Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest portrays the importance of humour in human nature. Laughter is the main source of physiological recovery for the voluntary men staying on Nurse Ratched’s ward. The men are so detached from reality, that the ward is a place without laughter and minimal emotion until Randle McMurphy arrives. The pressure the ward exerts on the inmates strips them of their identities until they are reminded of what it feels like to be normal while on the fishing trip. The patients free themselves from the sovereignty of the Nurse when the ward party proves their strength and sanity. McMurphy’s humour provides psychiatric improvement for the inmates as they regain their individuality.
The absence of laughter on
…show more content…
In order to liberate themselves, the group’s “biggest step is their laughing binge, led by McMurphy, because laughter shows people are free” (Macky). On their road to recovery, the men do not openly laugh nor talk, despite their saviour’s best efforts, as they feel they are restraint by the Nurse. Laughing symbolizes the bits of freedom attained by the men as they break their restrictive bonds with the Nurse. The more they laugh, the closer the men become to being sane. McMurphy knows the key to proving the men are sane is showing them they are strong, but they “can’t really be strong until [they] see a funny side to things” (Kesey 239). The rebel knows his humour is his strength against the Nurse as he attempts to spread it throughout the ward. The slight giggling shows progress of the men starting to open up to the idea of acknowledging the humour in things, and reacting. McMurphy urges progress while offering hope, as he is a source of providing therapeutic therapy through his laughing ability. During the situation on the fishing trip, Chief describes the roaring as “a laughter that rang out on the water in ever-widening circles, farther and farther, until it crashed up on beaches all over the coast” (250). By refusing to offer help while Candy struggles with the fishing line, McMurphy allows the men to fend for themselves while he sits back and laughs. The men finally have the capacity to find the humour in the situation, thus, relieving themselves of pain. The group as a whole laughs at their foolishness, knowing life is enjoyable. The human interaction provided by the fishing trip allows the men to become familiar with feelings they were stripped of by the
Randle McMurphy, the protagonist, is introduced to break down the nurse’s oppressive ways. McMurphy, a con man who was sentenced to a work farm, was diagnosed as a psychopath and sent to the mental hospital, which he much preferred. Serving as a savior figure to the patients of the ward who have already been battered by the Big Nurse, McMurphy causes interference to the nurse’s control. He supports the men as they are ridiculed in meetings and supports their attempts to change policy. Although he does help other patients, he first looks out for himself. He cons the patients out of their money and then follows the nurse’s rules for awhile because of the threat of being kept on the
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.
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest operates as an entertaining and interesting novel on a pure surface level. There’s a good story, well-developed characters and fresh language. It has all the workings of a good novel, but One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest isn’t just a good novel. It’s a great one, because Kesey uses Chief Bromden’s perspective to let imagery flow out of the novel and have it all come back to one theme: individuality and its repression by society. This idea is highlighted by the image of gambling vs. playing it safe, whether in literal card games or as a way of living. The mental ward’s new patient, Randle Patrick McMurphy, is a self-described “gambling fool” (12)1, while his opposer, “Big Nurse” Ratched,
Mcmurphy was the one who started making people laughing in the ward. When he first came into the ward he was cracking jokes and shaking everybody’s hand. (p.16)
Red haired, rowdy, and raunchy are three words to describe the crazy, infamous McMurphy, while the Nurse is a prude, prideful and frigid ruler who is power-hungry over the mental institution. These two mixed together lead to a cunning war of dominance in the hospital. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey depicting the patients at an Oregon psychiatric hospital and how the of the patients and staff change when a new patient, Randle McMurphy arrives. From McMurphy 's devious schemes to manipulate the system to get what he wants, to the Nurse sabotaging his friends ' opinions of him in order to gain the upper hand, this superiority struggle has a definite winner at the end of the novel: McMurphy. McMurphy wins this battle with the Nurse because although he died at the end, he still overcomes and finds ways to manipulate Nurse Ratched 's harsh rules and regulations throughout the book, and leaves an effect on Ratched and the ward that proves the influence and power he had over all of them.
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 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.
away his ability to laugh. A second example is the scene in which McMurphy and his
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
A mental institution with patients treated like prisoners, waiting to be unleashed from their chains to be understood and accepted by society itself, but is held back by an antagonist, restricting their every move. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” composed by Ken Kesey, is an incredible novel set in an Oregon mental institution, with clients held captive at an antagonist’s disposal. Through the portrayal of the institution as a factory, Kesey illustrates Miss Ratched and the orderlies as holders of unjust power and displays their attempts of pre-programming the individuals to follow her orders, and become more compliant. The patients located in the mental institution are treated nothing less than convicts, and their freedom lays in the hand of the adversary, Miss Ratched.
The laughter in the ward keeps everyone pressed in. It is a way of restricting emotions. "I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door, do you know that? Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing." (46) This statement by Mcmurphy is true. Once he started joking around and loosening things up the patients didn't seem so crazy any more. Chief Broom actually started talking again, Billy didn't really care what the nurse cared any more, the whole ward was doing what every thing they wanted. They had the courage to go against Nurse Ratched in the meetings, mean while they never had the guts to speak against her. Cheswick had the nervs to ask for more cigarettes. The laughter Mcmurphy brought about led to four of the acutes leaving the ward and six other acutes to transfer to a different institution.
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.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a controversial novel that has left parents and school authorities debating about its influence on students since its publication in 1962. The novel describes the inner workings of a mental institution, how the patients are emasculated and mistreated by the terrifying Nurse Ratched, who will go to any length to control them. But in comes McMurphy, a criminal who chose to go to an asylum rather than serve physical labor; he disrupts the order of the hospital with his big personality and loud opinions, undermining the authority of Nurse Ratched and encouraging the patients to live their own lives, until he too, is silenced forever by authority. With his novel, Ken Kesey paints society as an oppressive
We feel that One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest is filled with many psychological connotations. This movie is set in a mental hospital where McMurphy was admitted to be psychologically evaluated because of violent behavior. Upon his arrival McMurphy noticed that the patients were very robot-like in their actions. The hospital is extremely structured where the patient’s daily life was monotonous. We will discuss the various connotations by answering the following questions that have been asked.
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