ipl-logo

Role Of Big Nurse In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

2551 Words11 Pages

What truly deems the mentally insane, insane? Throughout the captivating novel written by Ken Kesey, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, whether or not patients were mentally insane was completely up to Nurse Ratched or “Big Nurse”. The emasculating role Big Nurse and several other female characters played in the novel, shaped the submissive role a majority of the male characters held. Kesey illustrates the human fear of abnormality and sometimes sexuality, through tyrant-like individuals that foster a mental hospital full of docility. Big Nurse, an anal, oppressor of the male species, believed everyone who resides in the mental hospital must comply by her rules. If anyone were to disobey her, she would find a solution to the problem using her authoritarian methods. Big Nurse explained to one of the younger nurses what she thought of McMurphy: “He is what we call a 'manipulator,' Miss Flinn, a man who will use everyone and everything to his own ends (Kesey 27).” Alternatively, Big Nurse herself was manipulative; she strived to turn the ward patients against McMurphy by claiming he never did anything for the patients without receiving something in return. Although her plan was unsuccessful, Big Nurse became obsessed with the idea of prevalence over McMurphy. Thus, urged her to use severe methods to “cure” or mentally alter McMurphy’s …show more content…

The electroshock therapy table is used a punishment to any of the patients who act disorderly. The Acutes such as Taber, Ellis and Ruckly lose their complete sense of sanity through getting sent to the electroshock therapy table. The table is symbolized as a crucifixion; relating back to the times of Jesus Christ anyone who has done wrong will have been crucified. Moreover, Ellis is nailed to the wall in which the hospital served him as an example not to be

Show More
Related

The Tyranny Of Nurse Ratched By Randel Mcmurphy

523 Words | 3 Pages

The concept of justice is dependent on a character’s view point on a situation. Randel McMurphy is the latest addition to the psychiatric ward, and is able to witness the extent in which the patients are being neglected with fresh eyes. In response to the injustices that McMurphy observes, he takes it upon himself to be the one to stand up to the authority of Nurse Ratched, as Kesey writes, ““Just what I said: any of you sharpies here willing to take my five bucks that says that I can get the best of that woman—before the week’s up—without her getting the best of me?”” (Pg. 66). While it is in McMurphy’s nature to gamble, he is also a man of justice.

Read More

Nurse Ratched In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

447 Words | 2 Pages

Nurse Ratched’s desire for control, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, allows her to manipulate the entire hospital ward into believing her work is for the betterment of the patients. Significantly, Nurse Ratched appears doll-like: hair in a tight bun, a neatly pressed uniform, and “too-red” lipstick (48). Traditionally, dolls, like other toys, are made to occupy the unruly minds of young children. By comparing Nurse Ratched to a child’s toy, Kesey implies she is a mere distraction to the patients from their mental impairments.

Read More

Struggles In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

592 Words | 3 Pages

This may have been prevented if McMurphy would have stood up for Cheswick against Nurse Ratched but he didn't. Therefore this shows McMurphy has tremendous power now in the ward and Nurse Ratched knows it. That’s you can say Nurse Ratched fears McMurphy because he's not like the rest of the patients that she can control McMurphy is different. For my third and final example is how McMurphy organizes the Deep Sea Fishing trip and just needs one more man for the trip.

Read More

Gender Roles In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

1470 Words | 6 Pages

“The problem with is that it prescribes how we should be, rather than how recognizing how we are. Now imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer, to be our true individual selves if we didn 't have the weight gender expectations” (Adichie). Some people go away from stereotypical gender roles, many characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s do not follow typical gender roles. In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the narrator, Chief Bromden, tells a story of control over a mental ward where he and Randle McMurphy are patients. McMurphy and the head nurse, Nurse Ratched, are the two characters battling for power in the ward.

Read More

Authority In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

1459 Words | 6 Pages

By weakening McMurphy’s power in the ward, she creates an environment where can continue to thrive in her power through the systems she has set in place. However, Nurse Ratched’s plan does not succeed and McMurphy is allowed to proceed with his fishing trip. He continues to undermine the nurse’s authority to the point where he physically assults her after she blames Billy’s death on him. His actions give Nurse Ratched an opportunity to give him the ultimate punishment, a

Read More

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Insanity Essay

755 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Freedom

1050 Words | 5 Pages

In addition, Ken Kesey uses the electroshock therapy table to serve as an example of the consequences that would occur if an individual were to rebel against the power of Nurse Ratched. It is associated with crucifixions similar to that of Jesus Christ in the Roman time period with “clasps on his wrists, ankles, clamping him into the shadow [and a] crown of silver thorns over the graphite at his temples” (283). Kesey references the crucifixion of Christ to characterize McMurphy as a Christ figure. He is being sacrificed in exchange for the patient’s freedom. In the hospital, Ellis, an acute, is an example of the consequences of not abiding by the hospital’s regulations that serve as a reminder for the rest of the ward members to conform to the rules inflicted by Ratched.

Read More

Theme Of Insanity In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

1033 Words | 5 Pages

In the book “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” Ken Kesey shows that the “insanity” of the patients is really just normal insecurities and their label as insane by society is immoral. This appears in the book concerning Billy Bibbits problem with his mom, Harding's problems with his wife, and that the patients are in the ward

Read More

Group Therapy In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

1476 Words | 6 Pages

Published in 1962, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells the story of Patrick McMurphy, a newly-admitted patient at a psychiatric hospital where individuals with various mental conditions are treated. Run primarily by Nurse Ratched, a demeaning autocrat who exhibits complete control over others, the patients are subjected to various forms of treatments and therapy with the intent of rehabilitation (Kesey 5). Most forms of treatment depicted in Kesey’s novel, such as group therapy, are an accurate representation of what typical psychiatric patients may encounter while under care at a mental facility. Yet others, particularly electroshock therapy and lobotomies, were quite controversial at the time of the novel’s publication. Such treatments were questioned for their effectiveness at improving patients’ condition – and while these procedures were still occasionally performed at the time, they often did not benefit the treated individual.

Read More

Misogyny In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

413 Words | 2 Pages

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

Read More

Medical Treatment In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

1341 Words | 6 Pages

It is obvious that medical treatment can be very helpful for the patient and would provide results. However simple companionship may also help as they could simply talk about their problem. Counselling might actually help more than medical treatment which may have more of a negative effect emotionally on the patient. Medical treatment aims to heal the patients so they can return and function properly in society however this is not the case in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ written by Ken Kasey. In his novel the mental institution serves as a method to keep the patients away from society and doesn’t function to help the men but to keep them passive.

Read More

How Did Schizophrenia Change Over Time

799 Words | 4 Pages

. consent” (Flanigan). Even at this point, when it was widely known that schizophrenia was its own disease, it was being treated in mostly the same way as every other mental illness. One of the primary reasons this did not continue was Ken Kesey’s book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which rose awareness of the horrible conditions these people were living in simply because they were unlucky enough to be afflicted with a mental

Read More

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Analysis Essay

1288 Words | 6 Pages

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.

Read More

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Analysis

1379 Words | 6 Pages

The movie “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” gives an inside look into the life of a patient living in a mental institution; helping to give a new definition of mental illnesses. From a medical standpoint, determinants of mental illness are considered to be internal; physically and in the mind, while they are seen as external; in the environment or the person’s social situation, from a sociological perspective (Stockton, 2014). Additionally, the movie also explores the idea of power relations that exist between an authorized person (Nurse Ratched) and a patient and further looks into the punishment a deviant actor receives (ie. McMurphy contesting Nurse Ratched). One of the sociological themes that I have observed is conformity.

Read More

Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

1468 Words | 6 Pages

Ken Kesey author of the fictional novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest published in 1962 has taken the opportunity to write about the hippy culture and how society shames difference. Readers are taken to a mental institution in Oregon in the 1950’s and experience what it is like for the outcast people. The men in the ward are run by Nurse Ratched and have lost control of themselves. Majority of these men are in the mental hospital because they have checked themselves in, but not McMurphy he is a convict there for psych evaluation. Do to Nurse Ratched the men loses control over themselves and they haven’t realized till McMurphy walked through the door.

Read More

More about Role Of Big Nurse In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Related Topics

Open Document