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Examples Of Stereotypes In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Stereotypes are often frowned upon, yet they are commonly used to form opinions on people and ideas. Some of these stereotypes are about sensitive subjects in today’s society and are not discussed very often. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey does not shy away from controversial topics regarding things like mental illness. The novel revolves around life in a psychiatric hospital and is told through the eyes of a mentally ill man named Chief Bromden. It is seen how difficult it can be to live with mental illness in an environment where stereotypes thrive. As the story goes on, the reader finds out that Chief feels isolated and has poor mental health because of his experiences with stereotypes and how the affected the actions of those …show more content…

Everybody thinks so. I'm cagey enough to fool them that much. If my being half Indian ever helped me in any way in this dirty life, it helped me being cagey, helped me all these years” (Kesey). Chief is talking about the black boys in this quote and describes their assumptions about him and how it makes him feel. He uses the term “dirty life” which shows how he dislikes the life he’s living in the hospital and being isolated. He feels as though it is easier to be unnoticed in the hospital. To do this, he gives into the stereotypes and acts deaf and dumb, which greatly impacts his recovery and his faith in himself. Even the staff treat him and the other patients as if they are inferior because of the stereotypes they have formed about them and mentally ill patients. At one point in the novel, the patients begin to develop new feelings towards their mental disabilities and worry less about the stereotypes. “Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Fair makes the old brain reel, doesn't it” (Kesey). Mr. Harding changes because of McMurphy’s influence on him. McMurphy shows him and the others that they can embrace their disabilities instead of being ashamed of them. He teaches them to not let the stereotypes get to them …show more content…

An example of this is when Ian Currie discusses Chief’s reasons for being “insane”. “The novel's narrator is Chief "Broom" Bromden, a man whose madness stems from a long process of isolation from his community of Native Americans in Oregon. This ultimately leads to confinement in the asylum and an attempted withdrawal from all of his surroundings as he feigns deafness and dumbness. Similarly, he clings to the drug-induced "fog" that he perceives around him because "you can slip back in it and feel safe." He needs to feel safe from "The Combine," that evil mechanical power whose stronghold is the mental hospital, and whose chief instrument is Big Nurse Ratched” (One). Currie explains how the severity of Chief’s illness comes from isolation within his previous community. Stereotypes from the Native Americans he lived around made it difficult for him to be accepted, understood, and helped. This is the reason he is in the mental hospital as well as why he acts deaf and dumb. He keeps doing what he knows how to do and thanks to McMurphy, he becomes motivated to leave the hospital and ends up doing

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Many people have always thought that the patients in a mental hospital were not intelligent, however, Kesey shows that they are as smart as any normal human, but suffering from a mental illness. For example, Harding begins to realize that their mental illness can be used to their advantage by saying, “Think of it: Perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become”. Harding begins to learn that with their mental illness they can be able to manipulate others through their fears of people with mental illnesses. With this type of thought process Kesey helps the reader to realize that these patients are capable of thinking the way we do, and that just because a person has a mental illness does not mean that they are unintelligent. Earlier in the novel, Harding can also tell that there are patients in the mental hospital that are intelligent saying, “I had judged from our encounter this morning that you are more intelligent-an illiterate clod, perhaps, certainly a backwoods braggart with no more sensitivity than a goose but basically intelligent nevertheless”.

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Imagery is a major theme in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The narrator of the novel is Chief Bromden, a patient at the ward who pretends to be deaf and dumb. Chief has a mental illness where he relates everything to machines, he believes that everything is one big machine to be controlled by another person. The ward is a dismal place, with two distinct groups separated at the middle. One group is the Acutes, people who have a chance at rehabilitation and release to the outside world.

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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.

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In Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the main character and narrator, Chief Bromden, is noticeably stuck inside his own head as he acts deaf and dumb to escape the pressures of being a part of something. As the novel moves on, for someone who’s perception of living is to stay transparent and withdrawn totally inside himself the Chief takes a transformation from his delusional mind and gains strength physically and mentally, creating a journey towards freedom and finally, breaking free from the ward and from himself. Kesey uses the story of the transformation to unravel ideas about how the pressures of society can lead individuals to conform within themselves, resulting in them to feel weak and insignificant, separating

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With all of this in mind, when the singer says “Say it to him 50 times and still [he] won’t cry.” really shows what I’m talking about come to light. What really got me from the quote was that he won’t cry, to everyone this is a normal thing that people do but for him, he lost the ability and in turn lost a part of his humanity. The nurse shows her true colors in a different way, for the reader we see this world from the eyes of a person that is mentally going away, so when he sees something that would be taken in a non-literal way, he actually sees it, So when Chief says “She blows bigger and bigger, as big as a traitor, so big I can small the machinery” She doesn’t actually smell like machinery but you as the reader can tell that the way she acts and is more of a robot than anything else to Chief, she has also lost her sense of humanity.

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Moral Lense Literary Analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest The 1950s, the context of which One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel by Ken Kesey, was written, was called the Era of Conformity. During this time, the American social atmosphere was quiet conformed, in that everyone was expected to follow the same, fixed format of behavior in society, and the ones who stand out of being not the same would likely be “beaten down” by the social norms. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey argues that it is immoral for society to simply push its beliefs onto the people who are deemed different, as it is unfair and could lead to destructive results. First of all, it is unjust for people who are deemed unalike from others in society to be forced into the preset way of conduct because human tend to have dissimilar nature.

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Throughout Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the balance of power is challenged in the psychiatric ward. Out of the several leaders that appear in the novel, Nurse Ratched and McMurphy are the most prominent. During Nurse Ratched and McMurphy struggle for power, they share many of the same qualities. It is argued that: “McMurphy and Ratched are alike in intelligence, military service, distinctive (if opposite) clothing, and conventionally masculine qualities” (Evans). These small similarities; however, do not distract the characters from fighting for their individual beliefs.

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In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the main theme that society embraces people who conform to oppressive standards is reiterated numerous times throughout the book. The book is narrated by a schizophrenic, Native American man named Chief Bromden. He is large in physical stature, but is often treated as if he were invisible. Kesey depicts conformity through Bromden’s lack of perception of how size is related to power, and how Bromden’s view evolves following McMurphy’s arrival on the psychiatric ward. Prior to Randle McMurphy’s arrival on the ward, Chief Bromden spent most of his time in a delusional fog, in which he was able to protect himself from the realization that he is a big person.

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It shows he has psychological problems. In the film audiences were not given this information, therefore it give the impression that Chief does not have any psychological abnormalities. This makes the film less effective because throughout this story mental illness of Chief plays a huge part. It helps readers understand why Chief is a patient of the mentally ill and it indirectly created a bond between him and McMurphy. For example, if Chief was not mentally ill, he wouldn’t think he was “small in size” and McMurphy wouldn’t offer to help Chief gain back his size; “make him

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In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the protagonist McMurphy proves that “Laughter is the best medicine.” The narrator’s name is Chief Bromden who pretends to be deaf and dumb but has many hallucinations that alter his perception of the people and things around him. The antagonist, Nurse Ratched, or the Big Nurse, has all power in the ward until McMurphy comes. He was voluntarily admitted to the mental hospital. His rebellious attitude and actions lead him to take the power from the Nurse.

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But disabled people can surprise you. In this essay, I will describe some of the stereotypes about people with disabilities that Raymond Carver shows in the story Cathedral.

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Forcing people to follow a societal norm is detrimental to the health of the mind and body. The struggle between conformers and non conformers creates a schism in society. In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey asserts the overarching importance of individuality through the use of a conflict between the patients and the nurse as a microcosm of society. In the novel, the delusions of the narrator create a surreal world that reveals a strong message on the nature of conformity.

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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.

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He is a normal being of society and is not insane. Just as Chief finished his dose of Electroshock Therapy ,or EST, he says “And when the fog was finally swept from my head it seemed like I’d just come after a long, deep dive, breaking the surface after being under water a hundred years”(289). Here Kesey conveys that even though living under the comfort of the fog does seem applicable to many, it is in fact a rather dreadful living situation. Chief is now “cured” and can at last see the reality of life. Being under water represents how Chief was under the influence of authority over his own ideas.

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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.

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