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What Are The Similarities Between One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest And Girl Interrupted

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Dawes Leksi Ms. Lawrenson ENG4U 31 May 2018 Rebellion for Better or for Worse It is amazing how humans can subconsciously make connections between things all around them that allow them to have a better understanding of the life that they live in. Well known novels entitled: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey and Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, help the readers understand when both authors portray their similar views on how the system surrounding those suffering with mental illnesses works, in past and recent societies. Within these fictional novels are the ideas of how patients suffering with mental illnesses are mistreated. Susanna presents this from the point of view of a female— who happens to have the same name— …show more content…

Susanna depicts these example more in the outside world, meaning outside of the institute while Ken shows how the life is inside for majority of the time. In addition to this, Ken shows how often times people feel rebellion is the only way out of disrespect, whereas Susanna expresses that it is occasionally the smartest and most powerful …show more content…

Ken Kesey does this in a way that is told from a males point of view and limits his examples to the setting of the mental institute. He shows that men are strategic when they are making a comeback from negativity. Susanna Kaysen expands the setting between the facility and the outside in the point of view of a mentally unstable female. She also shows the powerfulness of a group of girls who stick together when rebelling for what they believe in. Rebelling is an action that one performs everyday; whether it be positive or negative is up to that person to

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Kesey’s novel can help influence future seniors to understand how there are even faults in mental hospitals as well as learn more about the patients. One of the main reasons this book should not be banned is that it can help seniors transition from medium level reading to a more adult and higher level reading. Some people argue that Kesey’s book has some harsh adult content that

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No matter where one is the world their always exists two important elements. The element of chaos, and the element of control. Both of these elements find themselves rather clearly defined and on display in Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest”. The representative of chaos: Randell McMurphy, and of control: Nurse Ratched.. Throughout the novel the two spar over their conflicting ideologies on how life should be in the ward, and how the men there should act.

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From memoirs on mental illness such as Susanna Kaysen 's Girl, Interrupted to Daphne 's Scholinksi 's The Last Time I

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest What would one expect if one's idea of society and normality was manipulated and engineered by someone else? This is the case in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The novel is articulated by Chief Bromden, a schizophrenic patient, and is set in an insane asylum with a strict tyrannical administrator, Nurse Ratched. The significance of “Big Nurse Ratched” is how she is considered to be the representative of society as she tries to mold everyone directly into her picture- perfect vision.

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In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the main character, Randle McMurphy, has a great impact in changing the attitudes and perspectives of the patients after he arrives at the hospital ward. McMurphy soon realizes that Nurse Ratched’s actions does more to ensure her superiority over the patients than to help them improve. When the other patients see that McMurphy’s accusations are true, they begin to follow his lead of rebellion. The transformative fishing trip that McMurphy organizes for the patients represents a resurgence of the patients’ virility. Although there are some differences between the novel and the film, McMurphy’s motive for the fishing trip remains the same: he wants the patients to realize that they actually have the strength to make decisions for themselves and to achieve their sense of self-worth.

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One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey reveals the insensitive treatment and dehumanization of the mentally ill. The origin of the book is a story of an individual in a mental hospital. Ken Kesey’s character observes the daily life in a psych ward and reveals

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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.

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Power Through Sexuality As the first woman prime minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “In politics, If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman” (Goodreads). Women have traditionally been relegated to household roles while men have held positions of power. In Ken Kesey’s

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In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Susanna is told that she is mentally ill. They treat her for borderline personality disorder when she does not feel that she has any mental illness at all. When she arrives at the institution she feels as though she does not fit in as she does not see herself as crazy. In Kaysen’s memoir, she is being hyper-treated by the doctors and nurses

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When stepping inside a hospital to receive help, one should expect care, treatment, and respect. However, shown in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and “Howl,” American society equates mental illness with inhumanity. In both texts, the characters are forced to live without basic human freedoms and a voice to change it. Society pressures the mentally ill into becoming submissive counterparts of the community by stripping away their physical freedoms, forcing inhumane treatment, and depriving them the freedom of expression. By pressuring confinement and treating the patients inhumanely, society strips away their freedom to express 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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Mental Illness affects an immense amount of individuals no matter their race, culture or age. It is everywhere we go, yet still an issue some choose to ignore; whether it is the person facing the illness or those around them. People handle their sickness in a variety of ways. Some by using violence as their only answer, others run away from their issue and majority choose to accept and make the best of it. After reading the novel The Secret Life of Bees, it would be easy to think that the main theme is discrimination or family, but in reality it is actually focused on the toll that mental illness takes on a family.

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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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“It won’t happen to you, honey. Some people go crazy and some never do. You never will,”(1). “Silver Water” is a short story about a girl with a mental illness that was written by Amy Bloom. The story is told from Violet’s, Rose’s sister, point of view about Rose and what she goes through.

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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.

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