One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Sparknotes

Prompt: 2. Does McMurphy win or lose his battle with Nurse Ratched? Justify your answer with three specific examples from the text.

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

Imagine leaving everyone and everything you have ever known to go to a new unknown world and make money to help your family. The amount of stress and anxiety might be too much to handle at first. This was the life of many young women from small villages in Nepal, looking to do whatever it takes to keep a roof on their family’s head. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but what these women expected in the work is not what they got. They were sold into sex slavery, unaware on the struggles they would have to endure in their lives.

JORAS falls in love with LAURA, a lady of Cerwyn however she is betrothed to another. JORAS grows jealous knowing that his jealousy and love for her is wrong and goes against his vows as a maester. Months pass and his jealousy grows and develops a new thorn, a thorn of hatred. He begins to plan how he can get LAURA. Eventually he turns to poison. He plans to poison her betrothed. On the wedding night, he sets his plan to action. He drinks a cup of wine containing the poison, tears of Lys however death only occurs during the bedding ceremony. LAURA is left overwrought, her usual bright and exuberant personality dies with her lover. JORAS attempts to console her. They share an intimate moment however JORAS becomes haunted by nightmares of LAURA crying. He becomes riddled with fear and shakes. He becomes

Ken Kesey and Tom Schulman explore the struggle for independence by adopting similar setting, plot, and contrasting characterisation in their respective pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Dead Poet’s Society. The two works share an exaggerated institutionalised setting, wherein the internal community is repressed by overbearing authority figures. However, as the media format varies, the portrayal, imagery, and symbolism of the setting differs. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Dead Poet’s Society contain parallel plots. Both involve the introduction of a ‘wildcard’ figure into the microcosms of the institute. The character’s idealistic preaching of freedom inevitably leads to disaster at the climax of the novel. Although both preach independence, the definition of independence greatly differs. McMurphy finds independence in escape, while Keating conveys the importance of independent thinking, however within the limitations of the institution. By methods unique to each piece the disruptive figure is neutralised, concluding in the regression back to the establishment’s version of ‘normal’.

In their pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Dead Poet’s Society, author Ken Kesey, and Tom Schulman, respectively, adopt setting, plot, and contrasting characterisation to explore the central theme of a struggle for independence. Both Kesey and Schulman set their stories in exaggerated institutions, wherein the internal community is repressed by overbearing authority figures. However, due to their varying media formats, the portrayal, imagery, and symbolism of the setting differs. The plot in both the novel and the film is parallel as both centre a wildcard entering the microcosm that is the institutions. The figure preaches freedom, however, disaster strikes, and at the conclusion of the novel the community regresses back to normal. Finally, contrasting characterisation is used in the same manner – the protagonist and the community are contrasted. The

In their pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Dead Poet’s Society, author Ken Kesey, and Tom Schulman, respectively, adopt setting, plot, and contrasting characterisation to explore the central theme of a struggle for independence. Both Kesey and Schulman set their stories in exaggerated institutions, wherein the internal community is repressed by overbearing authority figures. However, due to their varying media formats, the portrayal, imagery, and symbolism of the setting differs. The plot in both the novel and the film is parallel as both centre a wildcard entering the microcosm that is the institutions. The figure preaches freedom, however, disaster strikes, and at the conclusion of the novel the community regresses back to normal. Finally, contrasting characterisation is used in the same manner – the protagonist and the community are contrasted. The

Throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey often uses fog as a symbol. Although fog may have been used as a symbol in other literary works, they do not hold a candle to the fog’s significance in Kesey’s piece. While reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, two major interpretations can be made for the symbolism of fog. For one, fog is symbolic of the waste that our mechanized society produces, and it pollutes the way we live naturally. In one instance, Chief and his inmates were asleep while the Combine were inspecting the ward (Kesey 90). During this time, Chief was afraid of them, the fog, and the mechanized society in general. On the other hand, fog symbolizes the fog of the mind -- after all, chief is schizophrenic -- and it

Born in a village deep in the Cambodian forest, Somaly Mam was sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather when she was twelve years old. For the next decade she was shuttled through the brothels that make up the sprawling sex trade of Southeast Asia. She suffered unspeakable acts of brutality and witnessed horrors that would haunt her for the rest of her life – until, in her early twenties, she managed to escape. Unable to forget the girls she left behind, Mam became a tenacious and brave leader in the fight against human trafficking, rescuing sex workers – some as young as five and six – offering them

On the other hand, Newsweek looked into her background and found her story to be a fraud as several of her classmates and teachers contradicted her claim that she was sold into sexual slavery. In addition, her ex-husband Pierre Legros insisted that Somaly Mam had, in fact, been a prostitute when they first met in 1991, but not a victim of human trafficking. According to Legros, she was working independently of her own free will in various night clubs, as opposed to the torturous conditions of the brothel that she described in her book.

Reluctant Bedfellows is a book that shows the research of two depicted women who spent 5 years doing research on sex tourism in the Philipians and

Somaly Mam, carried away from her village in the forest when she was in her early years of life. Rapped at the age of 12, sold to a very abusive man, and then carried from brothel to brothel till her mid 20’s. In her book The Road of Lost Innocence, she explains her life and how she came to be. She emphasizes to never back down from your past and brings to the light the evil and violence of human trafficking. “The evil that’s been done to me is what propels me on”. (page 190) Somaly Mam writes from her memories to tell everyone that this awful deed does exist, she is a survivor from it. In my opinion that is what makes the book so addictive, that you could not be able to imagine the pain that she, one woman, has endured in her life time, and

Imagine a four year old girl growing up in contemporary Cambodia. Each morning she wakes up miles from home, homesick and scared. She is forced to beg for money for the brothel that she belongs to, and all of her earnings go straight to her master. Then, that night, about seven men come to the brothel. These men, some as old as fifty, often pay as little as two dollars to partake in sexual intercourse with these school-aged children. The toddlers enslaved in the horrific sex trade are forever stripped of their purity, making human trafficking a major issue in present day Cambodia. Over 30,000 children are sexually exploited annually (“Children for Sale”), and millions have been forced into human trafficking

The enormously high poverty rate, coupled with the crackdown on pedophilia in the western world makes Cambodia particularly vulnerable and child sex trafficking has become a lucrative way to exploit the country’s natural resources. One of the young girls featured in the film, Da-Lin, tells her story - “I sold my virginity to an old man for $500, I did it to help my family, my parents were sick and my brothers and sisters are young and had to go to school, my virginity was the only thing of value we had” (2:15). Another young girl explains how she suffered a stroke due to the abuse she endured. The stories go on and on, young children sold as child sex workers by their husbands, boyfriends, friends and family members. They cannot seek help from the authorities for fear of imprisonment, and they face exile from their villages due to shame.

Piper (2005) discovered that in the Mekong sub-region trafficking resembles more of a cottage industry where recruiters are often local individuals who have established a relationship with the families of the recruited girls. On the other hand, the exploitative services recruited for can vary from prostituting in Rome to bonded labor inside a factory in India. Additionally, Kara (2009) provides an illustration of broken promises by recruiters to two underage girls. Julia, now 17 and pregnant, arrived in Rome from Romania at age 14 (Kara, 2009). She traveled with Alyssa who was also, the same age (Kara, 2009). They traveled together with the help of a man who promised work in a restaurant, but instead they ended up as prostitutes in the streets of Rome (Kara, 2009).