One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay

In Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the patients in a mental institution are put through a restorative treatment in order to follow the line and fit into society. McMurphy, he who breaks boundaries inspires the rest of the patients to live their lives when they are slowly giving up their struggle for life, to rebel against the authority of the Big Nurse and her undermining attempts to get them to submit to her power and rules. Uniformly disturbing the principal at Welton Academy and a group of determined parents attempt to conform the lives of their children to the ideals of society in the movie Dead Poets Society. The students follow the new ideas brought on by a teacher only to learn of the obstacles that face them. A romantic non-conformist, McMurphy and Keeting who challenge the system and its leaders in turn becoming the ultimate sacrifice, brings them to a new vision. They inspire the oppressed and give them confidence to be successful like Bromden and Todd or to reject reality and fail like Billy and Neil.

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 norms of society are unfair and seem set in stone, rebellion is bound to occur, ultimately bringing about change in the community. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest demonstrates the conflict of individuals who have to survive in an environment where they are pressured to cooperate. The hospital's atmosphere suppresses the patients' individuality through authority figures that mold the patients into their visions of perfection. The ward staff's ability to overpower the patients' free will is not questioned until a man named Randal McMurphy is committed to the mental institute. He rebels against what he perceives as a rigid, dehumanizing, and uncompassionate

The events of Kesey’s novel are majorly tragedies, all associated with the arrival of and vital disruption caused by Randle McMurphy; Charles Cheswick’s death, Billy Bibbit’s suicide and McMurphy’s own expiry. Once Cheswick returns to Nurse Ratched’s ward on the day of the swimming trip, he explain that he “did wish something mighta been done”. After, he dives into the water and drown - The reader is left contemplating whether his death was accidental or intentional. The event distinguishes a loss that is somewhat the result of disobedience. Proceeding the party thrown at night, Nurse Ratched explains to Billy that his mother has always been “proud of [his] discretion”. It is after Billy tastes the callous repercussions of rising that he decides it is too overwhelming, and constructs another loss for the men of the ward in their pursuit of liberty. In the final pages of the novel, Chief smothers McMurphy in order to ultimately release him from the rule of Nurse Ratched. The scene portrays McMurphy as the final casualty of the men’s revolution, as Chief ventures towards autonomy - which is finally reachable reality for him. As a result of the novel’s tragic fatalities, constraints are released from those who are left to appreciate

The plot of the story is Bromden’s worldview is subjugated by his fear of what he calls the Combine, a huge conglomeration that controls society and forces people into conformity. Bromden pretends to be deaf and dumb and tries to go unnoticed, even though he is six feet seven inches tall. The all-male mental patients are divided into Acutes, who can be cured, and Chronics, who couldn’t be cured. They are controlled by Nurse Ratched, a former army nurse who runs the ward with harsh, mechanical precision. Randle McMurphy arrives as a transfer from the work farm; Bromden senses that something is different about him. McMurphy swaggers into the ward and introduces himself as a gambling man. Bromden suffocates McMurphy in his bed, enabling him to die with some dignity rather than live as a symbol of Ratched’s power. Bromden, having improved his immense strength that he had thought was gone during his time in the mental ward, but escapes from the hospital by breaking through a window.

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.

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ conveys the idea of society versus individual by setting the story in a psychiatric ward, where the “Combine” (8) represents society, and the individuals are the patients. Prior to the arrival of McMurphy, the other men were oblivious to their unjust treatment, and their ability to rebel against Big Nurse Ratched. Society versus individual as a main idea represents society’s pressure on the patients to conform to norms and the consequences of not doing so.

Kesey’s setting of a mental health institution pits the sane against the insane, the powerful against the powerless, representing the two opposing sides of a situation. McMurphy symbolizes the conflicting motivations of people, particularly in challenging situations, to promote their own best interests or those of other people. Kesey’s description of McMurphy’s history including a difficult childhood, war experiences in Korea, a prison stay and ultimately, his placement in the asylum would suggest he would consider his own needs first. However, his biggest gamble in attempting to outsmart Nurse Ratched cost him everything. Because McMurphy is an ambiguous character, readers are able to notice the connection between the novel and themselves and their

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a first hand account by the narrator about several weeks inside a hospital's ward for the insane. The narrator, Bromden, recounts, “ I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. Bu it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”(page 8). The book is a testament of major character transformation, following characters that transform from detached and constricted individuals to individuals who relearn how to think for themselves and tap into their natural desires. The

The main character, McMurphy, represents ideas of sexuality, freedom, self-determination. Nurse Ratched represents ideas of sexual repression, authoritarianism, and conservation. Billy Bibbit’s behavior represents and shows the influence and effects that guilt has on people. Ruckly, is a chronic patient that suffers from having too much electroshock therapy, and in his mental state holds a “Jesus Christ” pose, arms out forming a cross. He cannot move unless the “nails” are removed from his hands. The Aides Warren and Williams represent oppression and the unfairness that was to colored people back in the day. How this is represented is the patients use slang towards them and call them “boy.” When the Aides speak they use incorrect grammar and slang. Also due to the oppression and unfairness that they have dealt with all their lives they are very bitter and cruel people. They abuse the patients behind Nurse Ratched’s back and are constantly taunting and teasing them, doing nothing to help the patients already corrupted mental state. Finally, when the Nurse is being choked, the Aides, fed up with doing the same amount of work and getting paid less, and having to obey everything Nurse says, just watch and let it happen behaving almost pleased about the

McMurphy’s personality provided freedom, life, joy, and the power the individuals in the institution needed to stand up against the strict establishment. McMurphy takes risks, and encourages the patients to embrace. When McMurphy first arrives at the institution, the patients all followed a structure in the institution where interactions with others were limited. The patients were isolated, didn’t interact with one another and each patient had their own daily routine. This society was made up of order and regulations and each patient had a common identity of insanity, seeking medical treatment. McMurphy influences all the other patients and helps to change the society. During his time in the institution, McMurphy develops relationships with the other patients and

Cheswick’s journey for being an independent leader begins when McMurphy first arrives to the ward and has his first group therapy session with Nurse Ratched and the other members who reside in the institution. When Cheswick finds out that McMurphy is anti-authority, and not afraid to show it, he, along with the other patients, start to encourage him to constantly harass Nurse Ratched. What Cheswick does not realise is that this event makes McMurphy start to become more passive, which puts a screeching halt in the progress of Cheswick “quest” to become a real leader. Once McMurphy decides that he needs to be a symbol for the ward and resumes his journey, Cheswick’s restarts as well.

McMurphy acts as a mentor and teaches Bromden how to become more rebellious and express himself. With the help of McMurphy, Bromden also develops friendships with other patients at the ward, who all plot against one enemy, known as Nurse Ratched. Bromden describes Nurse Ratched as a woman whose “color so hot or so cold if she touches you with it can’t tell which” (4). Before, many patients do not attempt to go against Nurse Ratched because she controls the ward; she can send patients to get an electrical treatment if they are reluctant to listen. But now, all the patients in the ward unite with one another to fight and stand up against the ward’s policies.

Within One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy epitomizes rebellion and civil disobedience. McMurphy rises and unites the patients against the tyrannical rule of Nurse Ratched, effectively sending the entire ward into an uproar. The patients have been in comfortable submission for years, voluntarily admitting themselves into the safety and confinement of the ward and shameful guidance from the “ball-cutter” Nurse Ratched. McMurphy liberates the men within the ward, but the cat and mouse game of rebellion between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy turns dangerous as the freedom and lives of men get jeopardized in acts devised to regain freedom.

Chief Bromden, the novel’s half-Indian narrator, introduces the reader to the mental ward, a place dominated by Nurse Ratched (is this passive?) and her obedient staff. (think of different description for the ward) When the new patient McMurphy arrives, he challenges Nurse Ratched’s authority and encourages the normally passive and compliant patients to join him in his rebellion against the overpowering staff. The unrelenting power of Nurse Ratched soon discourages McMurphy, but when a fellow patient commits suicide(,?) McMurphy realizes that he must put the needs (specify) of his fellow (redundant) patients above his own desires and revive his rebellion. McMurphy plans a fishing trip for the ward and, upon return, gets into a fistfight