Mood In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Mood is the aspect of a novel that helps define the characters of a novel. The atmosphere of a setting convey the emotional aspects of a character and appeal to the emotions of the reader. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the mood is an important element of the novel that improves the reader’s understanding of each relationship in the novel. Through mood, Kesey portrays the importance of McMurphy’s role in the ward. In the film version of the novel, the movie director, Milos Forman uses mood as a technique within the film. However, Forman’s failure to successfully present the mood as Kesey intended lessens McMurphy’s influence within the ward and the patients.

Throughout the novel version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,

Kesey’s use of imagery to create mood accentuates McMurphy’s effect on the mental hospital and its patients. Cheswick challenges Nurse Ratched for reducing restrictions on the number of cigarettes they could have per day. Cheswick “waited for McMurphy to back him up, all he got was silence [. . . ] he looked tiny [. . .] [Cheswick] went down the line of Acutes looking for help. Each time a man looked away and refused to back him up” (Kesey 172-173). The unresponsiveness of other patients during the therapy session creates an indifferent mood, unlike the other therapy sessions. The variation between the sessions are the speaker, Cheswick speaks up instead of McMurphy. The indifferent atmosphere created by Cheswick through the imagery of the coldness of the patients contrasts with the supportive atmosphere made by McMurphy. The contrast underlines McMurphy’s significance on the patients and ward. Later, Cheswick dies from drowning (Kesey 175). However, Cheswick’s death creates an even larger contrast. After Cheswick’s death, the hospital is “fixed again. The clean, calculated arcade movement is coming back [. . .] [Bromden] can see the white hands of the Big Nurse float over the controls” (Kesey 181). The absence of imagery for the aftermath of Cheswick’s death creates an absent remorseful mood. It helps further emphasizes McMurphy’s influence. McMurphy smashes through a glass cabinet and in the next part, the patients

The absence of Pete’s monologue changes the overall mood within the therapy session. In the therapy session scene, a close-up of Pete cries “I’m tired.” Afterward, other close-ups are of the patients and an assistant nurse emphasizing their reaction to Pete with Fredrickson closing his eyes. Forman shows an attempt at creating the desperate atmosphere of the session through the reactions of other characters. However, it fails to depict the raw emotion of struggles of the patients without Pete’s speech. The film’s decision to exclude Pete’s monologue softened the contrast between the moods when McMurphy narrated the world series. Moreover, in the scene of McMurphy’s narration of the World Series, Nurse Ratched has a calm tone to her voice compared to the novel version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In the scene, the diegetic sound of Nurse Ratched is calm as she tries to scold the patients. An attempt to portray Nurse Ratched’s rage is shown in the movie as Nurse Ratched scolds the patients. In the novel, Nurse Ratched’s screams established the emotional aspect of Nurse Ratched, which creates the mood in the novel. Therefore, the frustrated mood portrayed by Nurse Ratched’s screams does not exist in the film. Nurse Ratched’s less apparent rage shows that McMurphy does not influence her as