Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey during a time in our society when pressures of our modern world seemed at their greatest. Many people were, at this time, deemed by society’s standards to be insane and institutionalized. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a ward of a mental institution. The major conflict in the novel is that of power. Power is a recurring and overwhelming theme throughout the novel. Kesey shows the power of women who are associated with the patients, the power Nurse Ratched has, and also the power McMurphy fights to win. By default, he also shows how little power the patients have.

McMurphy enters the novel in the same fashion a cowboy would enter a saloon in the wild west. Boastful, loud and rough in every way. Every patient is in awe of him, everyone immediately began to “ease up close to see what new sort this fellow is” (Kesey). In the eyes of Bromden, he’s labeled an idiot but also a saint for trying to alleviate what's all the bad things happening in the ward. McMurphy humanizes the patients, showing them that yes, they are in fact crazy, but “‘not any crazier than the average asshole on the street’” (Kesey). In contrast, the film paints McMurphy as an impulsive criminal who does what he pleases for personal gain. By

McMurphy learns that involuntarily committed patients cannot leave the hospital without staff approval. Therefore, he cannot leave at the end of his six months sentence, but when Nurse Ratched says he can and he begins to submit to her authority. However, by this time, he had become the leader for the other patients. Their sanity, their claim to manhood lies in the balance. Cheswick, dismayed by McMurphy’s surrender, commits suicide.

McMurphy the protagonist character who gives these patients courage to go against Nurse Ratched, has to deal with his own punishment and has to watch the other patients suffer their own. Due to McMurphy's aggressive personality and Nurse Ratched's personality the other patients get stuck in between the two. When McMurphy comes into the asylum he is capable of seeing Nurse use her power in manipulating patients into doing what she says. McMurphy then starts asking her questions for example in chapter seventeen he asked Nurse about “inch-by-inch measurements” of her breast, asking this brought up insecurity and left her embarrassed with no answer to give. Being made fun of is something she was known to do not get done to her, McMurphy made not only the patients laugh but also

Randle McMurphy: A Christ Figure A book that understands the inside secrets of society darkest reality: mental institutions. In his novel, One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey writes about hidden realities of numerous patients. The setting of the novel takes place inside of a mental institution. While getting to know the characters, the story is being narrated by Chief Bromden, who is mute, and the ward is run by Nurse Ratched, also known as the Big Nurse.

Nurse Ratched’s assistants suggest to send McMurphy to send McMurphy to a different institution “ So you believe it would be wise, to send him up to Disturbed?” (155). Once again her assistants agree with one anothers ideas of sending McMurphy away “ I believe it would be the very least safe,” (155). Nurse Ratched however, does not agree with what her assistants have been saying which is very odd “ I don’t agree that he should be sent up to Disturbed…” (156). Nurse Ratched passes the opportunity to put McMurphy into the disturbed ward for being potentially dangerous, and instead, insists he stays because he is subject to the same fears as the other ward members which I believe is a very heroic

Although Big Nurse turns McMurphy to a vegetable at the end of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey’s portrayal of McMurphy as a God-like symbol in the lives of the men on the ward helps criticize the diagnosing of “crazy” people in the mid 1900s. Specifically, Big Nurse subjects McMurphy and Chief Bromden to shock therapy after a fight with the black men who were cleansing the men. As they enter the chamber, McMurphy stops Bromden: “Take ‘er easy. I’ll go first” (237). McMurphy then “Climbs on the table” and “spreads his arms out to fit the shadow” (237).

Although McMurphy had a brief couple of weeks following the rules on the ward, McMurphy is now back to his trouble-making ways in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the author Ken Kesey, establishes a new beginning of unity and life-improving moments to happen in the patients lives.

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

The patients are scared, weak, and powerless before McMurphy arrives at the ward. They do as Nurse Ratched says because they fear that they would otherwise be harmed. The patients are stuck in the ward because they feel as if they cannot function in society due to their weakened state. After McMurphy’s arrival and his influence begins to make an impact, the patients start to become braver and stronger. They start to unite with each other and resist Nurse Ratched’s power.

McMurphy is seen as a role model as he helps organize basketball games and organizes the field trip to go fishing. McMurphy inspires change and wants everyone to live for themselves freely and democratically. He always addresses his concerns to Nurse Ratched notably about the World Series and the loud music. “In the group meetings there were gripes coming up that had been buried so long the thing being griped about had already changed. Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn’t like,” (Kesey, 94).

Section 1: Introduction The life events and experiences influenced the one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. So the one flew over the cuckoo’s nest is about a psyche ward ran by women called nurse Ratched. The book of one flew over the cuckoo’s nest is narrated by a character called chief Bromden who is pretending to be deaf and a mute. A man named McMurphy was currently going to jail for statutory rape and didn’t want to go so he pleaded insane.

Throughout the beginning of the book, the struggle to obtain and maintain power was displayed by both McMurphy and Nurse Ratched through their actions. McMurphy and Nurse Ratched battled to maintain control of the ward and did whatever it took to influence the patients’ opinions. Whether their goal was to transmit fear or to transmit hope onto the patients, both refused to stop under any circumstances. Based on the actions of McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, Ken Kesey revealed that individuals in pursuit of power will intimidate, exercise their control, and manipulate their peers’ actions by doing whatever it takes to eliminate anyone who threatens their pursuit.

With McMurphy’s continuous outburst or rebellion, Nurse Ratched sentenced him to receive Electroshock Therapy, the second worse punishment patients would receive for misbehaviour. Determined to put on a strong exterior “he insisted it wasn’t hurting him. He wouldn’t even take his capsules. But every time that loudspeaker called him to forgo breakfast and prepare to walk to Building One, the muscles in his jaw went taunt and his whole face drained of colour, looking thin and scared-” (Kesey 241). Enduring the excruciating experience of Electroshock therapy only heightened the image the other men upheld for McMurphy and contributed to his heroism. Through the fight with the black boys and his fight to stay strong through Electroshock Therapy, McMurphy’s determination was evident to the other patients of the ward.

His brazen and prideful demeanor challenges Ratched's authority from the start, sparking confusion and change among the patients. McMurphy's power lies in his unique ability to unite the patients and push them to defy Ratched's