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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: A Psychological Analysis

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In order to demonstrate the detrimental impact of societal institutions such as the mental hospital and the federal government on their subordinates, Ken Kesey captures the patients’ endeavor to become whole again as they temporarily escape the Combine’s clutches within his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. At the beginning of Part 3, it appears Nurse Ratchet’s regime is nearly toppled and that the machinery has lost its control. In fact, McMurphy even draws “[laughs] out of some Acute who’d been scared to grin since he was twelve” and forms a basketball team for the inmates (175). Moreover, Chief Bromden speaks for the first time in years and achieves an erection after his pivotal conversation. Clearly, Kesey indicates the decline of the matriarchy and as a result, portrays the patients as regaining their masculinity. Formerly, …show more content…

It is also important to note that Bromden is able to recall this significant childhood memory as it reveals his escape from the Fog. Later, as the men leave the hospital and embark on the fishing trip, their intense psychological conditioning dissipates, and they gradually recover, or revert, to unexpectedly conventional members of society. Significantly, Kesey depicts McMurphy as “[leading] the twelve… towards the ocean” and also as a “fisher of men”(203,198). Obviously, Kesey likens McMurphy to Jesus and the twelve disciples to implicate that McMurphy directs them on a righteous path towards salvation away from the malevolent hospital. Additionally, McMurphy heals the character George, who was previously overwhelmed by thoughts of being unclean, by granting him the powerful role of the ship’s captain. As George masterfully sails the ship through the storm, Kesey proves the men’s concealed competence and capability to readjust to

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The novel does provide the reader with a relatively straightforward narrative that is worthwhile due to its entertainment value; however, similar to one who derives moral lessons from Scriptural allegory, the reader who endeavors to uncover sophisticated subtext in Kesey’s novel is similarly rewarded. Take, for instance, Bromden’s obsession with the “Combine.” The surface reader will either take Bromden at his word and accept that in the narrative, there exists a nefarious organization whose goal is to make everyone the same through the means of robotization or determine that Bromden is an untrustworthy narrator and, consequently, give up on a seemingly meaningless novel. The more industrious reader will realize the truth of Bromden’s statement: “[I]t’s the truth even if it didn’t happen,” which is to say that when Bromden speaks of something as unlikely as the Combine, he is speaking metaphorically (8); the Combine, the more astute reader discovers, represents society and how it pressures individuals to conform. Such a realization can only be made once a reader of a work like Kesey’s moves beyond the literal into the

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Another, arguably the most apparent, comparison Kesey implements is McMurphy’s metaphorical Last Supper. When McMurphy and his followers broke into the medicine on the ward, they then “sat around [together] drinking it” in a sort of metaphor to the drinking of wine, representative of Christ’s blood, that occurred during Jesus’ Last Supper with his

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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 transformation to unravel a number of ideas about the importance of freedom and explores how the pressures of society can lead individuals to conform within themselves. The theories Chief believes

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