One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Insanity Analysis

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.

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 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.

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.

Throughout history there has been a veil of mystery surrounding what truly goes on inside of asylums. This idea is illustrated clearly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on multiple occasions. One example can be seen when R.P. McMurphy takes to writing letters to people he knows in order to get them to ask questions about what is really going on. By doing so, he hopes to reveal the truth behind the world he finds himself in. Additionally, in the world of McMurphy, electroshock therapy is still being used. However, this type of therapy was being used less as a cure for illness, and more as a form of discipline, punishment, and pain infliction. According to Weitz in chapter

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

As one is experiencing a life of alienation and loneliness, they may being to act uncontrollable while rebelling against their surroundings, one loses themselves as they feel different than everyone present. Alienation can force an individual to spiral into an abyss of nothingness, nonetheless if one allows others to reach out and inspire than it is possible to break away from the alienation and loneliness. Chief Bromden from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, is an Indian who was institutionalized for insanity and is considered a chronic in the ward as he is “too far gone” to be healed. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D Salinger is a lying, rebellious teenager sent away by his parents to a private school as they are unable to handle Holden’s behaviour. It is evident both experience alienation as their stories progress and actions taken, however the individuals present in their lives motivate changes in the outcomes of these dynamic characters.

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)

Motives are the most common source of an outcome, leading individuals to every action that occurs. Every decision made by an individual is influenced by some sort of motive, whether it is physiological, social, or personal. Ken Kesey presents to the reader the inspiration behind the characters course of action in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, resulting in the change of heart from Dr.Spivey and Randle McMurphy. The impact from other individuals often alters the reasoning for an action. Doctor Spivey originally supported Nurse Ratched’s actions, but Mcmurphy influenced him to make decisions based on the needs and wants of the patients. Mcmurphy inspires the men to voice their opinion and builds their confidence up, so that they can take on the Nurse. Nurse Ratched does not agree with the men, so she does everything in her power to eliminate the men's masculinity in order for her to keep the ward running like she desires.

In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey shows the reader the idea of sanity versus insanity. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is about the struggle between chaos and order. There is no freedom without a little chaos, yet to maintain the order there must be oppression. McMurphy upsets the routine of the ward by asking for schedule changes and aspiring resistance during therapy sessions. He teaches his fellow inmates to have fun, and encourages them to embrace their human desires. He does this by convincing them that not only are they sane, but they are man (real people), in contrast nurse Ratched as an authoritarian. He soon discovers due to this that he is not only trapped behind physical walls but mental ones as well. Many patients

“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.

Despite the intended purpose of mental institutions helping patients, some hospitals may do the exact opposite. In the novels Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey the protagonists’ journey and conflict creates the notion that mental institutions are ineffective and detrimental to patients’ well-being. The beginning of each protagonist’s story demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the mental institutions, then reaching a pivotal moment, McMurphy faces a downfall, whereas N’s benefits her, and in the end both conflicts resolve to display the unproductive and harmful effects. These novels also portray other characters who the mental institutions affect negatively, including Dawn, Ellis and Poppy.

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.

A variety of treatment techniques were present in the mental facility. We will examine those of McMurphy, Nurse Ratchett, and the head doctor. Nurse Ratchett and the head