One Flew over the Cucoos Nest

1. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was a story about one man’s journey to sanity and the antagonists and protagonists that helped or hindered him along the way. Chief’s character struggled with his own sense of identity & his abilities, possibly from past failures. Everyone treated Chief as a “dumb mute” but Randall somehow knew that he was capable of much more. By believing in him and using the technique of modeling, Randall was able to teach him to play basketball and eventually able to communicate with him. Randall celebrated Chief’s strength and size which let Chief to feel,”as strong as a mountain” and gave him the ability to escape. Randall sacrificed his own freedom and eventually his sanity and life for the patients in the institution. He saw the injustice that Nurse Ratchett was inflicting upon the patients and set out to do what in a strange way is what a therapeutic nurse should have done. He (in his own way) communicated to Billy that there was no shame in him feeling sexual attraction toward a female. When Billy began to think rationally and not from a place of shame, his stutter disappeared. Nurse Ratchett hated the usurping of her authority that Randall created and purposely mentally tortured Billy by bringing up his mother and threatening to tell her he had had sex with the woman Randall snuck in. Billy had obviously had his development compromised in what Freud would call the “Latency Stage”. He felt the need to hide his sexuality and was unable to cope when Nurse Ratchett said she was going to tell his mother and consequently committed suicide. Randall was not mentally ill in my opinion, but had Antisocial personality tendencies with a disregard for others rights (he raped a 15yr old and justified it by saying she looked 30)and aggressive behavior (he was in 5 fights and justified it by saying Rocky was in 40 and was a millionaire). He also had Borderline personality tendencies in that he had unstable moods, difficulty regulating his