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Marxism In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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The sociological critical approach is the most effective approach one can use to analyze Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The goal of this approach is to see a particular social environment within a work. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel about men admitted to an Oregon psychiatric hospital who are living in harmony until Patrick Randle McMurphy arrives and stirs everything up. The sociological critical approach definitely provides the reader with the most intensive insight into One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This is because the ward that this novel is set in is actually a microcosm of society and it illustrates many of aspects, issues, and conflicts in society but on a smaller scale. Since the setting of this novel is …show more content…

The Combine forces all of the patients to conform to its expectations. This is parallel to modern society since society puts pressure on people to look, act, and be a certain way. The head nurse on the ward, Nurse Ratched (or Big Nurse), is comparable to a dictator in society. She is the one who is running the Combine and she is the one who makes and enforces the rules. Chief Bromden, the narrator, claims that: “The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes … 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…” (p.40) The Combine and society both attempt to remove all individuality and make everyone fit a certain mold. When analyzing the theme of rebellion against authority and conformity in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader is able to notice that the sub-society on the ward is quite similar to modern society. Using the sociological critical approach to analyze this novel and therefore assuming that the ward is a society of its own helps the reader to relate the happenings on the ward to happenings in the world around

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Chief characterizes the Nurse as almost robotic in her manipulation and intimidation. In the first chapter of the book, Chief Bromden illustrates how Nurse Ratched uses her position in the ward to control the patients. Chief says, “The big nurse recognizes this fear and knows how to put it to use; she’ll point out to an Acute, whenever he goes into a sulk, that you boys be good boys and cooperate with the staff policy which is engineered for your cure, or you’ll end up over on that side” (18). Nurse Ratched uses her power in the ward to manipulate and control the patients. This is important because with the Nurse's control, the patients are unable to think and act for themselves.

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They are her workhorses and adhere to her every need. They represent the dark enmity and the overpowering madness that lies inside of her. Nurse Ratched “ sits 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 the results she wants” (Kesey 29). Nurse Ratched strictly controls society in the

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Nurse Ratched’s desire for control, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, allows her to manipulate the entire hospital ward into believing her work is for the betterment of the patients. Significantly, Nurse Ratched appears doll-like: hair in a tight bun, a neatly pressed uniform, and “too-red” lipstick (48). Traditionally, dolls, like other toys, are made to occupy the unruly minds of young children. By comparing Nurse Ratched to a child’s toy, Kesey implies she is a mere distraction to the patients from their mental impairments.

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Throughout the novel, there is a repeated metaphor of machinery and “The Combine”. Chief Bromden, the narrator, talks a lot about how society is just one big machine. The machine is controlling everyone and everything. The machine eventually turns other people into machines, leaving them with almost no humanity. The Chief installs this idea in the reader’s minds that all of the Chronics in the ward, the ones who are too far gone to fix, have been wired to act certain ways and are no longer human, simply machines.

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999 Words | 4 Pages

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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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest theme essay Tristan Andrews In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the biggest enemy in the book is the "Combine." The Combine is the oppressive force that keeps society intact and send them to the hospital ward to be "fixed. " The whole book has a major emphasis on the combine and how it oppresses individuals into comforting to a mundane mechanized structure of life. It also tries to lesson the value of an individual person, trying to fix their personality to the way society wants it be, not who the person really is.

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The Beat Generation of the 1950’s and early 1960’s encouraged a new lifestyle for young Americans striving for individualism and freedom, which included rock and roll music, long hair, relaxed style attire, vegetarianism, and experimenting with drugs (“Beat Movement”). Many young Americans of this era wanted to experiment with new social and cultural concepts, rebelling against “normal” American life. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, portrays the gruesomeness of conformity through the lives of patients in one of the asylum’s wards. The novel shows how the patients are confined to strict rules and limited freedom because of Nurse Ratched’s power.

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The state of society has long been an influence on authors while writing their novels. In fact, many of their best works stem from the passion they feel for a particular cause. During the early 1900s, fair treatment of laborers in the United States of America was becoming an issue. At that time, word of the American Dream and one’s ability to become successful in America was spreading to foreigners, and so they rushed to America by the boatload. Employers often took advantage of the ignorance of the immigrants, and worked them to death for little pay.

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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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One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey reveals the insensitive treatment and dehumanization of the mentally ill. The origin of the book is a story of an individual in a mental hospital. Ken Kesey’s character observes the daily life in a psych ward and reveals

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Due to the structure in place by Nurse Ratched’s orders, all patients must participate in therapeutic meetings, where they have a group discussion with the nurse and Dr. Spivey. These discussions specifically target one patient where the others proceed to humiliate them. When Bromden narrates a meeting of this nature, Harding, another patient, is the one under harsh criticism, “The group is still tearing into Harding when when two o’clock rolls around” (Kesey 53). In the ward, the nurse has created an environment where the patients do not feel safe. She pits them against each other using methods such as the therapeutic meetings, which cause the patients to feel as though they cannot trust one another.

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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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502 Words | 3 Pages

The society in this book is basically the epitome of a dystopia. It has a totalitarian government and everything about the world the people live in is a frightening nightmare. The government has completely dehumanized the way people live their lives. People in this dystopia aren’t even actually human any more. They aren’t even born the natural way through reproduction, they are created.

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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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