he thinks back to his memories while fog surrounds him. When the fog clears out, the new Admission arrives, and everyone stops to evaluate him. His name is Randle McMurphy; Bromden is instantly reminded of his father

In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey uses machine imagery to develop the theme that society forces people to conform. The novel is able to portray machine imagery and conformity by using the Patients, Combine, and Bromden’s Dream.

Freedom can be obtained through the defiance of society’s expectations to find a sense of individuality. Ken Kesey’s ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ is a novel originally published in 1962, which centres on the lives of patients in a psychiatric hospital. Symbolism, one of the many techniques, was incorporated into the novel, to convey the main ideas of freedom, and society versus individual.

Societal pressures are expectations used against those who do not deem socially acceptable actions or behaviours. It often causes people to change their picture of reality, as they want to appear ‘normal’ among the majority. But how can one truly be themselves, all whilst letting societal pressures dictate one’s path? Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, explores the societal pressures for patients to conform to the behavioural standards of society within the walls of a mental ward— but the power of one individual arises the rebellion of other patients to go against the authority of this institution. By examining the symbolism of the patients’ imprisonment, imagery of the machinery, and the setting of the ward, one can see that

The book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken kesey is narrated by a patient in a mental institution. Chief bromden the narrator and the others patients lives are changed when Mcmurphy is introduced to the ward. Mcmurphy introduces the patients to gambling and to rebel against nurse ratched's rules. He continues his behavior until he finds out nurse ratched decides how long he stays in so mcmurphy calms down. Not much time passes and he resumes to his rebellious behavior and even gets permission to go on a fishing trip with some patients along with a prostitute. Although when they return Bromden and Mcmurphy are sent to disturbed for fighting two aides. When they are both back they have a party where Billy has sex with prostitute but is caught along with everyone else. Billy then kills himself when nurse Ratched decides to tell his mom on the incident so Mcmurphy tries to strangle the nurse. As a result Mcmurphy is given a lobotomy so bromden kills him and escapes. Kesey reveals to the reader how a feminized society strips a man's masculinity for control.

I thought that it took having things like a big house, or a really nice car to be happy. But from what I have learned this semester in English, that is no longer the case. From reading the books Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey, and watching The Pursuit of Happyness if people enjoy what they are doing with their life, they will be happy.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about a mental ward, its patients, and the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, a sadistic woman who overpowers her patients by making them feel small, incompetent, and incapable of belonging to society in a normal manner. Two of the patients, Billy Bibbit, a shy and fearful man with a bad stutter, and R. P. McMurphy, a very smart and outspoken man, each play a big part in the movie. They are both examples of wrongful treatment within the institution. In the end, Billy commits suicide as a result of Nurse Ratched’s threats towards him, while McMurphy undergoes a lobotomy and is eventually put out of his misery by his friend, known as Chief Bromden, so that he would no longer suffer as a vegetable.

While the novel itself is portrayed as an odd depiction of the struggle of power in an unrealistic setting, there is a purpose for the information included in the novel, which is full of symbolism. The novel by Ken Kesey was written around the children’s rhyme previously stated and symbolizes the plot. The beginning of the rhyme is displayed as “Ting. Tingle, tangle, tremble toes, she’s a good fisherman, catches hens, puts them in pens” which also depicts the novel because the fisherman is Nurse Ratched, who “catches hens”, or mentally ill patients and “puts them in pens” by incarcerating them in the psychiatric hospital. The rhyme then continues with “… three geese in a flock, one flew east, one flew west, and one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.”

As I have begun reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I made note of a few specific paragraphs that struck me as the most intriguing and significant. Among them was an episode that depicts Chief’s perusal of Mack Murphy’s hands. The decision to make this distinguishment was based on my belief in multifariousness and depth that the aforementioned scene contains. I presume that the “hand” episode compels the reader to reflect on several characters: Mack Murphy, Nurse Ratched, the patients and the Chief himself. First of all, Chief’s precise descriptions of Mack Murphy’s hands allow the reader to closely study the new patient, his background and way of life. The mentioned cauloses, scars and cuts speak to Mack Murphy’s coarseness; the smooth

In today 's society, as well as in the past, men are typically placed in a position of power over women. Although gender equality is increasing, a more patriarchal society is considered to be the norm. However, in certain situations the gender roles that are played by men and women are reversed, and women hold most, if not all of the power. Such as in Ken Kesey 's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, in this instance the ward is a very obvious matriarchy, where women rule over men and attempt to metaphorically castrate them. Throughout the text there are many examples of women, Nurse Ratched in particular, attempting to emasculate the patients on the ward. The ward is an extreme matriarchy, and the men hold little to no power, whereas the women are able to control and manipulate them with ease because of the reversal of roles.

The context of the novel is explored through the background of the author in order to understand the purpose of the text. Ken Kelsey is born in 1935, in La Junta, Colorado.(Biography) During his years at Stanford, he worked as a night attendant on the psychiatric ward of a hospital, where he witnessed the treatment of the inmates and the effects of the sterile structure on their identity and sanity. (NY Times) His experience at the hospital as a aid and as a voluntary experiment subject led to the birth of his 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest. (NY Times) Through the novel, he communicates his dissent against the post-war society that castrates men by sypressing their sexulity and sacrifices their spirit. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, he constructs a mental ward that held microcosmic resemblance to the post-war American society. He critiques power in American society through descriptions of the Combine and highlights the virtues of male strength and sexuality by placing them in opposition to the ruthless characteristics of females. Nurse Ratched, an oppressive female figure of power, emasculates her patients to empower herself. She represents Kesey 's fear of a feminizing society. Randall McMurphy’s struggle against Nurse Ratched and the system of the “combine” represents a struggle between gender for power. His culminating sacrifice for the group by attacking Nurse Ratched is analogous to a rape act, which links manhood with virility. The inconclusive

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest is a book written by Ken Kesey in 1962. The book was published more then 50 years ago but yet is one of my favourite books that I have read through out my years of high school because it tells me about the the life in the 1950s. The novel was set at an psychiatric hospital. The book was narrated by Bromden, a big size half Native American patient at the hospital for about ten years, who everyone thinks is deaf and mute. Bromden’s paranoia is clear from the first line in the book that he clearly suffered from hallucinations and or delusions. The mental patients are all male and are divided into two groups, Acutes who can be cured and the chronics that couldn’t be cured. They were ruled by a nurse knows has Ratched,