The “sparks” that McMurphy symbolize the “spark” McMurphy made when he came to the hospital in the first place. McMurphy challenging the nurse when he first arrived at the ward is what encouraged the rest of the patients, specifically Bromden, to take a stand against the nurse. McMurphy uses his “mechanical” power to help the other patients and defeat the nurse. Another way to overcome the nurse and the combine is to lift the control panel. At the beginning of the book, McMurphy tries to lift up the control panel, but was unsuccessful.
Kesey chooses Bromden, a dynamic character of questionable reliability, as the narrator to relay the experience and mindset of a patient to the reader. Bromden commonly visualizes the ward as being screened by a fog, an important factor when considering McMurphy’s effect on the ward. Before McMurphy was committed into the ward, there was an air of paranoia due to the patient 's’ belief that they were powerless to stop the cruelty of the black boys. However, he brings with him a change in atmosphere, making “everybody over there feel uneasy, with all his kidding and joking and with the brassy way he hollers at that black boy who’s still after him… and especially with that big wide-open laugh of his” (18-19).
The question of sanity becomes apparent when McMurphy, a confident gambler, who might have faked psychosis in order to get out of the work farm, is assigned to the mental hospital. He quickly stirs up tension in the ward for Nurse Ratched by encouraging the men to have fun and rebel against her rules. Brodmen appears to be sane for the most part, despite his hallucinations of a fog, which seems to be the result of something both the ward and the world has done to him. He is able to think logically and though others believe him to be deaf and dumb, he uses this to his advantage. Chief states, “They don't bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I'm nearby because they think I'm deaf and dumb.
In the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there are four characteristics of a controlled environment. These include; status hierarchy, depersonalization, adjustment, and institution. Viewers can see these ideas through different scenes and situations in the movie. The overall movie stems from institutionalization, because it is set in a psychiatric hospital, which keeps the patients there confined to a strict environment and schedule. Doctors and nurses look at small traits or changes as something significant, whereas in the real world that small trait would appear as a norm and be overlooked.
Similarly, In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, Randle Patrick McMurphy’s traits and actions blur the line between good and evil. McMurphy is committed to a mental institution in the late 1950s. There he challenges the control and dominance of the unmerciful Nurse Ratched. McMurphy’s traits show he is a flawed
This can be seen in the everyday world where femininity is interpreted as weakness. Essentially, Kesey is conveying that for woman to rise in society, it is necessary to shed femininity and embrace masculinity; in doing so, traditional gender roles are
Grant Grubbs Mise-en-scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975) is a good film with an even more interesting mise-en-scene. I noticed many things throughout the film relating to the arrangement of scenery and stage props. For starters, RP McMurphy always wore apparel that opposed the other inmates’ dull white uniforms (see image to the right). The clothes he chooses to wear appear normal, as if he weren’t locked up in an asylum. It seems that he believes he shouldn’t be wearing the white uniforms that other patients wear because he isn’t insane and that he wouldn’t stoop to the level of adhering to the policy.
In the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a group of men living in a psychiatric ward are dealing with different types of disorders. The character that I chose to observe and analyze was Billy Bibbit. Billy is a young man who struggles to speak without stuttering and make his own decisions. He seeks approval from those around him and is always worried he will disappoint those around him. Although some people at this psychiatric ward are committed, Billy is a voluntary patient.
After tricking the American legal system and avoiding his labor duties in prison,
And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more.” This shows that Nurse is pitting the patients against each other so that she, the leader of the flock, can stay dominate and in control. This reveals that the hospital is not about dehumanizing the patients until they are weak and willing to conform to
Ken Kesey’s novel “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” was set during the psychedelic sixties of the post war American society, where many social changes were influenced by psychedelic drugs. During the end of the 1950s Psychiatry had reached the peak of its apparent prestige in the American Society, where psychiatric hospitals were seen as “a utopian monument to the virtues of separating the mentally ill from the community for successful treatment.” In “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest”, Ken Kesey displays an era with the widespread practice of “Therapeutic community” through the eyes of Chief Bromden; the narrator who suffers from Schizophrenia and is seen as the observer in the novel. Ultimately, through the portrayal of a post war American Psychiatric hospital setting, Ken Kesey explores how society smothers difference even though it may come as a valuable aspect to society.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey is a fictional novel that tells of the unpleasant conditions of an insane asylum which houses many patients with various mental disorders. From the start, it is obvious that the hospital does not achieve the goal of curing the patients due to the authoritative nurse, Miss Ratched, until a courageous rebel named McMurphy comes along to defy preexisting standards in the ward. Despite his rough past of crime, Kesey develops McMurphy as a Christ figure to demonstrate opposition to the stereotype that only perfect people can make a difference. On the fishing trip, McMurphy allows the other men to be independent and fish without his guidance, alluding to how Jesus led his disciples.
Because the hospital ward, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, complies with the restrictions of Nurse Ratched, McMurphy is seen as a manipulative instigator. Nevertheless, rebellion, such as McMurphy’s, is required for the powerless to free themselves from damaging constraints. Particularly, as Bromden realizes his increasing mental clarity (e.g. his improved sight), he gazes out the hospital window. Because the glass is covered with a metal mesh, Kesey implies McMurphy’s rebellious nature plants the seed for the patients’ freedom. At the window, Bromden notices, he “still had [his] eyes shut…like [he] was scared to look outside” (141).
Samantha Henderson Comp. 104 : October Book Report Teresa Long 31 October 2016 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest withholds many lessons throughout the story as well as in the text itself. In the opening lines of the novel it is learned that the perspective is that of an Indian man that pretends to be deaf and dumb to fool those at the mental institution. He believed that everything at the institution is run by the “combine” including the head nurse of the ward, Miss Ratched.
A role model lives on through those whom he or she inspires. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, McMurphy recognizes his powerlessness and decides to build Chief’s physical and emotional strength so he can be the new symbol of hope for the ward. McMurphy instills his own character traits of courage, tenacity, and hopefulness in Chief to carry on his legacy after his treatment drains him of those qualities.