One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Anti Hero

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.

After reading One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I came to a conclusion that Nurse Ratched qualify as an archetypal villain. Because throughout the whole book begin from the end, her main purpose was to make the men’s life hell. Furthermore, she didn't have a hard time doing it either. The nurse would try and take aways the only privileges the men had, that meant something to them. Others may say that they felt like Nurse ratched was doing her job but, I say that she was just trying to make the men feel like they are bad people and don't deserve anything in life.

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.

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest operates as an entertaining and interesting novel on a pure surface level. There’s a good story, well-developed characters and fresh language. It has all the workings of a good novel, but One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest isn’t just a good novel. It’s a great one, because Kesey uses Chief Bromden’s perspective to let imagery flow out of the novel and have it all come back to one theme: individuality and its repression by society. This idea is highlighted by the image of gambling vs. playing it safe, whether in literal card games or as a way of living. The mental ward’s new patient, Randle Patrick McMurphy, is a self-described “gambling fool” (12)1, while his opposer, “Big Nurse” Ratched,

Ken Kesey’s figurative language in his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, suggests that broken individuals can connect and make each other whole again. The traumatic events that occur when the patients are younger still affect them in their current state. For example, throughout his life, Bromden has always been assumed to be deaf and dumb. When he spoke to people their “machinery dispose[d] of the words like they weren’t even spoken” (181). Kesey’s metaphor represents how Bromden feels that the Combine influences him. When Bromden speaks, the words do not “fit” in the listener’s brain and they ignore him (181). Being a large Native American man, Bromden does not fit into the mold that is set by the Combine (societal expectations), so

One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, written by Ken Kesey in 1962 is a gripping multidimensional novel, set in an Oregon Mental Institution set deep in the countryside. The novel is narrated by an American half-Indian known as the “Chief”, who is a seemingly deaf and dumb patient with Paranoid Schizophrenia. By choosing Bromden as the narrator instead of the main character McMurphy, Kesey gives us a somewhat objective view, as its coming from only one perspective.

Works of literature innately embody the author’s ideology and the historical context of the given time period. Within the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, the author furthers his ideals against the issue of oppression as he attempts to take stabs against its deteriorating effects and support those who rebel. Set in the microcosm of a small mental hospital, he establishes man’s external struggle to overcome tyranny. At the head of the head of the ward is the corrupted character of Nurse Ratched, who rules with an iron fist and the help of her machine like aides. It also features the nonconformist character, McMurphy, as he works to break Nurse Ratched’s endless cycle of tyranny. Although the novel shifts between the

Kesey has a very specific writing style that makes it necessary to question anything and everything that happens in the story. A specific motif is present in the unreliable narrator, Chief Broom. He hallucinates situations at times so that the reader has no way of knowing exactly what is going on, or if a situation is even real, or just Broom’s

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel by Ken Kesey, is the telling of the inner workings of a mental asylum told by the view of one of the patients. Bromden, the narrator who is seemingly deaf and mute, begins the story with warning the reader that he is not a reliable source before he dives into the past to tell of the mayhem that Randall McMurphy brings to the mental institute with his arrival. McMurphy takes the asylum by storm with his masculinity in a corporation ran by an effeminate woman, Big Nurse Ratched. The longer McMurphy stays, the more the patients become individuals rather than a part of the machine of the

Within every reading and film presented in the class, there was a protagonist in each story who was teetering on the brink of insanity. Some protagonist in the stories were indeed insane, but some were also normal people perceived by other characters as insane due to certain circumstances. Many of the films and readings also shared similarities, one of the main similarities was that in every single story or film, there was a focus on the main character placed in a stressful situation. They also showed how the character dealt with it, whether he let it push him to insanity, or if he handled it properly. Two films that were covered in class were One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest directed by Milos Forman, and Shallow Grave directed by Danny Boyle.

Another one of McMurphy’s hero types is an anti-hero, which is a hero who lacks some attributes of being a classic hero. A classic hero is a hero with ethics and morals and who respects everyone and everything. This is not who McMurphy is. He swears all the time, he gambles and cheats the other patients out of their money, not to mention the fact that he was accused of statutory rape and put in a prison camp. Even thought he is a criminal, he is always and honest and caring towards the other patients. He is true to himself and everyone else and he tries to get the other patients to be like that, too. He remains an individual despite the combines consistent attempts to repress him.

In this world, there are two sides to everything. Whether it may be a message, a film or a novel, each platform of literature has two different windows. The first being the depiction of the author and the second being the interpretation of the audience. This concept is evident within both works this essay seeks to explore. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, a charismatic criminal, Randle P. McMurphy is admitted to a state asylum due to his will of serving out of prison sentence in a mental hospital rather than the penitentiary. McMurphy brings in the outside world to the admitted patients after being legally declared insane through a condensed interview with a psychiatrist. He symbolizes freedom, life and the power of an

The antihero is described as someone who has flaws and who is gritty, the antihero may not always think of what the right thing is to do and may work towards his own end. The antihero often seeks redemption for his own satisfaction and sometimes even for the benefit of society. R.P. McMurphy displays the traits of an anti hero from the way he views himself as being above the rule set around him, thinking he is untouchable, to the way he sees his actions as being for the good of his fellow ward mates. McMurphy is a large character and is confident labelling himself the “bull goose Looney” of the ward. This self-given title gives a lot of insight in to McMurphy’s character and highlights how he sees himself as

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a critically acclaimed novel written by Ken Kesey and later on a movie adaptation, directed by Milos Forman, which was similarly critically acclaimed earning itself an extremely high 96% on rotten tomatoes. However said appraisal of both works, does not excuse the gleaming errors and artistic licensing seen throughout the entirety of the film. Granted there were no major plot holes and alterations present, the physical descriptions of the various characters within the story as well as their behavior differed quite a bit from their silver screen counterparts. The most critical physical and behavioral differences can be seen quite clearly

Ken Kesey the author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Wrote McMurphy as a confident, positive and stronger person to make a positive impact to the patients in the Mental Institution, by challenging the Nurse Ratched and her authority. The author wants to show the impact that McMurphy has on the patients, the conflict between McMurphy and the Nurse Ratched to expose the corruption of power, and also it shows the theme of Manipulation.