Psychological Connotations in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

“Timeline: Treatments for Mental Illness” notes the history of mental illness; before the 1840s, being mentally ill was considered to be a form of religious punishment and demonic punishment by many cultures. In 1407 the first European establishment for mentally ill was established in Valencia, Spain. As time progressed it was shown that Europeans began to increasingly isolate the mentally ill; treated inhumanly, often kept chained to walls in dungeons. In the late 1700s some changes were made as concerns for the mentally ill people’s well being grew. After the French revolution Phillippe Pinel, a French physician, took over the Bicêtre insane asylum, forbidding the use of chains and shackles. He provided the mentally ill with better living conditions, sunny rooms and the ability to roam around the grounds. Though some things have improved, mistreatment in other asylums persisted. In

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.

In the movie McMurphy has an unpredictable nature and the viewer never knows what he might do next. On the way to the fishing trip, McMurphy could have easily escaped after he climbed over the wire fence. Instead, he decides

Ken Kesey's use of symbolism in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest transforms the novel and the hospital within the novel a microcosm of society, a battle between the sane and insane, the conformist and the non-conformist. Randle McMurphy's arrival influenced the lives of almost every person, whether patient or employee. Whether or not his motives and actions were moral or good-hearted is difficult to conclude, however. On one hand, he undoubtedly saved the patients from losing their souls, so to speak, to Nurse Ratched and her ward. Without him, they would not have been able to stand up for themselves or grow a sense of self-appreciation and competence. On the other hand, there was a price to

In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey takes place in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon. A man, who is intentionally trying to escape work from a prison farm acts insane to serve out his sentence without completing any work. This man, Randle McMurphy, introduces himself to other men in the ward and the nurses. He seems content with the hospital and views that nothing is wrong. In power of the whole ward, Nurse Ratched, who exercises abusive power over all the men and seeks for control in every aspect of the hospital, will soon have a significant clash with the new man, Randle McMurphy. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest being written in 1962, has extreme symbolism to the United States government, protests, and a culture change

People are always perceived as one or the other; You are good or you are bad, mean or nice. Then there are the sane and the insane. What decides whether a person’s actions are considered one or the other, depends on who is viewing them. In the circumstances of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, there is the argument between who is insane and who is considered sane between the Big Nurse and McMurphy especially. She sees him as insane because of his behavior and the way he knows how to get under her skin. He, and most of the other patients, don’t view him that way. He uses his “irrational” label of being insane to his advantage and to help the other patients.

The book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken kesey is narrated by a patient in a mental institution. Chief bromden the narrator and the others patients lives are changed when Mcmurphy is introduced to the ward. Mcmurphy introduces the patients to gambling and to rebel against nurse ratched's rules. He continues his behavior until he finds out nurse ratched decides how long he stays in so mcmurphy calms down. Not much time passes and he resumes to his rebellious behavior and even gets permission to go on a fishing trip with some patients along with a prostitute. Although when they return Bromden and Mcmurphy are sent to disturbed for fighting two aides. When they are both back they have a party where Billy has sex with prostitute but is caught along with everyone else. Billy then kills himself when nurse Ratched decides to tell his mom on the incident so Mcmurphy tries to strangle the nurse. As a result Mcmurphy is given a lobotomy so bromden kills him and escapes. Kesey reveals to the reader how a feminized society strips a man's masculinity for control.

In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey takes place in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon. A man, who is intentionally trying to escape work from a prison farm acts insane to serve out his sentence without completing any work. This man, Blah McMurphy, introduces himself to other men in the ward and the nurses. He seems content with the hospital and views that nothing is wrong. In power of the whole ward, Nurse Ratched, who exercises abusive power over all the men and seeks for control in every aspect of the hospital, will soon have a significant clash with the new man, Blah McMurphy. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest being written in 1962, has extreme symbolism to the United States government, protests, and a culture change

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about a mental ward, its patients, and the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, a sadistic woman who overpowers her patients by making them feel small, incompetent, and incapable of belonging to society in a normal manner. Two of the patients, Billy Bibbit, a shy and fearful man with a bad stutter, and R. P. McMurphy, a very smart and outspoken man, each play a big part in the movie. They are both examples of wrongful treatment within the institution. In the end, Billy commits suicide as a result of Nurse Ratched’s threats towards him, while McMurphy undergoes a lobotomy and is eventually put out of his misery by his friend, known as Chief Bromden, so that he would no longer suffer as a vegetable.

While some people have somewhat treated the mentally ill with sympathy, many people name them “the most despised and feared group in society” (qtd. in Perlin). The mentally ill were generally feared and treated with disgust and shame (“Asylums”). They were outcasted and excluded from all normal activities in daily life, in fact, they were noticeably stigmatized and treated very harshly (“Madness”). It was not uncommon that the awful treatment of the mad included punishment for their condition and were treated with many strange approaches to metal recuperation (“Asylums”). Some of these methods included trephination and shock treatment.

I find it really interesting how much more developed we are now as compared to one-hundred years ago on treating mental illness. How scary it must have been back then to have a mental illness. For example, the lobotomy. The thought of having an ice pick put through your eye and into your brain. Or even a trephination, having a stone instrument cut into a section of the skull. It appeared to me that some of the even earlier treatments were pretty inhumane. Such as hydro therapy to stimulate the patient. Wrapping the patient in wet packs, putting them in hot baths or using heat lamps to stimulate them. Then there was the insulin therapy. Which causes them to go into a coma to experience a convulsion reaction. All of these things must have been

4. People back in the 1930s often mistook the Insane Asylums as torture houses, but in fact, they were housings for the mentally unstable unstable. The patients were often shocked but that was to help with schizophrenia and bipolar diseases, some thought that shock-induced seizures were helpful because the patient would not remember when they regained conscience. Another way they thought that cured them was that they drilled two holes in their skull and stuck two metal rods in the holes and scraped away the frontal lobe of the brain (The part they thought to cause the disorders)

Nenadovic, M. (2011). Development of hospital treatment of persons with mental disorders. NCBI PUBMED.GOV, 1:6-9. Retrieved July 2015, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

In the novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey, it shadows the vast journey and relationships of Randle McMurphy, A testy patient newly equipped into the psychiatric ward. The second McMurphy came into the mental institution, he brought a sense of life and resilience to many of the patients in the ward, it was inevitable the McMurphy was their leader and that he was gonna change the dark cloud of personas surrounding the patents. As the story proceeds the members in the ward get more in tune to McMurphy and his goals; the patients discover that he is their christ figure in which showing them purpose in their life has been stolen away from society. McMurphy has affected everyone in the ward and by “Everyone” means everyone: includi Ms. Ratched, also described as The Big Nurse. Also the so called doctor, Doctor Spivey, and also a neighbor in the facility, chief bromden. Despite the occurring events in the ward, it goes to show the powerful impact Mcmurphy had on patients, from when he was transported to the ward til the time of his tragic death. Mcmurphy changed more than their liveliness, he changed the mindset of their strongest critic, their self proclaimed image of themselves. As the book comes to a close, Randle Mcmurphy whose image was only to cause havoc and be psychotic patient in the beginning, by the end, he had actually been their saving grace. No treatment nor pills could have done what Mcmurphy accomplished in the ward in a short period of

Other techniques that were supposed to help the mentally ill included insulin-induced comas. This is a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to for the patient to go hypoglycemic thus rendering them in a coma. This would be repeated over several weeks and occasionally the patient would die as a result of this crude treatment; practitioners ultimately called this treatment a fail once 44 people had died in the United Kingdom as a direct result from this treatment. Ref?