One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Literary Analysis

Original Summary: After a group meeting with the nurse, McMurphy questions why everyone is so afraid of her and is unable to talk back. The patients fear that she can administer the electroshock treatment to them and cite Chief as an example, he was forced to endure more than 200 electroshock treatments when the therapy first came out. They fear that they will become like Chief who is six-foot-eight and afraid of his own shadow, but McMurphy then bets that he can cause the nurse to lose her temper. Later, Chief talks about how on some days the ward turns on a “fog machine” for the patients and many of them enjoy hiding in the “fog” citing that it makes them feel safe, but McMurphy tries to pull them out in the open away from the “fog”. Throughout the course of a few days, McMurphy does things that cause Nurse Ratched to slowly lose her temper, and when McMurphy gets the other patients out of the fog to watch the World Series with him, even though

He waltzed into the ward and introduced himself to every patient as a gambling man with a zest for women and cards. Randle P. McMurphy, a swaggering, gambling, boisterous redheaded con man, arrived at the ward from the Pendleton Work Farm. He was sentenced to six months at the prison work farm, but pretended to be insane in order to obtain a transfer to the hospital because he thought it would be more comfortable than the work farm. Bromden senses that there was something different about this new patient. After his first experience with the excruciating routine of the Group Meeting, McMurphy tells the patients that Nurse Ratchet is a genuine “ball-cutter.” The other patients tell him that

McMurphy was a so called a psychopath rite when he first arrived to the ward. Things really came alive when he arrived he immediately took over the ward.Even though everyone in the ward was scared and afraid of Nurse ratchet.Everyone was scared to get electroshock therapy or lobotomy session because it was all up to Nurse Ratchet,so of course no one wanted to get on her bad side until Mcmurphy arrived to ward and everything changed because he was the only so called rebel to stand up to Nurse Ratchet.Since none of the patients had confidence to stand up for themselves he then standed up for the patients and started to push the limits on Nurse Ratchet by telling her to turn on the tv so all the patients could watch the world series,and makeing

Additionally, Bromden’s quiet and secluded behavior throughout the beginning of the novel allowed him to be overlooked by many. Bromden uses this to his advantage by silently rebelling through the utilization of his keen observation, as well as allowing his voice to build anticipation, and to signify the tipping point in Ratchet's regime. An example of Bromden's silent rebellion comes at the beginning of the novel. The text states, “Nurse Ratched knows the power she has over us boys, and she knows she can twist and turn and do with us whatever she wants. And she knows she's right, because no one's big enough to do anything about it.

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

In the beginning of the novel, Cole behaves cruelly when he becomes emotional. For example, Cole beats up Peter after Peter has told on Cole for breaking into a store. Another time, Cole hated the stare he was getting, he spit into the wind, were the wind would catch the saliva and carry it back to Edwin. The only reason to why Cole spit cause he hated the stare he was getting and he wanted the saliva to hit Edwin. Whenever, Cole was asked to eat the ingredient separately, he told Gravey it won’t taste good, but you mixed the food together it tastes good. Cole got really mad that he made the food going flying cause how he acted, once he is angry. Cole becomes very angry and he ends up acting very harsh.

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

“But it's the truth even if it didn't happen” (Kesey 8). No single quote can encapsulate both the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the 1960s as well as this one does. It shows the unreliable narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Due to his schizophrenia, Chief Bromden’s hallucinations make him unreliable, because he himself can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy for most of the novel. This quote, however, also applies to the 1960s. Each and every person in the 1960s were protesting for something, whether it was an unjust war across the ocean, attempting to fight the threat of growing Communism, or even fighting for their basic human rights. Because of this, every person had their own opinion of what the 1960s were. Just because each account is incredibly unique, and the viewpoints are diverse, each person’s story is true, even if it is riddled with biases and opinions.

Society is governed by a set of rules and laws that help to maintain order and efficiency. However, the rules and laws that are set may be given by one person and is not acceptable by society or an individual. This could lead to challenging authority and becoming an individual and not a statistic in society. Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one of the main characters, Randle McMurphy, defies all the rules given once entering the mental hospital. In doing so, he challenges Nurse Ratched's authority which disturbs the order in the ward. Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,a children folk rhyme, and a Beatles song, Tomorrow Never Knows, depict the power and control one may have over society or an individual.

McMurphy uses he’s rebellious behavior to gives patients their voices, which the Big Nurse has strip of them. In the novel, McMurphy helps Chief rebuild his confidence and find his voice, “To hell with what you think; I want to know can you promise to lift it if I get you big as you used to be” (189). McMurphy confidence helps guilds Bromden outside the safety of the fog. In return, Chief helps protects McMurphy from the danger of the asylum. Equally important, McMurphy’s manipulation of the ward policies gives the patients more freedoms.

The Chief’s exhibit’s his pretense throughout the movie to every character but Mac. The other patients and nurses see The Chief as a dumb, deaf, and mute Indian. We as the audience know that not to be true. The Chief is quite the opposite as what others see him as, has the ability to talk and listen but chooses not to do those things because he doesn’t want to be disturbed by the other nurses in patients in the institution. The most evident scene supporting this is at the end of the movie. When The chief sees Mac after he’s been labotimized, he suffocates Mac with a pillow. He did that because he knows Mac will never be the same person as he once was and he doesn’t want the other patients to see what Mac has become. The Chief understood the importance of What Mac stood for to the other patients. He then executes Mac’s previous plan of escape by lifting up the hydrotherapy console then throwing it through the window.

On Mother's Day in 1944, while on leave during WWII, he found out that his mother had committed suicide with sleeping pills. Later in 1984, Vonnegut would also attempt suicide by pills and alcohol and fail.

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.

Manipulative to the core, the only thing that really matters to Ratched is her desire to control everything around her – the environment, the staff, and the patients. She has rendered the staff doctor who is in charge of the ward helpless and ineffectual. Her methods are subtle: she speaks with the calm voice of reason, dealing with patients as though they are children. Her group therapy sessions are intentionally humiliating to

In this world, there are two sides to everything. Whether it may be a message, a film or a novel, each platform of literature has two different windows. The first being the depiction of the author and the second being the interpretation of the audience. This concept is evident within both works this essay seeks to explore. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, a charismatic criminal, Randle P. McMurphy is admitted to a state asylum due to his will of serving out of prison sentence in a mental hospital rather than the penitentiary. McMurphy brings in the outside world to the admitted patients after being legally declared insane through a condensed interview with a psychiatrist. He symbolizes freedom, life and the power of an