One Flew Over the Cuckos Nest essays

One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest essays One One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest In our study of this novel of rebellion, and protest. The ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is microcosism of a much larger world, where power is too often misused and individuality is stifled for the sake of conformity.By using Chief Bromden 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 Keseys 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 Bromden's 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 McMurphy with "wires", and a "control panel"( which the Chief see quite clearly in his psychosis). In the Chiefs eyes McMurphy was missed by the "combine", and the Chief and the acutes were lured into it. Therefore McMurphy 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 demonstrates R.Ps influence on the acutes to rebel, "Now that McMurphy was around to back them up, the guys started letting fly at everything that had ever happened on the ward they didnt like."(158) In the film you can actually see the acutes looking at McMurphy after they make their arguments to nurse Ratched, and he backs them up in the b ook by asking the doctor directly before the nurse had a chance to answer. This segment of the novel...