ipl-logo

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Key Kesey

491 Words2 Pages

Deepening Depression and Perpetual Paranoia

A mental illness is defined as a medical condition that affects a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Mental illnesses are present in both the Shakesperian play, Hamlet, as well as the Ken Kesey novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Over the course of the stories the main characters deal with depression and paranoia respectively.

In the story of Hamlet, the main character, Hamlet deals with a myriad of mental issues including: bi-polar disorder, hysteria and most of all depression. Depression is a form of mental disorder “marked by feelings of profound sadness and lack of interest in activities. It is a persistent low mood that interferes with the ability to function and appreciate things in life. It may cause a wide range of symptoms, both physical …show more content…

Paranoia is a form of “delusional psychosis, in which the delusions develop slowly into a complex, intricate, and logically elaborated system”(Encyclopedia Britannica 1). This paranoia is displayed fairly early in the story when Chief believes that “they got special sensitive equipment detects [his] fear”(Kesey 3). Chief's paranoia also causes him to believe that “[t]he ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is”(Kesey 40). Over time his delusions and paranoia become less frequent as he gets cured however “[he] still had [his] own notions—how McMurphy was a giant come out of the sky to save [them] from the Combine that was networking the land with copper wire and crystal, how he was too big to be bothered with something as measly as money—but even [Chief] came halfway to thinking like the others”(Kesey

Show More
Related

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

    541 Words  | 3 Pages

    2. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, Kesey uses images of machinery to compare to Big Nurse, Miss Ratched, and the black boy because of the control they maintain in the ward and destroy the patients individuality. As Chief Bromden, the narrator, is thinking about over the years with Miss Ratched, he describes, “I see her sit in the center of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get to the result she want” (Kesey 29). Miss Ratched is conveyed as a robot by the Chief with how she controls and knows how to control the ward and the people in it.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

    602 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Kesey’s novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest the character R. P. McMurphy is an anti-hero. Kesey portrays him as an anti-hero by his behaviour and motives. When McMurphy first enters the ward its all a gamble, he fakes his way in trying to escape working. When he first arrives its all for himself and he doesn’t have much care for the other patients. McMurphy immediately decides he wants to be the bull goose loony in charge.

    Read More

  • How Does Steinbeck Use Foreshadowing In Of Mice And Men

    723 Words  | 3 Pages

    Of mice and Men A mental disease is a huge deal and many people struggle with it. Some people have it bad, and some just have a mild mental disorder. In the book, it shows how someone with a mental disease went wrong.

    Read More

  • Depressive Illness In Hamlet

    47 Words  | 1 Pages

    The suffering of the many depressive illness hamlet had, with some obsessional features. Hamlet deliberately shows madness in order to confuse and disconcern the king and his attendance towards his actions. Hamlet shouldn't have been insane, selfish or a hero because that's what made it so depressing.

    Read More

  • Mental Disorders In Shakespeare's Hamlet

    880 Words  | 4 Pages

    Adolescent Mental Disorders Mental disorders are health conditions that affect the mood, thinking, and behavior of the person who has one. According to teenmentalhealth.org, 1 in 5 young people suffer from a mental illness. Shakespeare’s Hamlet, has been classified as a “problem play” because it addresses social and personal issues, one of those issues being mental disorders. In act 1, scene 2, Hamlet says “O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew, or that the everlasting had not fix 'd his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!”

    Read More

  • Examples Of Explanatory Model Of Mental Illness

    1579 Words  | 7 Pages

    [TYPE THE COMPANY NAME] Explanatory Models of People about Mental Illness S.J.Sangeeta R2014MH010 9/18/2014   Explanatory model: Explanatory model is an explanation for what purpose and in which way a thing works or we can say it is an explanation for a phenomenon the way it is. It does not give a complete explanation of the reality of the thing and even it does not claim to be fully accurate. The explanation should get fit in context to the thing or phenomenon, so that the explanatory model becomes useful. The explanation of an explanatory model should be helpful to make a decision and to explain the reality of the world around us. Mental Illness: Mental illness is a state which is not developmentally or socially normative in nature.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Personality Disorder In Hamlet

    1598 Words  | 7 Pages

    Various psychological disorders can be applied to Hamlet, but the main ones include Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. Possibilities Observing Hamlet’s actions throughout the play, it is possible to say that he suffers from three major disorders, Borderline personality disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) is a disorder identified when a person has difficulties in controlling emotions. According to NAMI, BDP includes symptoms such as “…severe, unstable mood swings, impulsivity and instability, poor self-image and stormy relationships” (nami.org). People who suffer from BDP frequently aim to avoid members of their family or friends.

    Read More

  • Mental Illness In Hamlet Essay

    1441 Words  | 6 Pages

    From Madness to Healing: The Journey of Hamlet’s Mental Improvement Since the dawn of time and until the end of time, humans have struggled with mental illness. Although this problem is not new, it has not been discussed openly until recently, as throughout history it was looked upon as a punishment or curse from God. This left people to struggle on their own, which leaves the question of how people handled mental illness throughout history. Hamlet mainly explores mental health and gives the audience a glimpse of what it was like to live with this condition and how people were treated throughout history. In the tragedy Hamlet written by William Shakespeare, the Prince of Denmark starts to exhibit madness, but gets mentally healthier as he stops

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

    654 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the major thematic idea that my project is focusing on is man versus machine because it represents how Chief Bromden views society and the ward as. In the beginning of the book, Chief describes how he perceives the ward by saying “the ward is a factory for the Combine. It’s for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes, it brings joy to the Big Nurse’s heart”(31). Basically, Bromden believes that everything is ran by the Combine.

    Read More

  • Illness In Hamlet

    1749 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Tragedy of Mental Illness in Hamlet Hamlet is not only renowned as one of the greatest plays in the literary world, but as one of the most tragic ones as well. Although the play does fall under the classical definition of a tragedy, such as having a tragic hero with a fatal flaw, the portrayal of mental illness is what makes Hamlet even more tragic. From Hamlet’s depression to its effects on the women in his life, Shakespeare explores a subject that forms and drives the other tragedies within the play. Furthermore, the tragedy of mental illness is not lost on the 2009 film adaptation for the most part. Instead, this motif is heightened due to the acting and characterization changes from the original text.

    Read More

  • Mental Illness In Hamlet

    1514 Words  | 7 Pages

    An overwhelming amount of evidence shows that Hamlet faked his insanity to confuse the king and his accomplices. Often revered for their emotional complexities, William Shakespeare’s tragic characters display various signs of mental illness. Sylvia Morris notes “Hamlet contains Shakespeare’s most fully-developed study of mental illness, and has always intrigued commentators on the play.” (“Shakespeare’s Minds Diseased: Mental Illness and its Treatment”). When looking at the play, one can infer that Shakespeare makes the relationship between sanity and insanity undistinguishable from one another.

    Read More

  • Reciprocal Determinism

    823 Words  | 4 Pages

    A medical condition that disturbs an individual's cognition, emotion, temperament, capacity to relate to others as well as daily functioning is known as a mental illness (Nami.org 2014). Genuine mental illnesses comprise of major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder (Nami.org 2014). The uplifting news about mental illness is that recuperation is conceivable (Nami.org 2014). Mental illnesses can influence persons of any age, race, religion or wealth (Nami.org 2014). Mental illnesses are not the consequence of individual shortcomings, absence of character or poor upbringing (Nami.org 2014).

    Read More

  • Causes Of Madness In Hamlet

    1119 Words  | 5 Pages

    William Shakespeare tells the tale of a troubled man in his masterpiece, Hamlet. Imagine your beloved father dying and your mother marrying his brother shortly after. You are left to grieve on your own. Instead of consoling you, your mother and uncle have a wedding and begin to share the same bed. This is what Hamlet suffers through in the play.

    Read More

  • Informative Speech On Suicide

    848 Words  | 4 Pages

    Depression can cause severe symptoms that can affect how you feel, think, and handle your daily activities. Depression is always accompanied by sense of suffering as well as the belief that escape from it, is hopeless.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices Used In Hamlet

    2699 Words  | 11 Pages

    The novel The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, written by William Shakespeare, is about a prince that discovers the secret of the malicious murder of his father, King Hamlet. The main character of this novel, Hamlet, is seem to be quite a mentally disturbed man after he discovered his deceased fathers murder to be his uncle. Hamlets obsession of uncovering the murder mystery and exposing his uncles lead to his strive for vengeance, yet his procrastinating ways keeps him from doing so. Though he appears sane at the beginning of the novel it is truly obvious he doesn’t remain as so while the plot thickens.

    Read More

More about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Key Kesey

Open Document