One Flew Over The Cuckcoo's Nest

1 Introduction

1.1 Presentation of the theme and my motive to choose it

I chose the subject about "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" written by Ken Kesey in 1962 for my research paper because my mother told me years ago of the accompanying film and how interesting it is. Two years ago a friend of mine came back from his exchange programme in the United States of America. He told me that he and his theatre group there had performed this novel. He was and still is very enthusiastic about the theme and about the way it is written. Although I started reading the novel, I didn't manage to finish it till the day we had to choose our subjects at school. When I saw this subject on the list, which we were given by our English teacher Mr SchÐ'fer, I was interested immediately. So I chose it.

1.2 My procedure

After reading this novel and watching the film I went to the Braunschweig University Library, where I loaned books about Addiction to games of change, The American history in the sixties and The history of Red Indians to receive an insight into the life of the protagonist. With the use of the internet I got further information.

By choosing my subject I didn't assume that it would be so difficult to describe Mac Murphy's decline. I often thought that the psychological background - knowledge would have been helpful. After having written my keywords I didn't know how to start with my formulations but finally I wrote and wrote and in the end I had too many pages. As a result I had to shorten my text which was more difficult than my first problem.

2 Summary of the novel

A half - Indian named Chief Bromden begins telling the reader about his experiences in an Oregon mental hospital. Head of this hospital is Nurse Ratched, also known as Big Nurse, "(...) a stern, controlling woman who behaves with a serene confidence". She is the antagonist of the novel, manipulative and dictatorical, using any method to assert her power over the patients. In comparison to Randle Patrick Mac Murphy, the protagonist, she "(...) represents ideas of sexual repression, authoritarianism and conservatism" . The nurse and her new patient, who was admitted to the hospital by the state work farm for observation, are in every way opposed to each other - she demanding control, he revelling freedom.

Mac Murphy is claiming to be in the hospital only to enjoy an easier life than he had at the state work farm. He doesn't seem crazy with his tales of fighting, gambling and lovemaking he brings laughter into the ward for the first time in years. Immediately he tries to make friends with the other patients. Therefore a confrontation between him and Nurse Ratched is inevitable. She asserts her power, he rebels against it, not realizing that the rebellion may be dangerous. She sees him as a competitor but he however overestimates his position as a competitor. Soon he learns the painful truth: He will not leave the hospital until Nurse Ratched agrees to release him, it doesn't matter that the time in prison is over. Nervously he begins to obey her rules, but rapidly he enters into the struggle of power again because the inmates are already dependent on his leadership. Realizing this fact he tries to act on their behave and to teach them to think and act for themselves. After having had a serious talk with Nurse Ratched Billy committs suicide. As a resault of this Mac Murphy's last step is an attack on Nurse Ratched - he attempts to rape her and shows her human weakness. However Mac Murphy will never know his victory. His example has given the patients enough courage to brave the outside world and has shown that the authority isn't unshakeable but he returns from a lobotomy as a ruined man.

3 Institution

3.1 The cuckoo's nest

The cuckoo's nest is the psychiatric ward of the hospital. It is in a sense of a microcosms the faithful truth of the American history, of it's ethical composition, hierarchy and structure of power. Acknowledged point of the ward is that it is a workshop of the society to cure the reformers of the system their harmfulness. By hard cases it takes electroshock treatment and lobotomy. It shouldn't be forgotten here that apart from it's function as hospital to improve and keep people who fouls the society's nest it gives love and security for people who takes flight by themselves of the trouble of the "American Way of Life". Behind all is in the function of a client a combination with all one's social, economic and political force which determine who is crazy and who is normal. Crazy means no more than not to be adapt in the society. Representative of the cuckoo's nest in the novel is Nurse Ratched.

4 Characterisation of Randle Patrick Mac Murphy

„Mac Murphy's arms and neck and face are sunburned and bristled with curly orange hairs. He's got tattoos on each big shoulder; one says `Fighting LeathernecksÒ' and has a devil with a red eye and red horns and a M - 1 rifle, and the other is a poker hand fanned out across his muscle - aces and eights." The imposing, red - headed Irishman R. P. Mac Murphy with a poorly-stitched gash across his cheekbone and nose, isn't a typical character, he changes considerably during his time at the hospital. "Committed by the state from the Pendleton Farm for Correction. For diagnosis and possible treatment. Thirty - five years old. Never married. Distinguished Service Cross in Korea, for leading an escape from a communist prison camp. A dishonourable discharge, afterward, for insubordination. Followed by a history of street brawls and barroom fights and a series of arrests for Drunkenness, Assault and Battery, Disturbing the Peace, repeated gambling (...)" and last arrested for seduction of a fifteen year old girl. He is a passionate gambler, who wants to win in all reason he choose the institution as preferable when compared to the work farm where he would have been sentenced . He "(...) represents ideas of sexuality, freedom and self - determination against Nurse Ratched's oppression" .

5 Mac Murpy's decline

5.1 Confrontation of Mac Murphy and the patients

"Do I look like a sane man?" is the question Mac Murphy asks at his first group meeting and the reader thinks about this question while reading that book the whole time.

None of the patients has ever met a man like him before, except of