Rebellion in Fight Club and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

Therefore, she “attempts to conceal [her breasts] in [a] sexless get-up” (64). In order for McMurphy and the men to regain power, they must regain their sexuality and reveal the nurse’s. McMurphy’s final stand against the nurse involves him “ripp[ing] her uniform all the way down the front” (275) and revealing breasts that she had concealed. With this metaphorical rape, Kesey is equating the men regaining power with sexual dominance over women. The rape of the nurse is seen as a heroic act by McMurphy, which conveys the misogynistic message that men have a right to sexual power over women. The way that McMurphy performs this rape is effectively silencing the nurse, as he had his “heavy red fingers [in] the white flesh of her throat” (275). Using silence in conjunction with a metaphorical rape gives a further misogynistic tone, as McMurphy is exerting sexual dominance as well as stopping her from being able to speak out against him, or any man. Because this is McMurphy’s final action, it is seen as his greatest one. Therefore, the man who can break a woman is seen as an ideal specimen.

The human mind is made of up two instincts that constantly have conflict: the instinct to live by society’s rules and the instinct to live by your own rules. Our civilized will has been to live morally by law and order, and our savage will has been to act out for our own selfish needs. We each choose to live by one or the other depending on how we feel is the correct way to live. In this allegorical novel, William Golding represents the transformation from civilization to savagery in the conflict between two of the main characters: Ralph who represents law and order and Jack who represents savagery and violence. Lord of the Flies has remained a very controversial novel to this day with its startling, brutal, and truthful picture of the

After leaving the hellish work farm where he serving his prison sentence, McMurphy arrives at the ward, which is exponentially more dull and drab in comparison. The impact of his arrival at the ward is seen instantly. The enthusiasm and energy he brings to the ward is so uncharacteristic, that even some of the Chronics, who are longstanding patients that have become “machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired,” show some life (Kesey 10). In his typical westernized fashion, McMurphy arrives at the hospital with the aura of “a frontier

Throughout "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding, the theme of dissent starts to become prevalent as the life progresses on the island due to constant disagreement and undesirable situations. Similarly, dissent has also played a large role in my life, most notably at my time at school as well as my experiences in my neighborhood. From these experiences, I learned that dissenting from society's expectations allows you to become unique and gain a societal voice, eventually leading in the creation of internal and external reform.

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a novel where man is fending for survival. Boys are aground on an island at the time of a war. The two main characters Jack and Ralph, who represent civilisation and barbarism, have a strong conflict. This has an effect on the rest of the boys throughout the book. All of the boys slowly turn into savages further into the story. Close to the end of the book Jack states “And the conch doesn’t count at this end of the island.” pg. 186 When Jack says this, it represents that he does not want rules. Jack is a savage and he refuses to be civil and organized. In the novel, The lord of the Flies, by William Golding the conflict man vs. society, man vs. man, and man vs. nature illustrate humanity.

Although the nurse has seemingly won because the patients were not able to achieve their primary goal, in reality, their real victory is their combined resistance against Nurse Ratched. The adventure on the fishing boat also exhibits how the patients aid McMurphy in his rebellion. Though he charges them for their endeavor, they once again decide to accompany him and go against the institution, further implying their admiration for him and his cause. Even though McMurphy knows that the nurse will likely punish the twelve other patients severely for lying and leaving the ward with a prostitute under false pretenses, he does so anyway, showing that he will risk great punishment to help his “disciples.” Finally, the patients support the party that McMurphy has in the ward with alcohol and the two prostitutes. The main reason behind this event was to ensure that Billy Bibbit, one of the patients on the ward who lacked self-confidence, got to have a date with Candy, one of the prostitutes whom Billy liked. This event is another example of how McMurphy would risk trouble for himself for the betterment of others and how they supported him in his actions.

The suppression that the male patients face traces back to the suppression of American society. McMurphy refuses to be another robot following orders aimlessly, he fights to maintain his individuality and to spread that individuality to the other patients. Just as the novel, society in America is very mechanical, citizens follow mundane orders like machines and when a unique individual breaks through and expresses themselves, they are eliminated. The power that Nurse Ratched feels against the male patients is similar to the power that Society holds on their people, order and control is essential. Both entities fear individuals whom have original thought, those people cause a threat since they can influence others to think the way they do--control is then lost.

Should I conform? Should I rebel? This has and always will be, a constant battle struggled individually, or as a society. A certain amount of conformity needs to exist in life in order to avoid disorder. This is the reason we have laws. Take those laws, rules, control, or even expectations, to an extreme, and some form of rebellion is probable. Struggle with these opposites, and you have a catalyst for war, or perhaps, being fired from a job. Literature represents life, and this theme can be found at the root of many literary works.

Civilization was created to contain social structure. However, in utmost circumstances, it is possible for instinct to triumph over civility. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, is a plane evacuating a group of British schoolboys that crashes over a tropical deserted island. Once they crash on the island, they pick Ralph, the protagonist of the novel, to be their leader, and Ralph chooses Jack, the antagonist of the novel, to be the leader of the hunters, establishing somewhat of a civilization. Then when Jack comes upon a mother boar and kills it, that’s when their makeshift civilization slowly diminishes and the boys become savages. In addition, loss of social structure within a society can lead to the absolute destruction of the civilization. The author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding, uses man vs man and man vs nature conflicts to develop the theme of loss of social structure leads to savagery. Golding reveals this theme by exploring the conflicts of

When McMurphy finds out that he is one of two patients that are involuntarily committed to the hospital, it makes him realize that he alone is fighting for his freedom, and the others have been repressed by Ratched to the point of being afraid to rebel against her or simply leave. McMurphy fights until the end to free these men of their emasculation even if it

In literature, there are four main types of conflicts: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. society and, the toughest one of them all, man vs. himself. In the novels The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, both of the main characters have large conflicts with themselves. They battle with their conscience to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. “So [they] beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald 189). I see this battle every day in the high school world. There is always someone who breaks under peer pressure even though that person knows it is wrong. It’s the battle of conformity.

McMurphy is a gambling Irishman and convict, who grows tired of laboring at the Pendleton prison farm. To escape prison life, he feigns insanity and gets himself involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Oregon. He tries to bring about a change at the hospital, for he does not like the fact that grown men act like "rabbits" and are scared of the Big Nurse. He tries as hard as he can to "get her goat", by not doing the duties he is given. He also ironically ends up serving as a

Sex is used in the novel as a representation of total freedom. Its exercise is almost always portrayed by McMurphy who, through his general demeanor and newness to the hospital, is the most free, sexually, of any of the men. He is so free, that it has gotten him into trouble as he only seems to be able to act on impulse. Society is not able to deal with his complete abandon and he is eventually punished for it by having a piece of his brain removed. The rest of the men are all repressed mostly due to some problem they’ve had with the women in their lives. In fact, it is their inability to deal with women that brought them to the hospital in the first place. Women are portrayed throughout the book as the root of all men’s problems. Nurse Ratched is the penultimate figure of sexual repression. She does not acknowledge her femininity but hides it successfully, but for her bosom, beneath her sterile, pressed uniform. She is cold toward the men offering no real compassion and serves only to aggravate the men’s issues with women in general. Her power is finally stripped from her, quite literally, when McMurphy rips open her uniform revealing her breasts, the symbol of femininity; she is a woman after all.

From the dawn of time, people have always had a deep and violent nature hidden within there roots. Although this kind of trait is suppressed and often strongly frowned upon, under the correct conditions, it is revealed to have a powerful effect, showing positive results. Conversely, throughout its true vigorous and highly controversial content, the series Fight Club is a factual establishment. Which has such an effect, to bring out the fierce personality from almost anyone. The strings of the Film and book are based upon the story of a “ticking-time bomb insomniac… a slippery soap salesman…channeling primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy” (Chuck Palahniuk). Through the means of characters and overall plot Chuck Palahniuk’s

As The Hotel New Hampshire progresses, and the children are teenagers, the time period is in the sixties. The innocence of boys becoming comfortable with their own bodies and with their sexual desires continues to be acceptable and even seen as common, Franny mocks her brother, Frank, “‘At least I don’t play with my body as if I were a rubber band,’... I knew, of course, that Frank played with his body - plenty - but Father had already assured me...that everyone masturbated ...and so I decided to be friendly to Frank and not tease him about his beating off” (Irving 129). Father is the one that teaches his kids that masturbating is a natural act that all individuals commit. The innocence of masturbation then transforms to men becoming aggressive through sexual assaults. Franny is raped by Chipper Dove in the beginning of the novel; however, she does not discover that he used sex in order to take away her strength until Susie points this out to her, she says, “‘Those thugs didn’t just want to fuck you, honey, they wanted to take your strength away, and you let them…” (Irving 225). Susie then tells Fanny that being raped would not be the same towards a male, because “‘... a man probably would enjoy it. There are men who think we actually enjoy getting raped…’” (Irving 320). Through this, it shows that women view men’s sex life as very important and enjoyable to them, no matter who they are having sex with, sex does not hold the same value as it does to females. Men are also