One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay example

Every work of literature – whether long, short, humorous, or frightening – enables all readers to experience a certain set of emotions from the passages within the text; but what do these emotions imply? In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster clarifies that these reactions closely associate with symbolic meanings. He specifies how “every reader’s experience of a work is unique” in order to explain that almost everything stands as a symbol and carries various ideas – depending on the reader’s emotional interpretation (Foster 110). Foster also mentions the concept of intertextuality in which pure originality is impossible, thus resulting with authors influencing one another. Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest stands

self. The clearest examples of this struggle are shown in the two victims of suicide, Dale Harding and Billy Bibbit. Before their deaths, both characters felt a sense of uneasiness and discomfort in the psychiatric ward. Though they attempt to seem impassive and mentally stable, the men face issues within themselves and their reasons for being in the ward. Harding reveals that his issue within himself concerns his sexuality. He mentions that he feels “inferior” when “looking at the bosom” of his own wife. He also mentions comments about homosexuality, which leads readers to understand that he is in the psychiatric ward due to his sexuality. Due to these internal struggles, Harding decides to drown himself in the ward’s pool. Bibbit, on the other hand, struggles with his self-esteem. He explains that his stutter does not give him much confidence and that he has struggled to ever have relations with a woman. At the end of the story, McMurphy hires Bibbit a prostitute in hopes of gaining money and improving Bibbit’s attitude. When Bibbit is caught with the prostitute by Mrs. Ratched, his anxiety reaches a peak point. Upon being sent to the doctor’s office after being scolded, Bibbit decides to slit his own throat to avoid conflict with the ward and his mother. The internal struggle and violent responses to it show the more serious, life-or-death conflicts in 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.

Randle Patrick McMurphy, the main character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, is the perfect example of a hero. He is committed to a mental institution after faking insanity to get out of a work camp. From the beginning of his presence on the ward, things start to change. He brings in laughter, gambling, profanity and he begins to get the other patients to open up. All of this, however, clashes with the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, who is trying to press conformity and obeying authority. It is then a battle between McMurphy and the nurse, McMurphy trying to set the patients free and the nurse trying to make them “normal”.

At this time, the Nurse believes that she had won after defeating McMurphy and is now able to easily assert her dominance again. However, she is not aware of the true effects of McMurphy’s character on other patients. “McMurphy's commitment to human freedom is a seed that will be nurtured into a tree in his relations with the men in the cuckoo's nest and will eventually bear the fruit of their freedom before it expires from the effort” (Porter 3). M. Gilbert Porter suggests the fact that others, namely Chief Bromden, had taken the beliefs of McMurphy to heart. Porter asserts that McMurphy’s strength and influence had accomplished its goal of reaching out and controlling the patients of the ward. People such as Chief Bromden are now aware of his wishes even after McMurphy had received multiple electroshock therapy sessions and a lobotomy. Unfortunately for the Nurse, she has underestimated the extent to which McMurphy’s strength had reached. Bromden is able to use this strength to lift the panel to break a window to success, a feat even McMurphy couldn’t accomplish. “The glass splashed out in the moon, like a bright cold water baptizing the sleeping earth” (Kesey 324). By breaking the window to freedom, Bromden is able to break the boundaries that the Nurse had failed to strengthen after McMurphy’s loss. Ratched

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.

Could civilization live a normal and stable life, without any rules and orders to obey? Could you picture, New York City, with no laws to follow and everyone doing as they please? Just imagine the disasters that we will experience. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, we see how each individual character reacts differently to the exposure of complete freedom from an organized society. Also, awe see how this separation from a structural society causes chaos among all these different characters.

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

After the catastrophic rebellion of the ward, Big Nurse calls for another group discussion excluding McMurphy’s participation in order to regain the power she possessed before McMurphy’s arrival at the ward. This is the most important moment in the book because Ken Kesey’s separation of the patients from McMurphy causes them to falter from Big Nurse’s obscure behavior and exotic responses. Because of the separation and the unexpected behavior; Big Nurse is able to regain authority by turning Mcmurphy’s allies and his exceptional characteristics against him.

               Jack Nicholson as Randall McMurphy: What do you think                you are, for Chrissake, crazy or something'? Well you're not!                You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out                walking' around on the streets and that's it.

Throughout the film, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", many changes differentiate the movie from the book. Not only can these differences be seen in the characters of the novel, but also in the series of events that make this story so interesting. In this essay, the significance of these differences will be revealed as well as the reasons for the changes.

Conformity has been the target of many works of literature even before Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye spewed angst about everyone around him being a “phony.” To many people, there are forces in the social order that shape others to fit a certain mold, and one who does not fit the mold will be considered an outcast by society. During the 1960’s, rebellion was a shared act among the majority, including authors and artists; this was due to the conflict in the East as well as the Civil Rights movement. To these people, the government was a criminal, even a machine perhaps, which threatened one’s individuality. This provides some historical context on the background of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Ken Kesey, the author, worked in

One of the scenes in this film, which has a huge and very profound impact on the viewer is the death of Billy. The sweet, stuttering, shy boy, who wants to be considered a man, is constantly haunted by his mothers and the nurse’s controlling nature. The viewer finally realizes how unfit the nurse is, when she threatens Billy and drives him to commit suicide. Billy’s death signifies how some people are simply ridden over and weakened by others. They are ruled by the will of others all their lives. Billy was not crazy he was simply a victim of his mother’s tyranny.

McMurphy enters the novel in the same fashion a cowboy would enter a saloon in the wild west. Boastful, loud and rough in every way. Every patient is in awe of him, everyone immediately began to “ease up close to see what new sort this fellow is” (Kesey). In the eyes of Bromden, he’s labeled an idiot but also a saint for trying to alleviate what's all the bad things happening in the ward. McMurphy humanizes the patients, showing them that yes, they are in fact crazy, but “‘not any crazier than the average asshole on the street’” (Kesey). In contrast, the film paints McMurphy as an impulsive criminal who does what he pleases for personal gain. By