Kelly Haddix
Eng Comp 2
Jason Elznic
04/25/2012

My essay will show how Marxism is portrayed within the two short stories, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Raisin in the Sun. The purpose of this essay is to explain the Marxism role within these two short stories. I will use an academic approach to accomplish this objective. The role of Marxism is portrayed within these two stories, and I will show how Marxism is portrayed and defined by comparing these two short stories.

The similarities between the two stories are that both Walter and McMurphy are fighting against a society that is bent on repressing them. Walter with the white community, and McMurphy with the hospital staff at the mental institution, namely Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched represents the controlling party in the mental institution where as the white realtor Mr. Lindner represents the controlling party of the white housing community.
According to Dictionary.com the definition of Marxism states that “society is basically the struggle between the social classes.”
Randle McMurphy McMurphy showed signs of Marxism’s conflict theory, focusing on the struggles between the classes (nurses and patients).McMurphy violated the norms of society when he was charged with statutory rape and sanctions were imposed, sending him to prison. McMurphy creates a society amongst the patients at the mental institution, which largely affects the structure of the institution. His relationship with the other patients develops their thoughts. This interferes with the flow of the institution’s rules and regulations, which are the social control norms of the institution. McMurphy brings forth the spirit of freedom into the lives of the other patients.
Chief Bromden Chief Bromden shows an adaptation to strain. He shows retreatism by abandoning goals and withdrawing from society and from life. His behavior affects the other patients because they think he is deaf and mute, because he never speaks or does anything. McMurphy works with Chief and gets him to open up and start talking again. Nurse Ratched does not acknowledge this breakthrough. When the Chief violates the norms of the institution, along with McMurphy, he is subjected to electroshock therapy to control his emotions and behavior. This showing some of the social controls used in the mental institution.
Chief Tee Ah Millatoona Chief Tee Ah Millatoona is Bromden’s father. He married a Caucasian woman and took her last name. The chief’s marriage and submission to a white woman makes an important statement about the oppression of the natural order by modern society. Modern society says that men should be the controllers of the family, not the women. Yet Bromden’s father marries and takes his wife’s last name and Bromden’s mother is the controlling unit in their family.
Nurse Ratched Nurse Ratched takes on the role of a social control agent, but when McMurphy challenges her authority, she becomes upset, causing role conflict between herself and McMurphy. As Nurse Ratched begins losing control over the patients, McMurphy starts gaining control of the ward. Nurse Ratched tries to control the individualism being expressed by the patients. One of the ways she does this is by controlling the discussion group questions. The patients there seem to be prisoners of their own fears. Nurse Ratched relies on these fears to help control the group.
Billy Bibbit
Billy Bibbit has a persistent stutter and appears to be very young. Billy’s social control agent starts out to be his mother. Billy dreads what his dominating mother thinks of him. Billy’s mother also broke off the engagement to Billy’s fiancée because she thought that the girl was beneath him. This returned the social control of Billy back to his mother. When Billy has sex with a stripper, Candy, at the ward; Nurse Ratched confronts Billy about this. Billy speaks without stuttering, which shows confidence on his part. Then Nurse Ratched through the power of suggestion says she would have to tell Billy’s mother about this, which in turn causes Billy to commit suicide from the shame of his mother knowing and turns McMurphy in as the one who set up the meeting of Billy and Candy.
A Raisin in the Sun.
This short story was written by Hansberry who grew up in the 30’s when discrimination was still rampant in this country. Blacks and whites were still segregated. The North had done away with segregation, but there was still segregation economically and financially between the blacks and whites.
A Raisin in the Sun is written with the point of view that discrimination of African Americans is not right or just. The family in this story is portrayed as the “typical” black family during the 50’s. Walter, the typical black man, has a low-level job of being a chauffeur. Walter dreams of being rich and having money when the story starts. He believes that the upper class is better and he wants to get out of where they are. He wants the “American Dream“, which is the same as what the white people want. Walter shows that he has become an independent man when he refuses to be bought out by Mr. Linder. Mr. Lindner is a white realtor and represents the white housing community the Younger family is trying to move into. Walter’s family triumphs over the white community of the neighborhood where they have bought their new house by not giving in and taking the buyout from the “white” community.
Walters’s sister Beneatha starts out in the story by wanting to be financially able to complete her doctoral degree. She would bend to the way of the lower class by taking from her mother the holder of the “check” from her husband’s life insurance policy. There has also been an economical line drawn between Beneatha, George Murchison, George is financially stable, and this leads back to there are very few black people who are financially and economically stable. George is wealthy and pompous as Beneatha describes him. When Beneatha realizes her dependence on the money from her father and Walter’s schemes, she gains a new perspective on her dream to become a doctor, and a new energy to get it in her own way.
In conclusion, both of these stories uphold the idea that the upper class deserves more than the lower white “blue collar” class.

Reference page
Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun.” Black Theater: A Twentieth-Century Collection of the Work of Its Best Playwrights. Ed. Lindsay Patterson. New York: Dodd, 1971. 221-76. Print.
Kesey, Ken. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. New York: Penguin Group, 1976.Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Raisin in the Sun.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
Dictionary.com, Definition of Marxist theory, Web. 2012
DDictionary.com