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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Mental Illness Essay

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“One in 5 adults experiences a mental health condition every year. One in 17 lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. A mental illness is a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling, and mood” (NAMI). Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder that affects how a person acts, feels, and thinks. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey writes about patients with mental illnesses. One of the characters, Chief, would be identified as a schizophrenic based on his actions and behaviors. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the author examines the causes of schizophrenia and the treatments for the mentally ill.
In the first article “Schizophrenia 2017” in the encyclopedia Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia it explains that schizophrenia is a long, complex mental illness. This illness is a serious mental disorder with numerous types of symptoms. Schizophrenia does not signify a split personality, the illness means “split mind.” A schizophrenic is unable to control his or her own mind. With some …show more content…

Eugen Bleuler was a swiss psychiatrist who named the disease. He wrote a paper in 1908, later on in 1911, he published a book portraying the disease in more detail. With him being head of a mental hospital containing about eight hundred patients he treated the worst and most chronic cases. He was very dedicated into a work therapy program he developed, he would visit and talk to the patients almost every day. “Bleuler’s discoveries challenged the traditional view of the causes and treatment of the disease. The traditional view, based on the work of the great German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), held that dementia, as it was called, always got worse and that the patient’s mind continued to degenerate until death” (Piotrowski and Tischauser). Bleuler’s aspect gave patients assurance for more

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The Book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is written in first person narrated by Chief, which is one of the most important aspects of the whole book as it lets the reader notice and realize things that he or she wouldn’t otherwise. People usually don’t think much of “crazy” people in insane asylums aside from being depressed and dangerous. Having the story be narrated from Chief’s point of view, the reader sees how this is not the case, and that these people can be happy and gentle just like anyone else. On page 212, Chief narrates, “It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger. I watched them, part of them, laughing with them…”

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a book that explains the direct thoughts and relations between the mentally ill patients. It describes their mental illnesses, and for this being such a hot topic, many songs correlate to the Book. Although "Mansion" by NF and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are different in their medium, they share similarities in themes of mental illness, societal pressures, and individuality. Mental illness is a very complex and often misunderstood topic that has been explored in various forms of art, including music and literature. An example of a song that demonstrates such a thing is the song "Mansion".

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As they are all banning together to get the government to make a gun law to stop anymore tragites from happening like what happened to their school. They have shared their story with the world, and are gaining more support everyday. They are showing the of the world that it is okay to stand up for something they believe in, even if its standing up to someone who seems more powerful. This is presented in Ken Kesey 's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As he shows how when people are oppressed, outed, and overlooked they lose respect for themselves.

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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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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

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the book Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, reports that “[o]f children ages 9 to 17, 21 percent have a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder that causes at least minimal impairment” (http://www2.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=federal_and_state_policy_legislation&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=43804). With numbers as high as twenty-one percent, this is an issue that is probably more widespread than we realize it is. Statistics like these raise many questions as to just how many characters are afflicted with mental illnesses. One such case is Holden from the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, who may have any of a number of mental illnesses

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“One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest” is a film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey. The Film was released in 1975. It is the story of a convicted man, trying to outsmart the American legal system by playing mentally ill. The film starts at the beginning when the main character, Randle McMurphy, enters the mental institution. It won 6 Golden Globes as well as 5 Oscars and many other nominations.

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest The film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, prompts very important aspect of the human condition. In the movie, the protagonist, Mac McMurphy, is deemed dangerous, so the mental institute tries to suppress him (Kesey). The film highlights various aspects of human conditions like psychology, sociology and philosophy. The mental institute tries to suppress the mentally challenged people rather than to try to communicate with them.

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Schizophrenia is defined as a serious mental illness characterized by incoherent or illogical thoughts, bizarre behavior, speech, and delusions or hallucinations, such as hearing voices. (Kazdin, 2000) The narrator, who is the lead character in the movie, experiences schizophrenia which ultimately causes him to start a recreational fight club which is then inhabited by a massive following that intend on blowing up the metropolis in order to save it. Various psychosocial influences contributed to the narrator’s schizophrenia development. The main reason was due to his trouble sleeping which was evident when he goes to see a doctor and begs him for some medication that would allow him to get some sleep.

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Ken Kesey uses his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to describe the lives of patients in a mental institution, and their struggle to overcome the oppressive authority under which they are living. Told from the point of view of a supposedly mute schizophrenic, the novel also shines a light on the many disorders present in the patients, as well as how their illnesses affect their lives during a time when little known about these disorders, and when patients living with these illnesses were seen as an extreme threat. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel, has many mental illnesses, but he learns to accept himself and embrace his differences. Through the heroism introduced through Randle McMurphy, Chief becomes confident in himself, and is ultimately able to escape from the toxic environment Nurse Ratched has created on the ward. Chief has many disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and, in addition to these illnesses, he pretends to be deaf and dumb.

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