One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Character Analysis

Dictatorship and cruelty combined to equal terrible living conditions, until one day a man comes to change everything. One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a classic novel written by Ken Kesey. It started out with a man named Bromden who pretended to be deaf and acted dumb just so he could lay low and go unnoticed. He has been a patient for the last ten years while suffering from hallucinations and delusions. The hospital is extremely strict and ruled by the feared Nurse Ratched. The patients have submitted to Nurse Ratched until one day when a new patient named Randle McMurphy arrived. There is something different about him, mainly that he is not all the way insane. He played a major role in helping the patients see who they really are while trying to overthrow Nurse Ratched. In the end McMurphey payed the ultimate price after trying to strangle Nurse Ratched. He is then suffocated by Bromden so that he can die with dignity after being lobotomized by the ward. Randle McMurphy proved to be the protagonist of the story and displayed the qualities of being rebellious, courageous, and very smart in the efforts of trying to make a change in the hospital.

McMurphy’s rebellion was a serious curveball to the Big Nurse, because she has always been used to being in control and playing mind-games with the patients. His rebellion ends up being a good thing because it allows the patients to open their eyes and realize how they have been living dead all of these years. “You’re committed, you realize. You are… under the jurisdiction of me… the staff” (Kesey, 127). This shows how Big Nurse has trouble keeping McMurphy in check and he often tries to prove to the patients that they are actually not that crazy. Randle’s rebellion ends up hurting him in the end when he attacks Nurse Ratched, but in the big scheme of things sacrificed so much for the patients by being