One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Essay

The fresh One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ( Kesey. 1962 ) is narrated from the point of position of a character called “The Chief” who is an inmate of the mental refuge in which the narrative takes topographic point. The book opens with a scene where the Chief is brushing the floor and ends with the Chief get awaying from the refuge. and so the altering perceptual experiences of the Chief are a cardinal to the chief messages of the book. The character who occupies most of the action in the book is a rebellious fledgling called McMurphy.

It is McMurphy who is the accelerator for the alteration in the Chief. demoing him a both a different manner to see the refuge and a figure of schemes of opposition which finally allow the Chief to interrupt free. This paper will analyze how the Chief perceives the refuge in the early phases of the book. concentrating particularly on the construct of “the Combine” . After that Murphy’s position of the universe will be presented. along with his assorted opposition schemes. In decision the Chief’s revised position of “the Combine” will be analysed. demoing what has changed in his apprehension of the universe of the refuge. and of the universe in general.

At the start of the book it is non instantly apparent that the Chief is mentally sick. He explains that he is half Indian and chooses to be deaf and dense: “I’m cagey adequate to gull them that much” ( Kesey. p. 9 ) His separation from the universe of sound is presented as a deliberate defense mechanism against subjugation. but the reader may surmise that it is a symptom of a mental unwellness like paranoia or schizophrenic disorder. It is a characteristic of the book that medical descriptions are avoided. and the reader is left to calculate out for him or herself whether or non. or to what extent the characters are sick or huffy.

The Chief imagines the Big Nurse holding powers that extend via wires which merely he can see: “I see her sit in the Centre of this web of wires like a alert automaton. be given her web with mechanical insect skill…” ( Kesey. p. 27 ) . He imagines that she is working to command the universe outside the establishment besides. proposing that there is a immense confederacy against him and the other inmates called “the Combine” which he defines as “a immense organisation that aims to set the Outside every bit good as the Inside” ( Kesey. p. 27 ) .

This analogy works both as a description of a psychotic belief. with no footing in world. and as an artistic representation of an establishment ( the refuge ) and a wider autocratic society ( conservative American society in the early sixtiess ) which operates on a stiff and cold footing. At the start of the book the Chief. and through him the reader. experience this cold. difficult. oppressive force and see the inmates as victims of its power. One manner of doing this chilling force invariably present in the narration is the Chief’s usage of vocabulary relating to machinery to depict all of the refuge forces.

The three “black boys” who are orderlies working for the Big Nurse speak with the “hum of black machinery” ( Kesey. p. 9 ) and the most terrorization of all is Nurse Ratched herself: “She works the flexible joints of her cubituss and fingers … She starts traveling. …when she rumbles past she’s already every bit large as a truck. draging that wicker bag behind her in her fumes like a semi behind a Jimmy Diesel… and her smile’s traveling out before her like a radiator grill. ” ( Kesey. p 79 ) . These are cold images used to depict the leaders of an cold government.

The reaching of McMurphy into the narrative makes a immense feeling on the Chief who. despite his immense size. is huddling and fearful of the cold and all-controlling power of the Combine. The first feeling is of McMurphy’s “loud brassy voice” ( Kesey. p. 14 ) Chief significantly makes a connexion between this voice and the voice of his Indian male parent: “He negotiations a small the manner Papa used to. voice loud and full of hell…” Shortly after this the ward is stunned by the sound of McMurphy’s laughter. which is unusual to them because no one of all time laughs in this oppressive topographic point.

So much of McMurphy’s verbal behavior is a surprise to the ward: his laughing. vocalizing and dry raillery are all illustrations of a linguistic communication the inmates have forgotten the significance of. This is one of the most of import facets of McMurphy’s influence. He reminds the inmates of a different sort of communicating with authorization and with each other that is free and self-generated. unconcerned about the hierarchies of the refuge context. and taking everything less earnestly than the governments intend things to be taken.

McMurphy mocks people. including his friends. in order to demo that there is more than merely one manner of seeing things. and that the asylum’s government is pathetic when viewed from outside positions. He argues with the Big Nurse. and he laughs at her harangues and furies. This is a insurgent attitude. and it sparks new ideas in all the inmates. puting off a concatenation reaction of consciousness that can non be stopped.

The first meeting of McMurphy and the Chief is besides an of import minute in the book. and this clip the Chief is struck by the touch of McMurphy’s manus: “It rang with blood and power” ( Kesey. p. 25 ) . Subsequently. when brushing out the kiping country. the Chief notices a odor that he has ne’er encountered before in all this clip on the ward ; “the adult male odor of dust and soil from the unfastened Fieldss. and perspiration. and work. ” ( Kesey. p. 83 ) . It is as if the Chief is rediscovering through the presence of McMurphy. all the natural homo senses which had been dulled or switched out of committee by the Combine.

Merely by being himself McMurphy reawakens the warm. human qualities of the inmates and shows them how to utilize these qualities against the difficult. cold machinery of power. The universe that McMurphy represents is offered as a contrast to the regimented. controlled environment of the ward. There is nil peculiarly extremist about what he represents. for illustration puting up a vote procedure to find the telecasting screening agenda for the inmates. but in the inverted government of the Combine this appears to be a lurid suggestion.

Drinking. smoking marihuana and sex with cocottes are. in the universe outside the refuge. rather ordinary and natural looks of normal masculine behavior in big subdivisions of the community. It is the maltreatment of power by the Big Nurse in speaking to Billy Bibbit’s female parent that turns the jokes of the inmates from a buffoonery into a calamity. In every society it is common for immature males to force boundaries and experiment with things that are forbidden by instructors. parents and authorization figures.

It is portion of normal turning up. The sarcasm of the refuge is. that it takes an laden child like Billy and so merely when he catches a glance of sexual and other sorts of freedom via McMurphy. oppress his spirit so wholly that he takes his ain life. The book depicts a battle for power over the inmates: “As the many symbols and images indicate. the cardinal subject of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the Restoration of the inmates’ single and corporate authority. ( Lupack. 1995. p. 94 ) .

Whether as group. or as separate persons. McMurphy encourages the inmates to take back the power that has been unjustly stolen from them by the establishment. Some critics have seen McMurphy in spiritual footings. as a character who sacrifices himself in order to salvage his brothers: “The fishing scene is an drawn-out figure of Jesus and his adherents. and case of McMurphy as fisher of work forces. ” ( Hicks. 1981. p. 174 ) . Hicks points out that there are images of the cross and the Crown of irritants in descriptions of the electric daze tabular array. and that McMurphy’s work forces are “physically cannibalising him” ( 1981. p. 5 ) by have oning him out more and more as he transfers his power and energy over to them. It is true that as McMurphy’s influence grows. more and more of the inmates rebel or discharge themselves. or in the instance of the Chief. do a dramatic flight but this is a book that does non come with a happy stoping and redemption in a celestial hereafter. McMurphy is turned into a lobotomized shell of his old ego which the Chief kills out of clemency. as an Indian would kill an injured animate being.

The hereafter of the other characters is non known. The freedom that the Chief additions is a freedom from the existent and imagined “wires and connections” ( Kesey. p. 254 ) that he rips up when he throws the control box out of the window. In decision. so. it appears that the Chief has changed his position of the Combine. He leaves the psychotic beliefs and the refuge behind but he still must voyage his manner in the outside universe. It remains to be seen how he will undertake the Combine-like unfairnesss and oppressive forces in the wider universe.

He does non hold his wise man McMurphy with him. and must merely travel back to where he started and seek to reintegrate into a community that has been oppressed and exploited by the edifice of a great dike. The great difference at the terminal of the book is that that he wants to travel back to his old hangouts “just to convey some of it clear in my head again” ( Kesey. p. 254 ) and thanks to the illustration shown by McMurphy. he can now make this with bravery and lucidity. seeing possibilities of corporate opposition instead than merely being isolated and crushed by overpowering institutional power.