One Flew Over The Cuckooss Nest Essays - English-language Films

One Flew Over The Cuckoos's Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel, which depicts the lives of the classified, mentally insane in a struggle against the authority of a hospital ward. Over the course of the novel, the hospital ward turns into a place of rebellion while the wise-guy hero, tries to reform the institution while dignifying the people within. The story is told in the first person point of view by Chief Bromden a huge patient who is sharing his mental hospital experience. He is a disturbed man who has fooled all of the other patients and the staff into believing that he is deaf and can't speak. He thinks of the hospital as a place of fear, rather than of a place of healing. This partly has to due with the head of the hospital ward, Nurse Ratched; a woman who believes in order at all times. She is viewed as the hospitals most powerful person, in turn, the least liked by the patients. In order to escape the Nurse, Chief Bromden thinks back to his childhood in an Indian village, but this also evokes the Combine force, which sends his mind into a deep fog. Early on in the story Kesey, introduces the character Randolph McMurphy, a newly admitted patient. He is a boisterous man with much self-confidence and a very friendly personality. He claims that he's only at the hospital to enjoy an easier life compared to the life he was living at a state farm. McMurphy quickly familiarizes himself with the people surrounding him and tells stories to all of the patients. His humorous personality enlightens the patients and the ward in general. However, Nurse Ratched doesn't like this change because she feels McMurphy is a manipulator. Her controlling personality clashes with his easy going personality and as expected she tries to enforce rules, while he is ready to rebel against them. Nurse Ratched has dealt with people similar to McMurphy by punishing them with electro-shock therapy or with lobotomies. Both are to degrade the"offender", the latter of the two makes the patients feel inferior to society on account of their sexuality. McMurphy is greatly disturbed by the Nurse's antics. He is dissatisfied by the way she treats the patients at the daily Group Meetings. She decrees the patients self esteem so greatly that she furthers them all into a state of depression. McMurphy decides that he's going to take a stand and he bets Harding, a patient who is intelligent, but is ashamed of his effeminacy, that he can make the Nurse loose control of the ward without getting in trouble. During his fight against the ward, McMurphy entertains the patients with his skirmishes with the Nurse. They all appear to be on his side, until an issue concerning watching the World Series on the television arises. McMurphy takes a stand, but only one man stands by his side, Cheswick. In order for the patients to watch the baseball game they would vote on it at the next Group Meeting. McMurphy needed one more vote to secure the game, so he turned to Chief Bromden, who was in a deep fog. McMurphy's personality forced the Chief back to reality. However, McMurphy still wasn't allowed to watch the game. Yet, he raised the spirits of the patients and he became somewhat of a hero to them. Soon, McMurphy comes to the realization that the only way he was going to get out of the ward is if Nurse Ratched releases him. Thus, he begins to obey the rules set forth by the Nurse. He also learns that the majority of the patients were sent voluntarily to the ward. This inspires him to destroy the fear that has entrapped the patients. McMurphy begins by planning a fishing trip that was successful and proved to the Nurse that these insane people were really capable of more than she gave them credit for. McMurphy is suspicious of Chief Bromden's deaf and dumb act and finally breaks through to him. The Chief describes to him the Combine, which consists of people like the Nurse, the government, and his mother. Generally anybody that destroyed tradition, nature, and freedom. After this talk that ended the years of silence, McMurphy makes a deal with Chief Bromden. If he grows strong enough to break the Nurse's control panel; McMurphy will let him go on the fishing trip for free. McMurphy at this point has helped nearly all of the patients by bringing them back to a