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Mcmurphy, Rebel with a Cause

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Mcmurphy, Rebel with a Cause
McMurphy, Rebel with a Cause

Ken Kesey's experiences in a mental institution urged him to tell the story of such a ward. We are told this story through the eyes of a abnormally large Indian who everyone believes to be deaf and dumb named Chief in his novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". Chief Bromden also referred to as "Chief Buh-room" is a patient in an Oregon psychiatric hospital on the ward of Mrs. Ratched, she is the symbol of authority and female domination throughout the novel. This ward forms the backdrop for the rest of the story. 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. The Narrator, Chief Bromden explains that it was not he who originally decided to adopt the act of being deaf and dumb but others who treated him as if he were deaf and dumb, which shows that the way a person is depends upon the society or "combine" around him. Chief Bromden's father told him, "If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite just out of spite." This is very much emphasized in the book, Kesey strongly suggests that the

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