Preview

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Theme Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
830 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Theme Essay
Theme
-I feel like a theme could be like the desire for control.
When McMurphy comes into the ward the first thing he does in belittle people in his own sense of the way by playing on their emotions. He makes people feel uncomfortable and then wants to know who the “bull goose loony” is , as in who the craziest person there is, because he wants to overshadow that person.

* Another is how institution run the risk of being oppressive and corrupt.

Randall Patrick McMurphy
McMurphy is charismatic, sexual, and boisterous to the extreme--a "gambling fool" who looks out primarily for his own self-interest and matches wits with Nurse Ratched in the book's primary conflict. He also seems to care deeply about his fellow inmates, often
…show more content…
As the head nurse and as a woman with many connections both inside and outside of the hospital, she is able to maneuver things so that most situations fit her expectations. If she needs to, she uses the force of her hatred to get things done. Though she smiles a lot and talks sweetly, she’s definitely not a kind or charming woman. She is, however, a woman with strong will and a fanaticism for control. She pursues power with intensity and is very successful at getting people to do what she wants.

Although Nurse Ratched is an antagonist of the worst kind in this book, even Chief knows that she’s simply the human face of the Combine – machine that Chief imagines is society. In other words, according to Chief, the system is larger than Nurse Ratched; she is only part of the system. She happens to be the patients’ direct link to the mechanical system, but she is not the system itself. This puts Nurse Ratched and her power into perspective. However, even with her little amount of power, she is destructive. In the short timeframe of the book, she destroys three men – two commit suicide and one is lobotomized. She gets what she wants and feels no guilt about how it’s

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the story One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the protagonist Randall Patrick McMurphy faked his insanity so he could go to a mental hospital instead of facing the crimes he committed. He goes in with his mind set on his goal without a care for anyone else, at least, that’s how it was in the beginning.…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After reading the first two chapters my impression of John MacPherson is he was the type of teacher that really wanted to do good, provide and invoke a good impression, he never strapped because he thought that type of punishment wouldn’t help him teach or keep his students in line. He eventually got tired of teaching and it seemed he gave it up, waiting and counting down the years till he can retire. He cares for his wife who is obviously sick and that seems to stress him out. I think Macpherson is a good person who has been twisted over time making him tired, and that causes him to say things like he did about Duddy’s dad.…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    McMurphy is unaccustomed to not being the person in charge and he attacks Nurse Ratched with sexual comments and exposes her womanly breasts to show her femininity, in order to steal her power. During one of the group sessions, Nurse Ratched asks the patients if they would like to contribute any ideas to help with Harding’s problem and McMurphy chooses to enter the discussion: “‘You ask, I belive, ‘Does anyone care to touch upon-’ ‘Touch upon the-subject, Mr. McMurry, the subject of Mr. Harding’s problem with his wife’ ‘Oh. I thought you meant touch upon her something else.’ ‘Now what could you-’” (44-45). McMurphy begins this attack on Nurse Ratched composure very slowly and innocently, he start with, “You ask, I believe,” which is purposefully very polite.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This shows how the Irish really feel about themselves and others. It also shows how they defend themselves against the oppressing Americans of other, more affluent descendents. With this Mackey also says about the families who talked about his behind his back that if he was old enough to understand he would’ve “given it right back.”…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Show how a pairing of two texts this year gave you an understanding of how authors can present similar ideas in different ways.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the beginning of the book, McMurphy toys with Nurse Ratched and the other staff at the hospital. He figures he might as well have some fun with them since he is under the mistaken impression that he has only a certain number of days until he is released. Soon, however, he comes to realize that he is at Big Nurse's mercy if he ever wants to be free again. Prior to this realization, he was an inspiration, someone that others were in awe of and attempted to emulate. When McMurphy realizes that he is destroying his own chance to be free and continues down this path anyway, he effectively becomes the savior of the…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Points of view have a great impact throughout stories sequences. The points of views provide details and evoke emotions that implies readers anxiety as well as depicts images in the reader’s mind. Moreover, a good observer is a good story teller. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel written in 1962, by Ken Kesey, illustrates the use and misuse of authority from hospitals and their administrators, passive racism faced because of origin, and the desire of changes to be made. Throughout Chief Bromden’s point of view along the novel, readers depict ideas of patients live’s within the ward under the administrator’s harsh regimen and consequences in the result of the patients’ rebellion against authority.…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fintan Slattery is a kind religious boy who generously gives away food to Paddy and Frank. “I feel ashamed because they’ll say I curl my hair and I’ll be tormented in the schoolyard and why does he think I’m his friend?” (157). Frank thinks this, but he continues to talk and play with Fintan until Fintan no longer offers food to Frank and Paddy. Frank and Paddy built this friendship with Fintan only to satisfy their hunger. In the memoir when Frank has typhoid fever he spends much time at the hospital with the clean sheets and chocolate. “I lie in bed and think of the hospital where the white sheets were changed every day and there wasn’t a sign of a flea” (203). In most cases hospitals are thought as places of sickness and death. He looked at the hospital as somewhere he wanted to be because his home living conditions were unsatisfactory. Later on in the book, Angela McCourt cannot pay the rent of the apartment, so the family moves in with her cousin, Laman. Laman has been sleeping with Frank’s mother, and beating Frank. Laman calls Angela “A great lump living free under his roof with her pack of brats” (293). The treatment from Laman is wrong, and Angela knows what she is doing is morally wrong, but she continues to in order to keep her family sheltered and healthy. In these situations during Frank McCourt’s life he chooses food and comfort over what was morally…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the narrator, Bromden, is seen as a weak character who is submissive to the authority in the mental facility. Nurse Ratched or Big Nurse runs the mental facility with fear and is only challenged when Randle McMurphy becomes a patient who rebels against her system. The section in the story where McMurphy and Bromden are about to receive punishment after rebelling relates to the overall story as the readers can see how Bromden is changing to become a stronger person with McMurphy’s influence. He starts off as a powerless and scared patient and ends up growing as a person by seeing that he has the power to control his life and make decisions on his own. Throughout the book, the theme that with someone to lead or set an example, others can stand up for themselves after being oppressed is seen.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest directed by Milos Forman exemplifies several social psychological theories and influencing behaviours. This film focuses on Mc Murphy's problems about obedience and conforming, nurse Ratched's problems with disobedient and nonconformist people and also the situational forces that are affecting the person's behaviours. The film highlights elements which contribute to all three types of social influence: conformity, compliance and obedience…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, there is a strong central focus of the challenges faced by having an alternative outlook on society by which is normally perceived by the majority of people. Both novels share a character that is an outcast in society due to several factors such as insanity, ignorance, and negligence. These two characters speak in first person narrative telling the reader about their life in the past years. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, this character is Chief Bromden, a psychiatric patient in a hospital telling the story of a man named McMurphy, who enters the ward and…

    • 867 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ken Kesey wrote the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, about a new inmate at a mental institution through the point of view of one of the inmates. J.D. Salinger wrote the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, as narrated by a teenage dropout. Neither of the novels have the same setting nor the same type of characters. However, both novels contain a theme of coming of age for the characters as expressed through situational irony, sexual themes, and the motif of laughter.…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy first confronts his call to…

    • 2279 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Malachy McCourt is not the most pleasant character in the novel, also not the best father because he is selfish. Throughout most of the novel the reader sees the real side of him and lets everybody know that he is not a good father, throughout the novel he is drinking or drunk. Throughout the entire novel Malachy shows love to his family a few times. Sometimes the kids love when their father is drunk because that is one of the few times he shows his love. Malachy is very selfish because he makes his family do everything; he also disrespects his family, and drinks all the money they get as a family.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    McKinnon knew his mate, the man he loved could one day mate someone else. However, he never thought it could happen, and then it did. Ellis’s other mate walked into their lives one evening and brought a whirlwind of trouble with him.…

    • 285 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics