The Dysfunctional Sickness In One Flew Over The Cuckoo

Hospitals are meant to help some people heal physically and others mentally. In the novel One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey published in 1962, readers are introduced to a mental hospital that has goals that do not align with helping people. Within the hospital, characters with varied personalities and opinions are intermixed with three main characters playing specific roles with supporting characters close by. With the characters’ motivations, themes develop such as the emasculation of the men in the hospital by an oppressive nurse. Symbols, such as laughter and the “combine”, are also pertinent to themes as the readers watch the men transitioning from being oppressed to being able to stand up for themselves causing change in hospital policy.

The 1960’s was a period of great dissatisfaction from people who felt their rights were being violated. Millions of Americans, young and old, black and white, came together to fight against racial discrimination and protest the Vietnam War. The government suppressed the southern black population the right to vote, while sponsoring a war in Vietnam that was widely unpopular. Reflecting the anti-establishment movements of the 1960’s, Ken Kesey wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It has since become an American classic for its themes of rebellion and nonconformity against an over controlling authority that does not respect individualism and humanity.

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

Throughout history there has been a veil of mystery surrounding what truly goes on inside of asylums. This idea is illustrated clearly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on multiple occasions. One example can be seen when R.P. McMurphy takes to writing letters to people he knows in order to get them to ask questions about what is really going on. By doing so, he hopes to reveal the truth behind the world he finds himself in. Additionally, in the world of McMurphy, electroshock therapy is still being used. However, this type of therapy was being used less as a cure for illness, and more as a form of discipline, punishment, and pain infliction. According to Weitz in chapter

It was us that had been making him go on for weeks, keeping him standing long after his feet and legs had given out, weeks of making him wink and grin and laugh and go on with his act long after his humor had been parched dry between two electrodes.'; So, even the patients, who had suffered the oppressions of society, became a society of their own, forcing McMurphy to stand up for them because they were too small to do it themselves.

As one is experiencing a life of alienation and loneliness, they may being to act uncontrollable while rebelling against their surroundings, one loses themselves as they feel different than everyone present. Alienation can force an individual to spiral into an abyss of nothingness, nonetheless if one allows others to reach out and inspire than it is possible to break away from the alienation and loneliness. Chief Bromden from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, is an Indian who was institutionalized for insanity and is considered a chronic in the ward as he is “too far gone” to be healed. Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D Salinger is a lying, rebellious teenager sent away by his parents to a private school as they are unable to handle Holden’s behaviour. It is evident both experience alienation as their stories progress and actions taken, however the individuals present in their lives motivate changes in the outcomes of these dynamic characters.

1. Passage: “You are strapped to a table, shaped, ironically, like a cross, with a crown of electric sparks in place of thorns.” (Page 69)

Despite McMurphy’s uncaring attitude and criminal past his actions throughout the book show that he is a good person deep down. For example, when George, a fellow patient, is being harassed by an aid McMurphy, “took a deep breath and stepped across to the [aid], shoving him away from George” (230). Ultimately this leads to McMurphy being sent to the disturbed ward where he undergoes electroshock therapy. This self-sacrificing action shows that he is a kindhearted person and values the wellbeing of those around him. In another instance McMurphy witnesses an aid gleefully steal all of Bromden’s old cherished gum. Instead of

In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey shows the reader the idea of sanity versus insanity. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is about the struggle between chaos and order. There is no freedom without a little chaos, yet to maintain the order there must be oppression. McMurphy upsets the routine of the ward by asking for schedule changes and aspiring resistance during therapy sessions. He teaches his fellow inmates to have fun, and encourages them to embrace their human desires. He does this by convincing them that not only are they sane, but they are man (real people), in contrast nurse Ratched as an authoritarian. He soon discovers due to this that he is not only trapped behind physical walls but mental ones as well. Many patients

Mental illness is any ailment or condition that impacts the way a man considers, feels, carries on, and/or identifies with others and to his or her environment. In spite of the fact that the indications of emotional sickness can extend from mellow to extreme and are distinctive relying upon the kind of dysfunctional behavior, a man with an untreated maladjustment regularly can't adapt to life's everyday schedules and requests. Dysfunctional behavior alludes to an extensive variety of psychological well-being conditions that influence your state of mind, deduction, and conduct. The case of emotional instability incorporates depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, dietary issues and addictive practices. Be that as it may, an emotional well-being concern turns into a dysfunctional behavior when progressing signs and side effects cause regular stretch and influence your capacity to work, a prime example of symptoms shown by Asante's mother, Amina throughout the course of this novel.

The medical model dismissed psychological explanations of mental illness, suggesting that such explanations were no better than demonology. In the mid-19th century, the prevailing belief was that all illness was caused by disordered physiology or brain chemistry. The search for psychological causes for mental illness, such as conflict, frustration, and emotional disturbance, was held back by the dominance of the medical model. This belief persists—explanations for alcoholism range from inheritance and other biological factors to life circumstances and a need to escape, exemplifying the contrast between the medical and psychological models (p. 502-03).

The term sane has many different perspectives and is truly questioned in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Sane in modern society is commonly known as the ability to have a sound mind, or not mentally ill. Although this book was written not too long ago, this definition of normality is insanely different. Nurse Ratched’s tyranny makes clarity of how “insane” the patients really are. Although the patients are considered abnormal, many of them could live on the outside world. Are they actually mentally-ill, or do they just not fit into the norm of society? Due to fear and lack of gut they choose to stay inside the institution. The difference between normality and insanity definitely has a distinct line between them. Sanity in

“People don't want other people to get high, because if you get high, you might see the falsity of the fabric of the society we live in.” This quote by Ken Kesey embodies his view of society in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest. He depicts the modern society through Nurse Ratched, a strong authoritarian figure, that embellishes the nature of society. Nurse Ratched is notorious in her endeavors to control the men and uses her power to regulate the men. In this domain the beams of society cause the men to shrink from individual freedom that is reawakened with McMurphy, who teaches the men to be bold in the face of society. In Kesey’s work he highlights several major ideas about society. He illustrates the repressive nature of society that causes men to conform to boundaries. Further, he depicts how society rejects those who are deemed defective in the system. Lastly, he also illustrates how society is a major cause of shame and indignity. Thus, Kensey delineates the nature of society as being repressive, selective, and a cause of diffidence.

The author of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Keasey, received his inspiration for the book while volunteering at a veteran's hospital. This is where he was first introduced to LSD. The moment he tried it, he became addicted, and began experimenting on himself with the drugs, observing the effects. The novel deals with the tyrannical rule of head Nurse Ratched in a mental hospital somewhere in Oregon. She runs all business and daily life in the asylum to her every whim and rules the ward by fear and manipulation. This has gone on for as long as the narrator, Chief Bromden, can remember. However a new patient, Randle McMurphy, enters the hospital and begins to wreak havoc upon the system

The two psychological interventions that were administered to McMurphy while in the mental institution were a lobotomy and shock therapy. A lobotomy is the removal of the portion from the frontal lobe of the brain. This procedure’s main goal is to eliminate aggressive or violent behavior. This invention took place in 1935 by Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz. However, by the late 1940s the realization those individuals undergoing lobotomy procedures took place without initiative became apparent. Although the methods of a lobotomy have changed the basic underlying idea of neurosurgery exists today in the form of “psychosurgery” (Encarta 2000). Shock Therapy uses electric current or drugs to control psychotic disorders. In 1933, Dr. Manfred Sakel used drugs and instituted insulin shock to control mainly Schizophrenia. In 1938, Drs. U. Cerletti and L. Bini used electroshock therapy to treat severe depression (i.e. manic depressive psychoses). Alternating current through the brain using parallel