One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Literary Analysis

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is about the power structure of a mental ward from the perspective of a patient, Bromden. The story takes place during the 1950's in Oregon. Many of the patients on the ward are not necessarily insane however do not fit in with pre established societal norms and have chosen a life away from these norms. The men who are voluntary have given in to the staff and follow them like sheep, however, the men who are committed need controlling according to society so they were sent to the ward. The head nurse, Nurse Rached, of the ward keeps control using her staff that has been picked out over years of meticulous selection. The staff under Rached's orders keep control of the patients

Other patients on the ward begin to stand up to Nurse Ratchet and her rules. For instance, Cheswick hollers “ Rules? Piss on your fucking rules, Miss Ratched!” (Forman One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Film). A momentary outburst from Cheswick is an indicator that McMurphy has been able to model a sense of indignance at all of their treatment, and this is now being emulated by other patients through their behaviour towards Nurse Ratched. Another instance of patients talking down to Ratchet is when Sefelt states “Maybe he'll just show Nurse Ratched his big thing and she'll open the door for him.” (Forman One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Film). In this statement the use of sexual language is about empowerment. This makes reference to the possibility that McMurphy holds the key to their liberation from Nurse Ratchet’s control through his capacity to dominate her both sexually and otherwise. His ability to stand up to her and challenge her has captured Sefelt’s

In Ken Kesey classic 1960’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest McMurphy and Nurse Ratched both suffer from strong and aggressive personalities. Nurse Ratched and McMurphy have manipulative and powerful individualities.

“A success, they say, but I say he’s just another robot for the Combine and might be better off as a failure…”(17).

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a book in which he dealt with the issues of racism, sex and authority that is going on in a mental institute. In the novel, the women are depicted as the power figures who are able to significantly manipulate the patients on the ward. There are four ways of Ken Kesey’s using of “woman” as a subject: Superiority of male sexuality over female authority, matriarchal system that seeks to castrate men in the society, mother figures as counterpart of Big Nurse and “Womanish” values defined as civilizing in the novel.

In Ken Kesey’s One Flew of the Cuckoo’s Nest the narrator, Chief, a mental patient in the mid 20th century, critiques the world around him, and exposes truths about society through analyzing the events he witnesses on the ward. In this passage, Chief observes Nurse Ratched and her affect others as she enters the hospital to begin her daily routine. Through the use of mechanical and unnatural imagery, Kesey uses Chief to reveals the true nature of Big Nurse and their surroundings. Nurse Ratched’s goal is to fix people, make them conform to what society tells them is normal.

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, written by Ken Kesey, is an iconic novel that exposes the horrific nature of mental institutions in the 1960’s society. Set inside a mental asylum, the story is painted through the lens of Chief Bromden, a Native American who conforms to the ward by faking being deaf and mute. Kesey utilizes the mental institute in the novel as a microcosm of the 1960s society to criticize the oppressiveness and forced conformity of a controlling society. Bromden and the other patients obey the expectations and policies set inside the ward by the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched utilizes intimidation, medication, and gentle manipulation to emasculate the men into conformity.

Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a creation of the socio-cultural context of his time. Social and cultural values, attitudes and beliefs informed his invited reading of his text.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a controversial novel that has left parents and school authorities debating about its influence on students since its publication in 1962. The novel describes the inner workings of a mental institution, how the patients are emasculated and mistreated by the terrifying Nurse Ratched, who will go to any length to control them. But in comes McMurphy, a criminal who chose to go to an asylum rather than serve physical labor; he disrupts the order of the hospital with his big personality and loud opinions, undermining the authority of Nurse Ratched and encouraging the patients to live their own lives, until he too, is silenced forever by authority. With his novel, Ken Kesey paints society as an oppressive

Miss Ratched has distractions so covered up that the black boys, “All three wear starched snow-white pants and white shirts with metal snaps down one side and white shoes polished like ice, and the shoes have red rubber soles silent as mice up and down the hall.”(31) Miss Ratched herself doesn’t pose as a distraction for the patients being a female with large breasts, always covering them up, or pulling them close to her body as if to show she is not there for the patient 's pleasure but there to help them on the road to recovery. The ward is so meticulous about who works there that “The doctors last three weeks, three months. Until she finally settles for a little man with a big wide forehead…”(29) “Her three daytime black boys she acquires after more years of testing and rejecting thousands.”(29) The nurse has taken several years to acquire a single doctor, and three daytime black boys whom each work like clockwork with her and do not have to be given verbal orders rather they just know when and where to do their jobs and how their jobs should be done. Not only does the nurse use such a detailed plan to run her ward, she also incorporates into this plan; group therapy. Group therapy as McMurphy puts is a ” ‘pecking party’.

In the Milos Forman film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a recidivist criminal serving a short prison term is transferred to a mental institution due to behavioral problems. It is in that institution that McMurphy meets Nurse Ratchet (Louise Fletcher), a bullish, controlling nurse who has cowed the patients into dejected submission and who has the power to keep McMurphy institutionalized indefinitely. A battle for control ensues between the two characters which Ratchet views as a personal affront and

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the narrator, Chief Bromden, perceives the Big Nurse as the evil head of the mental institution for a decade because he is “dehumanized to a machine created by the evil Nurse Ratched” (Porter 49), he befriends Mr. Randle McMurphy, or just Mac, and is able to recover back to feeling human emotions. The Nurse, as a matter of fact, is not actually cruel, but just doing her daily duties at the ward. Every single complication, dilemma, and dispute that arises subsequent to McMurphy’s arrival the mental institution are directly from Mr. McMurphy and not the Nurse.

He is a main character that experiences an extreme change in the novel from a quiet little coward, to a big confident rebel who overcomes the control of the ward and society. He watches everyone around him follow in McMurphy’s footsteps and go through the same change he does. Before McMurphy rescued them they were lost. They were outsiders that could not conform but could not feel comfortable in their own skin either. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey uses the patients’ conflict between their individuality and society’s standards of normal to portray that one who heroically resists a confining power can direct a path to independence and courage for those who do not have the strength to do

In Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched, also known as Big Nurse, is a former army nurse and now the head nurse in charge of the patients in the mental institution. Nurse Ratched has complete control over every aspect of the mental ward. It’s evident that Nurse Ratched has an indescribable desire/determination to divide and conquer her patients, so that she can maintain a certain hierarchy within the ward. However throughout the course of the novel Nurse Ratched goes from being powerful to powerless. Due to Nurse Ratched’s strategic use of guilt and shame to continually emasculate the male patients and manipulate them into submission she is able to maintain power, however this power is ultimately taken away when her androgynous front is ripped off by Mcmurphy revealing that she is not only a woman/human being but also as weak and troubled as everyone else in the ward.