One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Dialectical Journal

During a group therapy session, a quarrel between Harding and Taber provided foreshadowing on the discussed theme. It was stated “Harding, why don 't you knock off the bullshit and get to the point?” “This is the point. This is the point, Taber. It 's not bullshit.

In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey provides a storyline about personal experiences he saw occur in a mental asylum. Ken Kesey worked as a staff member in an insane asylum in Oregon. When he wrote the book, he was providing personal memories about the patients and other workers into a story. The entire novel is about patients that are checked into a mental asylum, and their unwillingness to act against the nurse. Throughout the novel, there is a theme of “manipulation” implied.

A psych ward is defined as a health care facility providing inpatient and outpatient services to clients with behavioral or emotional illness. Some people can not think straight and use the wards as their comfort. To get in a psych ward, you have to have done something insane or be mentally ill. The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest uses a lot of craziness and rowdiness. The author, Ken Kesey, uses the actions of the patients that creates havoc and audacity between the nurse and them.

“You’re sentenced in a jail and you got a date ahead of when you know you’re gonna be let loose” ( Kesey, page 190). The lifeguard that is talking to McMurphy say that being in jail is better than being in at the ward because you do not know when you are going to leave. After this McMurphy talks to Harding and says “Yes; chopping away the brain. Frontal-lobe castration. I guess if she can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above”.

Everyone Agree? Perfect. "Nothing builds authority up like silence, splendor of the strong and shelter of the weak" (Charles de Gaulle). This idea is reflected in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where it is shown how authority becomes more powerful by abusing the silence of the people.

Would you ever do something as crazy as volunteering to be a patient at a mental institution even through you’re not crazy at all? Well in the book One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey the main character McMurphy was a criminal and decided to go to a mental ward instead of working on a work farm. He is a rebellious man who did not get along with Nurse Ratched who was head in charge of the ward. Everyone in the institution was scared of big Nurse Ratched, but McMurphy wasn’t and they seemed to clash heads when it came to who really had power in the ward.

The novel One Flew Over The cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey follows the experiences of Randle Patrick McMurphy who has pretended to be insane in order to a psychiatric hospital and escape from serving time in a prison work farm. The novel frequently refers to authorities that control individuals through restrained methods. The authority of the ward is most often personified in the character of “Nurse Ratched” or “Big Nurse”. The patients of the ward are afraid of Nurse Ratched that they fallow her orders without question. They “ long ago gave up the struggle to assert themselves.

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a culmination of many sides of society fit into a small hospital. Fighting each other to escape or be fixed, each character brings a history with them that influences their emotions and actions. Some fall into the same category, but others—the outliers—have a unique aura that quickly makes them the main players of the game of the “combine”. The protagonist and the antagonist of the work, share only one thing in common, they assert themselves to be the leader of the cult inside the hospital. But why?

The goal of most mental hospitals is rehabilitation of the human psyche. To be cured of a mental disorder is nearly impossible, but the purpose of these hospitals is to attempt to suppress the id of a person’s subconscious. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey utilizes the psychoanalytic theory and his own life experiences to depict his dynamic character’s dreams, hidden subconscious thoughts, basic desire of their id, and reality of their ego. Kesey uses his character’s dreams to reveal their subconscious desires, express what they wish they could accomplish but are limited due to society’s rules, and showcase what they secretly desire when their subconscious goes unchecked during their sleep.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest reflects how individuals don't want to conform to certain rules that an institution wants them to follow. The novel really gets to the point when someone is pushed and pushed to follow rules that are overbearing, they crack and do the total opposite of what's expected from them. McMurphy just wants to enjoy himself and get the other patients in the ward to open their eyes and make them realize that they're being controlled by a tyrannic figure who won't let them have fun as well. The mundanity of going through the same routine is mind numbing to the point their patients' sanity turns into insanity. The mundanity may only be broken when one breaks the loop of going through the same thing every single day.