The novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, follows the lives of mental patients living in an asylum during the 1960s. As another attempt to get out of the hospital, McMurphy sets up a fishing trip for him and the patients. They soon have to face their fears of the outside world, encountering the people that come with it. When they arrive at a gas station, McMurphy and the Doctor have very different approaches to the servicemen. Through this contrast, Kesey suggests that insanity can be used to one’s advantage. Harding then states “perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become” which supports Kesey’s suggestion. Many of the patients stay at the hospital voluntarily out of fear of the outside world and the …show more content…
One of the servicemen asks if they are from the asylum, to which the doctor lies and says that they are simply workers. Although they don't believe him, they laugh it off and try to manipulate the doctor into buying more expensive gas and other unnecessary things. Right when the doctor was going to agree out of fear, McMurphy comes out of the car cursing and hollering. McMurphy states that they just want their tank filled and that they should get a discount because they’re on a government-sponsored expedition. McMurphy says that they are criminal-insane patients being transferred to another unit, giving a background story on the “crimes” some of these men have committed, intimidating them with Chief who supposedly killed six men. He told them to send the gas bill to the hospital, and the men were more confident than ever, knowing that these servicemen feared them. Kesey suggests that the doctor is ashamed of the patients and lies to the servicemen so they don't judge him. McMurphy, on the other hand, embraces who he is and uses the fact that they are mental patients to his advantage, saying that they are mentally insane criminals and intimidate the
However, then something happens - Randle McMurphy comes into his life. McMurphy is a very cool guy that does not care for rules. He is not scared of Nurse Ratched and comments on how terrified the men appear when he says “I’ve never seen a scareder-looking bunch in my life than you guys” (70). McMurphy is clearly sane when he arrives at the hospital and is simply trying to avoid another sentence at Pendleton Work Farm. He is free, confident, and determined.
The patients are frequently told that they will be lost and alone when let out. However, when McMurphy plans a way to get a touch of freedom, the patients begin to realize the restrictions Ratched puts against them. The narrator of the story, Chief Bromden, reflects, “Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy” (Kesey 211). This shows that the men maintaining their sanity in such an oppressive world cannot allow external forces to exert too much power. When a person succumbs to the bad experiences of humanity, they have no way of growth.
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. McMurphy’s positive attitude had a huge impact on the patients of the mental Institution. First of all thanks to McMurphy, in the ward they were going to do a carnival; When McMurphy had the interview with the doctor, they realize that they studied in the same school and they started to talk
“We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don 't know.” -W. H. Auden Auden’s sentiment is one I’ve pondered on many occasions as a husband, parent, and teacher. If I came across this quote in my youth, it didn’t register and I know why: as a child growing to adolescence, my focus was on my own needs. In psyche theory, Abraham Maslow identified and defined this process in his “Hierarchy of Needs”. Children and adolescents are focused on the 4 tiers below the apex of his pyramid.
All of McMurphy violent behavior was for the men to better themselves. He prepared them for real world outside of the ward. He helped them not to get pushed around and to not be afraid to do what they want. Mcmurphy’s madness is made reasonable as it provided the patients with hope and helped them return to a sane lifestyle. By the end, McMurphy managed to release many of the patients to their normal senses, Even though it caused him to lose his freedom.
Ken Kesey author of the fictional novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest published in 1962 has taken the opportunity to write about the hippy culture and how society shames difference. Readers are taken to a mental institution in Oregon in the 1950’s and experience what it is like for the outcast people. The men in the ward are run by Nurse Ratched and have lost control of themselves. Majority of these men are in the mental hospital because they have checked themselves in, but not McMurphy he is a convict there for psych evaluation. Do to Nurse Ratched the men loses control over themselves and they haven’t realized till McMurphy walked through the door.
Ken Kesey’s comic novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, takes place in an all-male psychiatric ward. The head of the ward, Big Nurse Ratched, is female. Kesey explores the power-struggle that takes place when the characters challenge gender dynamics in this environment. One newly-arrived patient, McMurphy, leads the men against the Big Nurse. The story is told through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a patient who learns from McMurphy and fights for his freedom.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, considers the qualities in which society determines sanity. The label of insanity is given when someone is different from the perceived norm. Conversely, a person is perceived as sane when their behavior is consistent with the beliefs of the majority. Although the characters of this novel are patients of a mental institution, they all show qualities of sanity. The book is narrated by Chief Brodmen, an observant chronic psychiatric patient, who many believe to be deaf and dumb.
Psychiatric hospitals are proven to provide assistance and treatment to those who live with mental illnesses. The system is designed to take away the suffering, assist in the patient’s recovery, and put them on the path toward good health and a happy life. Although hospitals are supposed to take a certain level of responsibility over a patient; in this ward, the control over the patients are clearly interfering with their well being. In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched’s suffocating authority and the ward’s power over the patients are exacerbating their illness instead of helping these patients heal, proving that them being mentally ill is a faux. Nurse Ratched controls the men with her therapeutic community.
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.
As the men drive towards the ocean, they stop at a gas station so they can make the trek. The workers at the station immediately belittle the men as they are from the mental institution (therefore, they are insane). McMurphy leaves an argument with an attendant and runs to a store “to pick up some refreshments for the men” (202). He returns with alcohol and the men start drinking. After the confrontation, the service station workers comply with the requests of the
In Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, humor is present in an influential form. Not all insane people have the capacity to laugh or find the humor in something as would normal people are capable of. Most people live terrible realities, drifting day by day in the plain, depressing in the place of an asylum. Patients have forgotten how to live because they are under the commanding rule of the head nurse, and under the behavior effect of drug doses and overbearing orderlies. The patients’ laughter is a therapeutic form.
Ken Kesey uses his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to describe the lives of patients in a mental institution, and their struggle to overcome the oppressive authority under which they are living. Told from the point of view of a supposedly mute schizophrenic, the novel also shines a light on the many disorders present in the patients, as well as how their illnesses affect their lives during a time when little known about these disorders, and when patients living with these illnesses were seen as an extreme threat. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel, has many mental illnesses, but he learns to accept himself and embrace his differences. Through the heroism introduced through Randle McMurphy, Chief becomes confident in himself, and is ultimately able to escape from the toxic environment Nurse Ratched has created on the ward. Chief has many disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and, in addition to these illnesses, he pretends to be deaf and dumb.
In the book “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” Ken Kesey shows that the “insanity” of the patients is really just normal insecurities and their label as insane by society is immoral. This appears in the book concerning Billy Bibbits problem with his mom, Harding's problems with his wife, and that the patients are in the ward
Another point to note was that McMurphy seems abnormal among the patients. Especially with his laugh, I kept thinking that he might be mentally ill and not fake it (Kesey). But if you just imagine his behavior outside of the asylum, then it seems normal. This phenomenon is well known in psychology. It says that person once convicted of mental illness have an uphill battle to prove that he is not.