...communicating with patients in the hospital's psychiatric ward. It was an experience which encouraged Ken Kesey to write his 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” (the book I’m reading right now), which examined the abuses of the system against the individuals and the theory that patients weren’t insane, but...
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...In the novel “One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” what sticks out to me the most is that the narrator is not the protagonist. You would think at first that Chief Bromden the one who is a “Chronic” would have a flawed mental state. However that is not the case because Bromden is adept at describing what he sees. He also sees the true intention of Nurse Ratched and pretends that he is deaf. What is surprising is that McMurphy the new admission is very happy to be in a hospital for the insane. I still don’t know whether it’s all a play to get on the other patient good side or part of his true character. He notices that Chief Bromden is not really deaf and winks to Bromden that he knows. This tells me that McMurphy is someone who is not easily fooled....
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...Character: Chief Bromden (Chief Broom) is the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Attending for over ten years, he is the longest patient to stay the psychiatric hospital in Oregon. Bromden’s hallucinations brought him into the ward, in which he also gets paranoid and bullied. Because of these hallucinations, he must be medicated. In the beginning of the novel, Bromden reveals how the other patients believe he is deaf and cannot speak, however he is not. In the first chapter, Bromden writes, “They don’t bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I’m nearby because they think I’m deaf and dumb. Everybody thinks so. I’m cagey enough to fool them that much” (Kesey 3). Bromden himself does not know if what he is seeing is true or not and lies to his inmates about his disabilities, proving how he is an unreliable narrator....
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...protagonist is usually the main character, the one that tells the story from memory, but in some instances, like in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the main character is simply the narrator. Bromden is sometimes hard to understand,“Chief Bromden narrates, however, in ways that continually confuse the reader until he comes to appreciate how the logic of storytelling characteristic of a native point of view can manipulate different modes of discourse” The real protagonist was Randle McMurphy. Throughout the story, Chief Bromden describes the ward to the reader, but this only classifies him as the narrator. Randle McMurphy, a main character that came to the ward after pleading insanity, teaches the men how to find themselves. He shows them that they aren’t crazy and they could leave the ward when they were all ready, another lesson McMurphy taught the men. Nurse Ratched, an evil women that intimidates and mistreats the men, runs...
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...the ‘60s and ‘70s belonged to Ken Kesey. Being a novelist in this time period, Kesey had close affiliations with the counterculture that dominated the decade. In its own way One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the twentieth-century Romantic manifesto, a ululation for the death of the individual before this rebellion went out of style and individualism along with it. This book verbalized what many where thinking: that the truly crazy in the world were the ones who wanted power while the truly sane were the ones who sought to be individuals and rebelled against authority. Because of this pronounced effect on society the book was a major contributor to the backlash against the entire psychiatric system in the early 1960s. As a result, state institutions began reducing their resident numbers and granting admitted patients more rights within the institutions. In addition to this change in the system, the book also pushed the development of more effective anti-psychotic drugs, thus allowing more patients to be treated within their own homes and live normal lives. Yet for many health professionals the book also had a profound negative effect, consequently changing the overall...
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...Albert Einstein once said, "All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual". One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel written by Ken Kesey is a story told in the perspective of a man named Chief Bromden, who has been in a mental hospital for 10 years, suffering from paranoia and hallucinations. Bromden’s worldview is obscured by his fear, and never has a clear view of the world while under the wing of Nurse Ratched at the hospital. With the arrival of Randle McMurphy, Bromden senses a different attitude about him. Randle McMurphy tells the patients that the Nurse is nothing to fear, protesting against her, and bringing out her inner rage. McMurphy later shows his leadership by taking a group of patients outside, and showing them their masculine...
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...Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, takes place in an Oregon psychiatric institution. On the surface, the major characters in this book all seem like your average mental health patients and that their stories are all open and shut cases about people who are institutionalized because they are simply crazy. However, this is a book that deals with social issues that give a reader the opportunity to understand the complexity of who we are, how different we are from one another, and what influences each one of us. Inside the mental institution, each character could be the same as anyone else outside the walls in which they are confined. These characters represent a microcosm of what exists in everyday life in the outside world. In the “real world” as we know it, there are paranoid people like Chief Bromden; obsessive compulsives like George Sorenson; or someone like Randy McMurphy, who chose the mental institution as the lesser of two evils to pay for a crime he committed. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the most prominent social conflict emerges through the character of Randle McMurphy. McMurphy was the protagonist in this book and he was the one who showed the patients the way to rebuff the system, laugh, and defy authority through humor. The patients began to find strength in his leadership. However, McMurphy came to realize that the very people he was defying were the same people who would determine the timeframe of his release from the hospital. ...
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...Gender Roles in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest The 1950’s was a decade characterized by traditional gender roles of women as homemakers downgraded to the domestic sphere and men as economic providers. With the arrival of the 1960’s, however, stereotypical gender roles were challenged and the American society underwent a variety of social transformations. American writers, such as Ken Kesey, responded to the change through writing. Kesey’s response to the times was his 1962 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which is not only a social commentary about mental illness, but also a response to changing gender roles. By demonizing powerful women and uplifting powerful men, his novel promotes sexism and ultimately holds the misogynistic stance that powerful women must be subjugated. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the female characters can be divided into two extreme categories: "ball-cutters" and whores. The negative portrayal of powerful women can be seen in the problematic relationships that the male patients have with their mothers. Bromden, the half Native-American narrator, has a mother who constantly undermines his father, the chief of the Columbia Gorge tribe and a once-powerful man. Bromden’s mother dominates her husband and her son by acting in non-traditional ways, such as using her maiden name for the family’s last name rather than using her husband’s, which convinces Bromden’s father that he is weak and helpless. Because she herself is white, she is ashamed...
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...The Fog in Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, symbolises PTSD and other trauma that has caused Chief Bromden to be put into the ward. The fog makes it so he can escape from the real world, but it also suffocates him and frightens him. As the fog dissipates, it symbolises how his emotions changed throughout the novel, making him a stronger person both physically and mentally. Throughout the novel Chief Bromden feels as though he is falling into a fog, that he is convinced is being pumped into the ward. Progressively getting lighter and lighter until it does not affect Bromden anymore, Kesey used the idea of the fog to represent the change bromden experiences in the entirety of the novel. With its many symbolic uses during the novel the fog can be seen as many different things both supporting and keeping bromden away from his goals. In the novel, Kesey points to the fact that Chief Bromden was a soldier in World War II, and during his time in battle, they used fog to hide the troops when they were under attack or surveillance by the enemy, this memory is instilled in Chief’s mind, causing him to fall back into the fog whenever he feels frightened or violated. The fog is not truly there, although, he has come to believe...
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...our views on different races change over time. Although I feel that the media makes a more conscious effort to remove degrading racial stereotypes from films, the acknowledgement of the existence of these stereotypes confirms that they are still present. After watching a movie from three different time periods, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Stand and Deliver (1988), and Our Family Wedding (2010), I have found that representation of race in film has largely remained the same, while the acknowledgement of existing stereotypes has become more obvious. The 1960’s-1970’s was a time characterized by Irish Mob Wars (Durney 2000), Hollywood conservative backlash films, and the ongoing misrepresentation of American Indians in film (Larson 2006). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a movie is about a criminal who pretends to be crazy so that he can serve his sentence in the relatively comfortable confines of an insane asylum rather than a prison. We see the results of the historical events represented in characters from this movie such as Randle Patrick McMurphy, Mr. Turkle, the ward’s guards, and Chief Bromden. The Irish have been infamous for their mafia and organized crime, especially in the Cleveland area. Perhaps their most publicly recognized contribution to the media’s fascination with violence is the Mob Wars of the mid-1970’s (Durney 2000). These huge displays of violence prepped the audience of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to easily accept the character of McMurphy...
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...Ken Kesey accurately depicts one of the most unique theories of the subconscious mind in his 1975 novel “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. With the central setting in a psychiatric hospital One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest clearly depicts Sigmund Freud's Theory of the Id, Ego, and Superego. The characters throughout the book depict these separations of the Id, Ego, and Superego and we see how they work together to create a functioning whole much like our own brains do everyday. Randle Patrick McMurphy is depicted as the Id. His sexual remarks, swearing, and gamble is parallel to the Id, which is our human desire. We all are born with impulses whether right or wrong and Randle is a clear example of our need to get what we want at any cost. "You can't run around here—in a towel!" "No?" He looks down at the part of the towel she's eye to eye with, and it's wet and skin tight. "Towels against ward policy too? Well, I guess there's nothin' to do exec—" (Nest, 1975). Randle is impulsive and dangerous and...
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...Part One: Plot/Form/Structure/Rhetorical Mode The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kessey is organized into four parts with a total of twenty-nine chapters in the entire book. While there are four parts, the number of chapters in each part varies. Part one has the most, 15 chapters, while part 3 has the least, 2 chapters. Parts two and four have eight and four chapter, respectively. The story is told in chronological order over the course of what seems to be a few months, but it is impossible to be entirely sure how much time passes in the story. The story is narrated by a patient in the ward, known as Chief Bromden. Though Chief, as he is often called in the story, is six-foot seven-inches, he is described by his fellow ward mates as “scared of his own shadow.” Also, everyone in the ward believes Chief is deaf. In the beginning of part one, the characters are introduced, and the daily routine of the ward is explained. Each day is generally the same, starting with breakfast and showers, followed by chore time, group therapy, and free time. The patients are split into two groups: Acutes, people who are are thought to be curable, and the Chronics, those who are thought of as incurable. The days in the ward are very monotonous, but this all comes to an end when Randle...
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...One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Many classic novels have been adapted into movies. However, to the avid reader, in many cases these movie adaptations often seem to fall short of the novel’s true meaning and depth, causing so many movie-goers to say, “The book is better.” Due to time constraints movies often cannot fit all of the detail that a book contains and can easily fall short of the expectations readers may carry seeing the film version of a favorite novel. In the case of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, some key differences are created by the director, Milos Forman, both in the interest of time and to create a more fast-paced feel for the movie viewer. While several differences exist, the three most significant are in that of the characters, the overall development of the ward in which these men live, and in the point of view created by the novel’s eyes and ears, Chief Bromden. Randle Patrick (R.P.) McMurphy shows up early in the story as a brash, large redheaded man, sporting curls under his cap and broadness in his frame. In the novel he is portrayed as a large, sun-kissed man who has spent his days on the work farm, serving a sentence for crimes committed. However, within the first minute of the movie the viewer is introduced to this same character in the form of Jack Nicholson, who holds almost none of these physical characteristics. There is minimal effect on the viewer however, as Nicholson portrays the role admirably, shining in a...
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...Ms. Latasha Keith HUMN401-1305B-01: Literature and Film Professor Bonnie Ronson January 19, 2014 Unit 2 Individual Project – Canonical Classics of Literature Section 1- Introduction Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is set at an Oregon asylum in the 1950s (NovelGuide.com). The book is a study in the institutional process of the human mind, a critique of Behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles while exploring themes of individuality and rebellion against socially imposed repression (NovelGuide.com; SparkNotes.com; CliffsNotes.com). These themes and ideas were the topic of discussion during the publication of this novel because the world was introduced to communism and totalitarian regimes. The novel was published in 1962 and received with immediate success (SparkNotes.com). Section 2 – Biographical Information La Junta, Colorado is the birthplace of novelist Ken Kesey. He was born in 1935 and grew up on a small farm in Oregon and Colorado with his family. He married his high school sweetheart in 1956 and they had three children together (Lone Star College). He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon where he participated in wrestling and theater in 1957 (Lone Star College; SparkNotes.com). In 1959, Kesey enrolled in a creative writing program at Stanford University, the same year where he began volunteering with the Stanford Psychology Department (CliffsNotes.com; Lone Star College). The Stanford Psychology...
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...In the novel One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, Chief Bromden matures mentally over the course of six months because he does not have the fear of being brave anymore. This element is important in the story because it helps the reader learn the moral that if an individual does not care how society judges them, then they will not be afraid to be who they truly want to. In the movie directed by Milos Forman, Bromden's growth is not developed well because his back story lacks vital details. The negative effect of the director's failure to successfully present this element of...
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