Preview

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
119 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest perfectly captured the radical anti-establishment mood of 1960s America. It was published in 1962 and later adapted into a film in 1975, which won 5 academy awards.

The story is set in a mental hospital in 1960s America. The ward can be best described as an oppressive dictatorship under the rule of the cruel and manipulative Nurse Ratched, but when the boisterous and charismatic Randle Patrick McMurphy is admitted to the hospital, he rallies the other patients by challenging the establishment of the ward. Although McMurphy's defiance starts out as a simple bet, it quickly evolves into an all-out war between Authority and Anarchy, lead by Nurse Ratched and McMurphy respectively.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey
    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages

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

    When a student is told to find a university level novel to read, what are they to do but scour the Internet for “short, easy, university level novels”? After extensive research, my group chose the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. This book elicited great response from my group members and me, for its interesting plot and subject. After reading the first part, a common theme I noticed throughout the book is oppression, more specifically, political and industrial oppression.…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

    On this day, Chief is spared electroshock therapy in the Shock Shop. Instead, Big Nurse puts him in Seclusion where he suffers at the hands of the African-American orderlies. When he comes out, he sits in the day room and witnesses the admission of a new patient.…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest
    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages

    One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest

    Cited: Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Text and Criticism. Ed. John Clark Pratt. New York: Penguin Group, 1996.…

    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Literary Analysis
    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Literary Analysis

    These antagonists are the authority figures so they control the environment around them. Neil’s father wants him to be like the other boys and grow up to be a successful doctor. He sees acting as not a quality and stable job. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched removes the person who is not conforming and sends them to the electroshock room or to get a lobotomy. She controls the environment and manipulates it how she chooses to. “She’s lost a little battle here today, but it’s a minor battle in a big war that she’s been winning and that she’ll go on winning.” This quote shows how she in a direct fight with the patient in a war that has no…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest banned book research paper precis
    • 1538 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest banned book research paper precis

    Ken Kesey, born Kenneth Elton Kesey was an American author and countercultural figure, born September 17, 1935, La Junta, CO and died November 10, 2001, Eugene, OR. He was married to Norma Faye Haxbey, and they had four children: Zane, Jed, Shannon, and Sunshine Kesey. Kesey considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s in that he, and I quote, "was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a hippie," (Ken Kesey, 1999). Apparently, the inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest came while he working on the night shift at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hospital. There, he often spent time talking to the patients. He did not believe that these patients were insane, but rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave. Because of this, the novel takes place in America in a time of individuality and rebellion, which are also two major themes which appear in the novel. Everything takes place in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, around the 50’s and 60’s.…

    • 1538 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a fictional novel that undergoes a series of events that goes on in a mental ward between nurse Ratched and the patient's. This novel in particular is unique because it allows the readers imagination to take part in one's interpretation of the story. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is intriguing because of its ability to capture the reader’s attention with its constant plot thicking. The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is Ken Kesey which was published in 1962. Kesey novel was appealing because of its idea of having rights as an individual versus social conformity.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: An Analysis
    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: An Analysis

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mcmurphy, Rebel with a Cause
    • 2241 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Mcmurphy, Rebel with a Cause

    The men on the ward are resigned to their regime dictated by this tyrant who is referred to as 'the Big Nurse', until McMurphy arrives to corrupt it. McMurphy makes the men realize that it is possible to think for themselves, which results in a complete abolishment of the combine as it was. Randle P. McMurphy, a wrongly committed mental patient with a taste for life. The qualities that garner McMurphy respect and admiration from his fellow patients are also responsible for his tragic downfall. These qualities include his temper, which leads to his being deemed "disturbed," his stubbornness, which results in his receiving numerous painful disciplinary treatments, and finally his free spirit, which leads to his death. Despite McMurphy being a loyal man, in the end, these characteristics weaken him more than they help him. He forms the basis to my theory of rebellion.…

    • 2241 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Individuality In Ken Kessey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo
    • 1590 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Individuality In Ken Kessey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

    When a person is born, they are taught to be themselves and that they are free. However, as time goes on, society deems what “themselves” should be. In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey, a story is told about a new patient, McMurohy, who arrives into an asylum ward and causes trouble. Much like the world today, there is a force of individuality and a force of conformity. In the book, the main character, Chief Bromden, must decide on whether he wants to become a minion to society or have his own free will. When society forces social norms and demands obedience, there is an opposing force of individuality that rebels back within them. In this community, a person has to decide whether they are going to conform to what they are told…

    • 1590 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest. Dir. Milos Forman. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher. Warner Bros. 1975. Film…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay
    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey in 1962, is a book about a lively con man that turns a mental institution upside down with his rambunctious antics and sporadic bouts with the head nurse. Throughout the book, this man shows the others in the institution how to stand up for themselves, to challenge conformity to society and to be who they want to be. It is basically a book of good versus evil, the good being the con man R.P. McMurphy, and the bad being the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy revitalizes the hope of the patients, fights Nurse Ratched's stranglehold on the ward, and, in a way, represents the feelings of the author on society at the time.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    In 1975 a director by the name of Milos Forman released his film called “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, which in my opinion was an interesting and great film. While conducting some research to see what was going on during the release of this film I discovered that prior to the film we have not too long ago finish fighting in the Vietnam War. After viewing the film multiple times, I started to pick up on the fact that it was more gear toward being in control verses actual mental illness of the patience. There were even times were one could see how it only took one person to exert power that went against the strict rules that were implemented in the mental hospital. In this paper I will be analyzing the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Theme Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    The actions of McMurphy and Nurse Ratched’s standoff regarding Part One Chapter Fifteen emphasize a key theme of the novel: the significance of rational choice. The ability to choose reflects one's status as a rational, functioning human being. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest centers around the struggle between this capability for choice and Nurse Ratched’s refusal to allow the patients to make decisions for themselves. Within this detailing of structure arises Kesey’s manipulation of diction and literary ascension toward the overall goal of depicting rational choice and Nurse Ratched’s perpetual ranting. This gives it a spontaneous and reactive marathon until the end of the chapter when Nurse Ratched loses total authority and, as Bromden notes, “looks as crazy as we are” (145). This spontaneity and reactive nature from Ratched’s rampant ranting can be credited to the onomatopoeia that steer the pages, “I think how her…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest
    • 547 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest

    The mental hospital in Cuckoo’s Nest is home to only a few “lunatics” the rest simply have problems adapting and functioning with society. The main character is R.P McMurphy who is transferred from the Pendleton Work Farm to the mental hospital. The head nurse Ms.Ratched is a character who represents authority. The arrival of McMurphy with his personality and rebellious ways interrupt the hospitals stability, by questioning authority. Creating rivalry between the two and unfolding the traumatic story.…

    • 547 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest
    • 1295 Words
    • 6 Pages

    One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

    1. McMurphy is the biggest manipulator in the novel. HE manipulates other characters by tricking them into gambling. McMurphy bets he could get someone strong enough to lift the control panel when he already knows Chief can lift it.…

    • 1295 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More