Who Flew Over The Cuckoo 's Nest

Nurse Ratched, the ward supervisor, personifies the forces that seek to control the individual by subduing their right to think and act for themselves. She acts as a dictator who is constantly manipulating her patients to gain an advantage over them. Because Nurse Ratched supervises a mental hospital, she is expected to tell her patients what to do, but “the novel suggests that Nurse Ratched goes beyond mere supervision and instead seeks to rule all elements of the patients lives” (“Oppression in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”). Nurse Ratched and her staff dehumanize the patients, and this eventually causes the patients to become broken inside.

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

In this book written by Ken Kesey, the main character is a man named R.P. McMurphy who tricks people into thinking that he is a psychopath. To McMurphy, the asylum is a get out of jail free card, which quickly turns out to be something else entirely. However, one vital aspect of this book is the way in which it addresses and provides insight upon several contemporary issues relating to the American healthcare system, by illustrating the ways in which our modern healthcare system has improved and grown in the last five decades. This includes the following areas of healthcare: the need for a healthcare reform, the lack of healthy doctor-patient relationships, and the murky definition of mental illness.

The symptoms that Chief Bromden experiences are clearly representative of paranoid schizophrenia. The two most significant symptoms that Chief experiences are hallucinations and delusions. Bromden is absolutely convinced that the hospital, and the rest of the combine, is run by machinery. This is because he studied electronics in college, “I walk over to the technical section..books I recognize..I remember inside the books are full of schematic drawings and equations and theories” (182). The knowledge that Bromden’s brain has about electronics allows him to create outlandish delusions and hallucinations. “I see her sit in this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every

In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, Nurse Ratched symbolizes the oppression of society through archetypal emasculation. The male patients at the ward are controlled, alienated and forced into submission by the superior female characters. Throughout the novel, there is a constant fear of female superiority; Randle McMurphy, the sexually empowered male protagonist, states how they are essentially being castrated. Castration, in the novel, symbolizes the removal of freedom, sexual expression and their identity. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched, the mechanical enforcer, represents American society: corruption, surveillance and the deterioration of individuality.

When norms of society are unfair and seem set in stone, rebellion is bound to occur, ultimately bringing about change in the community. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest demonstrates the conflict of individuals who have to survive in an environment where they are pressured to cooperate. The hospital's atmosphere suppresses the patients' individuality through authority figures that mold the patients into their visions of perfection. The ward staff's ability to overpower the patients' free will is not questioned until a man named Randal McMurphy is committed to the mental institute. He rebels against what he perceives as a rigid, dehumanizing, and uncompassionate

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Analysis of Societal Oppression Sanity remains a relatively defined state depending on the point of view. Having firsthand knowledge of psychiatric wards, author Ken Kesey leads his audience in an engaging campaign for self-determination and questions perceptions of sanity in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In the novel, Kesey illustrates how society oppresses expressions converging with behavioral norms.

This quote reveals one of the smaller themes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: that men are diagnosed as insane wrongly. McMurphy states that they aren’t insane and is shocked when he finds out that the majority of the patients at the ward are there voluntarily.

Kesey demonstrates the impact of a self-sacrificing, healing influence on the ward, through the construct of McMurphy. He becomes this ‘Christ-like’ figure to the patients because he makes it his responsibility to counteract the control and oppression of Nurse Ratched. Kesey uses this symbol through all aspects of the text. In the aftermath of his final rebellious act, McMurphy sacrifices his own needs for the lives of others, looking “dreadfully tired and strained and frantic.” After his death, the character construct of McMurphy Is still impacting and influencing the mental state of the remaining patients. Although McMurphy sacrifices his own life for the sake of others, he successfully challenges the status quo, and unhinges the very basis that it was founded upon:

It was a while ago, before I had escaped, but I still remember the first time he walked in. I did not know what to think of him, but I could see that he was very charismatic. He called me chief. Everyone thought I was deaf and dumb, but he talked to me like I had nothing wrong with me. When he made me play basketball, he made me feel big, as if I could do anything, he made me happy. I was not the only one who felt this way about him. The majority of the patients in the ward agreed, he made everyone feel special, much to the anger of Nurse Ratched. He brought us together during his time in the ward. It reminds of the play Twelve Angry Men and the high school in America, T.C. Williams High School. They were brought together, like us, like a family.

In Kesey’s 1950s novel ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest’ Nurse Ratched’s relationship with male patients is based upon differences they hold about gender and identity. Nurse Ratched is portrayed as a masculine misandrist figure that gains power from emasculation. She carries “no compact or lipstick or woman stuff, she’s got that bag full of a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties” . This implies nothing womanly about her as she prioritises her “duties”, suggesting that she aims to control her male patients by ridding her feminine qualities. In addition, she is shown in robotic with a chilling aura. This is evident when she slid “through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her” . This indicates that as a power figure her only concern is controlling her male patients, making sure they are obedient and abiding by her rules. “Gust of cold” implies that by doing so she wholly ruins her relationship with the males due to her “cold” and callous methods. Daniel J. Vitkus states she is “the Big Nurse, an evil mother who wishes to keep and control her little boys (the men on the ward) under her system of mechanical surveillance and mind control.” Yet, can be argued that she is fulfilling her role of working as a Nurse within a mental institution. However Vitkus’s critique is similar to when McMurphy says “Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter?” McMurphy is a hyper masculine force against Ratched’s emasculating norms. Their relationship is essentially a power

One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest describes a mental hospital where the patients housed within are restrained by the use of medication and a controlling nurse who reduces the patients wills. The patients over and over betray one another, which effectively draw them to further detachment within themselves. In an institution where no one seems to care about curing patients Nurse Ratched seems happy to break the will of each patient, making them manageable. In this way, the hospital’s day to day activities blackout all free will instead of creating comfort. The arrival of a new patient, McMurphy creates attention immediately in the ward as he acts out of routine. Due to his

During the time when this was written the largest group of people being oppressed in the United States was African Americans. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest parallels the Civil Rights Movements that were taking place at the time. big nurse in loose terms would represent The White Citizens Council. The silent but supportive staff at the mental institution would represent the American government. although the American government was very oppressive themselves towards the Civil Rights Movement the hateful organization was allowed to keep their ideals of what was fair and just because of the silent support of the American

Directed by visionary Miloš Forman, the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest fully takes advantage of the film medium to convey differing tones. One such example is during the final scene of the film; Chief Bromden, after smothering McMurphy to death, lifts a heavy marble sink, throws it through a window, and escapes. During this scene especially, the use of lighting and sound expresses a sense of freedom and salvation. Forman’s deliberate application of lighting in certain areas and colors add meaning to his final scene. During the scene where Bromden sneaks into the room with the marble sink, all lights in the room are turned off and the room is shrouded in darkness.

Our perspective of a stranger whom we’ve never met nor seen, but only heard of through the mouth of the enemy’s opinion, will inevitably align with the only version of the story we’ve heard. This sort of bias is found in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with Nurse Ratched’s depiction through the narration by Chief Bromden. The reliability of Bromden’s perspective is questionable, as it is his interpretation of the world, rather than what it actually is.