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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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Quotes: “She’s going to tear the black bastards limb from limb, she’s so furious. She’s swelling up, swells until her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the the three of them five, six times. She looks around with a swivel of her huge head. Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the half-breed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and can’t talk to call for help.

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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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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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Statement of Intent: I inteded this text to be an analysis of Nurse Ratched’s depiction in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. I did this using secondary sources such as Reclaiming Big Nurse: a Feminist Critique of Ken Kesey’s Portrayal of Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Philip Darbyshire and The Roles of Women in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Hana Kašpárková. My intention was to compare Nurse Ratched against her male counterpart, McMurphy, and to highlight the misogyny with which she was depicted.

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1353 Words | 6 Pages

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey expresses the theme of abusive power, false diagnosis of insanity, heroism and rebellion. Even though the reader is opening a world seemingly out of the true beaten path, set in a mental institution, there are irregular degrees of dysfunction and chaos in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Nurse Ratched, the antagonist, is drunk with her power until McMurphy arrives and upsets it. Much of her power lies in her ability to emasculate the male patients and maintain a sexless frontage. When she is revealed as a woman (McMurphy rips her uniform off, exposing her ample bosom), she loses much of her power.

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The world inside and outside of the mental ward faces similar glaring issues about conformity and those not assimilating being forced into doing so. All in all, Kesey suggests that it is within the nature of men to conform to society and

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In the struggle between freedom and power, McMurphy’s sacrifice allows freedom to prevail. His leadership in a rising rebellion parallels many of the countercultures that arose during the 1960s. His rebellion fights against Nurse Ratched in the way that the countercultures fought against the government and society in the past to the present. The men in the asylum are unknowingly unhappy before the arrival of McMurphy. Through his antics, the men are saved from society in the form of Nurse Ratched’s regime.

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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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Because the hospital ward, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, complies with the restrictions of Nurse Ratched, McMurphy is seen as a manipulative instigator. Nevertheless, rebellion, such as McMurphy’s, is required for the powerless to free themselves from damaging constraints. Particularly, as Bromden realizes his increasing mental clarity (e.g. his improved sight), he gazes out the hospital window. Because the glass is covered with a metal mesh, Kesey implies McMurphy’s rebellious nature plants the seed for the patients’ freedom. At the window, Bromden notices, he “still had [his] eyes shut…like [he] was scared to look outside” (141).

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Pursuit of Freedom Freedom is a river that maintains and nourishes the people along its borders to develop individuality and power. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the author describes the sterile environment run by the sadistic Nurse Ratched through the eyes of one of the patient's: Chief Bromden. Under Nurse Ratched’s oppressive power, the patients live with restricted freedom until Randle McMurphy arrives at the ward. The novel suggests, through the use of symbolism and metaphors, that the ward operates similarly to the world in reality, which suppresses people into mindless machines that are detached from society and their own selves.

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The criticism, “Madness and Misogyny in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” written by Daniel J. Vitkus, explains the cultural criticism experienced in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. During the publication of Kesey’s novel, the world was experiencing a rapid social evolution where women were starting to strip away their feminist qualities in order to gain power and authority while society was re-defining “reason against unreason”, and intermingling the opposite meanings of criminal and psychopath (Vitkus, 64).   In the sixties, society had a limited and/or vague understanding about individuality and/or being different; therefore, some were “defined as crazy because they are different” (Vitkus, 69) and as a result, were locked away in a mental institution because that

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141 Words | 1 Pages

In conclusion, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is “a powerful critique of American society and of the function of madness in that society” and it accurately portrays the Civil Rights Movement and the movement towards deinstitutionalization experienced during the publication of Ken Kesey’s novel and by Ken Kesey himself (Vitkus, 65). The recurring theme of repressive vs rebellious wills illustrate the need to resist oppressive institutions of society so that humanity will not fall as victims to society 's ever changing economy.   This novel focuses on the concept of American Capitalism and how defining a person as crazy because they are different or refuse to conform to society 's obligations is deemed immoral; therefore, through the novel,

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603 Words | 3 Pages

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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993 Words | 4 Pages

The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey, presents the ideas about venerability and strength by using his characters and the way they interact with each other to establish whether they are a submissive or a dominant, tamed or leading, venerable or strong. Kesey uses strong personalities to show the drastic difference between someone who is vulnerable and someone who is strong. Nurse Ratchet is a perfect example of how Kasey presents the idea of strength over the venerability of others (the patients). Keys also exhibited vulnerability throughout characters such as Chief Bromden and his extensive habit of hiding himself in all means possible from Nurse Ratchet. Another idea presented by Kesey is a character’s false thought on what

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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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