Preview

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

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2176 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Who Is The Protagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Literature and Film
October 14, 2013 One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest

In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, nurse Ratched takes away the patients freedom physically, mentally and emotionally. Nurse Ratched was known as the “big nurse” and was a former Army nurse who wasn’t treated great. It became her life to get revenge because of how she was treated and is referred to as a rat and readers are reminded that the rats in the Middle Ages carried the Black Plague. This description represents her well as she was a demonic and crazy person with all of the patients at the mental institution. Nurse Ratched first takes away the patients freedom when they sign in not knowing they couldn’t leave. After the World Wars, men came back and had a lot of problems with adjusting. They couldn’t adjust with their families emotionally, mentally or physically. So they ended up going and signing their selves into mental institutions. The patients didn’t know that once they signed in that they couldn’t leave. This is where nurse Ratched immediately takes their freedom away. A patient by the name of Chief Bromden is a …show more content…
She controls all of them and if they start going against her there are negative consequences like a lobotomy or electro shocks. McMurphy was the brave one trying to change things but in the end the consequences show that nurse Ratched is in total control. They are not able to sleep without being tied, are not allowed to have a clear state of mind and ultimately not allowed to be cured because they are at the mercy of nurse Ratched. All in all they don’t have freedom and all of these examples clearly state that the mental institution is not a good place and most likely will not be
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest Independence essay
    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest Independence essay

    The Patients in the ward have not known independence since being taken to the ward. They are under the control of the Big Nurse; she is the person that runs the ward with an iron grip. The Patients, sorted into groups of Acutes and Chronics (Chronics are the vegetables that can do little to nothing for themselves while Acutes are still mobile and not completely insane), cannot think for themselves because of the drugs the Nurse has them take putting them in a kind of “fog” as it is described by Chief, a Chronic in the ward that is pretending to be deaf. The Big Nurse keeps the patients under control with her strict schedule they follow and punishes them with guilt.…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Quote Analysis
    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Quote Analysis

    “You’re sentenced in a jail and you got a date ahead of when you know you’re gonna be let loose” ( Kesey, page 190). The lifeguard that is talking to McMurphy say that being in jail is better than being in at the ward because you do not know when you are going to leave. After this McMurphy talks to Harding and says “Yes; chopping away the brain. Frontal-lobe castration. I guess if she can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above”. “ I didn’t think the nurse had the say-so on this kind of thing”. “She does indeed” ( Kesey, pg 191). So, McMurphy understands that nurse Ratched has a say in when he can leave the ward. After learning this he becomes quite and nice towards nurse Ratched. But before leaning that she had say in when he could get out he used to go against her orders and laws. “He drags his armchair out of the corner to in the front of the tv set then switches on the set and sits down” (Kesey, page 143). “I said Mr. Murphy, that you are suppose to be working during these hours” (page 144). In this scene he pulls a chair in front of the television to watch the baseball game eventho nurse Ratched said that…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page

    The One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    Pain. Power. Control. In Ken Kesey’s classic American novel The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest these themes of pain, power, and control, are intertwined and juxtaposed with femininity. Linguistic techniques combined with idiosyncratic use of character development lead the reader to simultaneously see womanhood as inadequate and manipulative. Kesey’s…

    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    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
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Characters In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Characters In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    A static character is defined as a character who does not grow or develop over the course…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    One flew over the cuckoos nest literary analysis speech
    • 1411 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One flew over the cuckoos nest literary analysis speech

    A few symbols in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are: the fog, the control panel, laughter, and religious symbolism.…

    • 1411 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What Is One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Mental
    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages

    What Is One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Mental

    In the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Douglas et al., 1975), we follow the mischievous, yet charming criminal R. P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) into a disturbing (and in many cases, authentic) portrayal of life in a 1970’s mental institution. After once again finding himself standing opposite a judge, and facing potential jail time and labor duties, he pleads insanity in hopes of avoiding prison; however, after being sent to the psychiatric ward for potential “rehabilitation”, McMurphy quickly finds himself trapped in an even more oppressive environment than that which he was trying to elude. In the ward, the daily lives of the patients are very deliberately controlled by the particularly cruel and manipulative Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher),…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Femininity In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Femininity In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    Ken Kesey, via his narrator Chief Bromden, introduces the battle between individuality and conformity as well as the issue of mental illness. What a lot of people overlook is the aspect of exploitation of women in the book. The novel was written in the early 1960s, when the second-wave feminism began, which expanded the focus to a variety of aspects such as family, workplace, and sexuality, and devoted to gain social equality regardless of sex (Rampton). In response, Ken Kesey explores a society that is ruled by women to reflect how males are damaged both physically and mentally under such control. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched’s lack of femininity and the consequences of the matriarchy reflect…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Nurse Ratched
    • 1504 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Nurse Ratched

    A sexless, rigid caricature of a nurse, Nurse Ratched imposes discipline on her ward with all the fervour of an Army Nurse, which she had been. Large, with huge breasts only partially disguised by her ultra-stretched white uniform, she nevertheless has a pretty, delicate face that belies her cruelty.…

    • 1504 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Cuckoo Essay
    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Cuckoo Essay

    Nurse Ratchet, the novel’s antagonist maintains her power on the ward by doing whatever it takes to make sure that they listen to her. She shames new people to keep them submissive, and also manipulates her staff through insinuation, and by carefully stroking their hatred. Chief Bromden comments, “Even the best-behaved Admission is bound to need some work to swing into routine, and, also, you never can tell when just that certain one might come in who's free enough to foul things up right and left, really make a hell of a mess and constitute a threat to the whole smoothness of the outfit” (page 37). He then goes on to explain that, “...the Big Nurse gets real put out if anything keeps her outfit from running smooth.” Nurse Ratchet feels she needs to do some work on the new admissions to keep them from upsetting the current system that she has in place. She manipulates the patients’ desires and fears to keep them submissive towards the system.…

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

    Asylum Reform Research Paper
    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Asylum Reform Research Paper

    This thought of others assuming responsibility for those deemed ‘insane’ continued throughout the nineteenth century as well. However, the more populated and industrialized America became, the more accounts there were of insane people locked up and chained somewhere. Many families would do this in order to ‘protect’ the mentally ill from harming both themselves, and others. Unfortunately, along with this increase, the communities also increased in their general fear toward the ill, meaning that most became unwilling to support them as they had in the small communities of colonial America. Instead, many were sent to jail, where they were kept with both violent and minor criminals, debtors, and murderers (Brinkley). Those who were neither in jail, nor locked away at home, suffered in “hospitals” or institutions where they were most often abused as a form of ‘treatment’(Tomes). Before the reforms spurred by Dorothea Dix in asylum culture, not much headway was made on the subject of mental illness. Fortunately, throughout these reforms in the nineteenth century, the prior social traditions in America toward people with mental illnesses changed, allowing for…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    American Psychiatric Nurse Association (APNA)
    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages

    American Psychiatric Nurse Association (APNA)

    From viewing the American Psychiatric Nurse Association (APNA), this paper presents divergent views on the topics of seclusion and restraints in which I am seeking to prove that ethical principles do not morally uphold psychiatric patient’s rights constitutionally as well as the engagement of unjust practices seen in improving patient outcomes.…

    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Nurse Rached
    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Nurse Rached

    In my opinion Nurse Ratched, your way of treating the patients in the mental disability home is unjustified and cruel. Treating them like their not human beings just because you have total control over them is not right. Just because they have something mentally wrong with them doesn't mean you should take advantage of them or have other people do your dirty work. Some people that you think can be "fixed" are better off being how they were then make them worse like you do. Shock therapy is not the right way to "fix" people it just makes them worse or even forget about everything that happened in their life if taken to that extent In the treatment you use.The other treatment that you use that i think is cruel and unjustified is taking the front part of their brain out. If you do it right it works but it is proven that the patients that you have used this procedures on have became incapable to speak or move.You turned them into "vegetables" and their is no punishment for you, You just manipulate people to the point where they don't have the courage or power to stand up to you and if they do stand against you, You send them to one of your cruel treatments. If people outside the institution knew what you were doing to these people you would be arrested and charged with many crimes. What you do to these people with mental illnesses is inhumane. You should treat your patients like human beings and not lab rats, You have control and find people to help you with your sick treatments that also manipulate the patients. When a patient walks in yoursupposed to make them feel comfortable and not have huge african american human beings that are filled with hate sexually assault them. One day the society are going to find out when the patients have the courage to stand up to you and actually go through with…

    • 335 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The New Asylum
    • 1183 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The New Asylum

    The Frontline episode “The New Asylums”, dove into the crisis mentally ill inmates face in the psychiatric ward in Ohio state prisons. The episode shows us the conditions and every day lives of mentally ill patients in Ohio state prisons, and explains how these inmates got to this point. It appeared that most of these prisoners should have been patients in an institute of some sort, out in society, but unfortunately due to whatever circumstances they ended up in prison. According to the episode, most of the inmates end up in prison due to them not coping with the outside world on their own. Prior to becoming imprisoned, the inmates had difficulties dealing with the outside world. Mainly due to lack of necessary psychiatric treatment, the soon to be inmates would get arrested for things such as violent behavior, robbery, and rape. This behavior would cause them to go to jail, and after repeated offenses they end up falling into prison.…

    • 1183 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cukoos Nest
    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Cukoos Nest

    Miss Ratched is your government with the pathetic laws that nobosy likes or agrees with. Miss Ratched is the head nurse who controls the people in the ward because she has power. She has the power to drug them, cause physical pain, and mental pain by reminding them of their problems. She has the authority to call the shots and control everyone because shes the head nurse. She manages to keep the people of the ward in the palm of her hand because she belittles them and scrapes away their dignity, as if they have any to begin with. Ratched feeds off of weakness and continues to remain with full power by…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More

Related Topics