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One Flew Over The Cuckoo? s Nest In our study of this novel of rebellion, and protest. The ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoo? s Nest is microcosm of a much larger world, where power is too often misused and individuality is stifled for the sake of conformity. By using Chief Broken as the Narrator Kesey pulls the reader right in to the middle of this by taking the only character that can shed light on all of the dominant themes present in the novel. Which are Kesey?
s views on the feminist movement, civil rights, and the underlying idea of conformity. All of these issues are exposed in the? pool scene? in which the author, and director are constrained to different parameters, and must use different devices to convey the same message.
The dominant theme in this novel is that of conformity. In the novel conformity is represented as a machine, or in Chief Bromdens mind a combine. To the Chief, the combine depicts the conformist society of America The Chief views the mental hospital as a big machine, which is run by? The Big Nurse? who controls everyone except Mc Murphy with? wires? , and a?
control panel? (which the Chief see quite clearly in his psychosis). In the Chief? s eyes Mc Murphy was missed by the? combine? , and the Chief and the acutes were lured into it. Therefore Mc Murphy is an nonconformist and is free from the? wires?
of? The Big Nurse? and so he is a threat to the? combine? .
This is very clear in the? pool scene? . This excerpt from the book demonstrate? s R. P? s influence on the acutes to rebel, ?
Now that Mc Murphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didn? t like. ? (158) In the film you can actually see the acutes looking at Mc Murphy after they make their arguments to nurse Ratched, and he backs them up in the book by asking the doctor directly before the nurse had a chance to answer. This segment of the novel unmistakably device the notion of rebellion. Another significant theme in Kesey's novel is the role of women in society, and how it contradicts the males. In keeping with the highly contrasting forces of conformity verses creativity Kesey compares the male role of impulsiveness, sexuality, and nature with the female role of conformity, sexual repression and ultimately the psychological castration of the male. Nurse Ratched was endowed with large breast which threatens her power over the male patients by exposing herself sexually, and Kesey's view in the novel of male sexual dominance, hence she trys to hide them the best she can.
Nurse Ratched gains her power through her sterility which in the novel Chief describes her face as appearing enamel. In the film she does this with no makeup and white uniform... ? The Big Nurse? takes the place of the mother role or over domineering feminine role in a lot of the patients lives, which led them to their psychological castration. This is obvious patient Billy Bibbit a thirty one year old man whose mental problems were due to his over domineering mother, who was friends with Nurse Ratched. The downfall of Billy was toward the climax of the novel when The Big Nurse brought to the surface Billy's inability to stand up to his mother and her years of psychological castration, and soon after, led his suicide.
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Research essay sample on Cuckoo Nest One Flew Over The Cuckoo
