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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Quote Analysis

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‘Challenging the status quo is not always a good idea.’ Discuss with reference to Ken Kesey’s ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’. Breaking conformity and the strict rules of an oppressive power does not always lead to freedom and liberation often ending instead in further suppression as displayed through Ken Kesey’s novel ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’. Kesey uses an extensive range of literary techniques to display the negative and harmful consequences of defiance against the conventions of a dominant society. Nurse Ratched has created her idea of a functional society and punishes patients when they do not fit this mold, stripping them of their individuality. Ultimately Billy Bibbit’s hope and courage are destroyed after he commits a sinful …show more content…

Each man in the hospital is different in some way with imperfections that disrupt the Big Nurse’s picture of a functional society. The patients don’t conform to Nurse Ratched’s idea of normal and as a result she punishes them, using manipulation to convince them that they are unable to function correctly outside the controlling walls of the ward. McMurphy notices this and after finding out that most patients aren’t committed states “Jesus, I mean you guys do nothing but complain about how you can’t stand it in this place here and then you haven’t got the guts just to walk out? What do you think you are for Christ sake, crazy or something? Well, you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walking around on the streets.” The men in the mental hospital may be different but, as McMurphy explains, they are not crazy. Nurse Ratched however convinces the men that they are insane and punishes them for their flaws by stripping them of their freedom, manipulating them to remain in her hospital with her strict rules. In this way Kesey uses the hospital as a microcosm where there are sever punishments for not conforming to the ideal mold for a person, shaped by societal

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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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By the end, he had given the other characters more therapy than the trained nurses, he allowed them to be free, and have some responsibility. In one scene Randle sneaks the patients out to go fishing, and ended up giving them a therapeutic lesson by teaching them to fish, and especially teaching Cheswick to drive the boat. McMurphy presented the idea that everyone is a little crazy and it is okay to be, they are no crazier than the next man. Randle also helps with therapy by showing the guys have desires is normal, desires which are otherwise discouraged in their ward. Randle P. McMurphy allowed the other characters to express themselves in ways that were

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His rebellious and free mind makes the patients open their eyes and see how the have been suppressed. His appearance is a breath of fresh air and a look into the outside world for the patients. This clearly weakens Nurse Ratched’s powers, and she sees him as a large threat. One way or another, McMurphy tends to instigate changes of scenery. He manages to move everyone away from her music and watchful eye into the old tube room.

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