Nurse Ratched Orders McMurphy example essay topic

Biographical Data Ken Kesey was born on September 17, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado. Ken Kesey is world renowned for his best-selling novel, "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest". At an early age, Kesey had a love for Christian fables as well as the Christian ethical system. Although he had a love for these fables, Kesey never wrote anything or published anything till well after his high school career. In High School he was a champion wrestler setting long-standing state records in Oregon.

Unlike most "normal" authors, Kesey always had a love for the "wild" side. He would always be doing crazy things and going to parties. While at Stanford, he was in an experience involving chemicals at the psychology department to earn extra money. Among these chemicals were psilocybin, mescaline, and "LSD" which is found in the drug, acid.

This experience altered Kesey personally and professionally causing him to not be what he used to be, but instead a crazy and weird sort of individual. He became friends with a group of people that would later call themselves, the Merry Pranksters. Among these pranksters there were famous people like Jack Kerouac, and Neal Cassidy. They bought a bus and all went on a trip to the World's Fair in New York. They recorded most of the trip and showed these clips to drugged up audiences at their parties. Kesey and the Merry Pranksters became known for their Acid tests as well as their extensive use of LSD and other drugs.

Thomas Wolfe wrote a book about the merry pranksters called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Kesey and the Merry Pranksters fled to Mexico after their favorite drug, LSD, was made illegal. When they returned to the United States for a final performance of their band, "Warlocks", or "Grateful Dead", Kesey was arrested on a marijuana charge. After serving his time in Jail, Kesey decided to move to a farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon to raise his family and try to forget his crazy past. Kesey, being a big parties as well as a drug addict, has made him be known as that.

Till this day, Kesey has not "settled down" and still claims to get the urge every now and then to do "Something Weird". Critical Analysis One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Julian Monahan, The New York Review of Books, September 10, 1964, p. 14. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was a very beautiful and inventive book violated by a fifth-rate idea which made Woman, in alliance with modern technology, the destroyer of masculinity and sensuous enjoyment". I do agree fully with this criticism. It is true that Ken Kesey does in a sense, focus on race and sex a lot in this novel. By putting Nurse Ratched as the mastermind and brains behind the whole operation, Kesey has stated that Nurse Ratched is an evil woman that wants to dominate and destroy whoever opposes her.

He has made her look as a power hungry woman which likes to have things her way and wont change those ways for anyone. Practically throughout the whole novel Kesey also makes the orderlies that help Nurse Ratched look inferior and weak. Kesey could have put any type of man to portray an orderly but I feel, that because Kesey is a misogynist and a racist, he chose to put 5 black men as the orderlies. I also agree with this criticism because it states that "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a very beautiful and inventive book. Kesey's Novel is all that and more, and although he might focus on racism and sexual inferiority, (or evil superiority for this case) Kesey is still a master mind and his book is on of the greatest of all time.

Plot Summary The novel basically opens up by giving the reader a feel of the ward, and how things are worked there. Chief Bromden, they narr arator, opens up the novel by doing his basic routine of sweeping the ward. He states how the black boys just stand around doing nothing until the head Nurse gets into the ward. The head nurse is Nurse Ratched.

She is an evil woman that likes things done her way and no other way. Once she gets into her office, the black orderlies commence doing their daily morning routines. While the Chief is sweeping the floor, the Ward door opens and a man is walked to the admissions office. It is Randle McMurphy.

He is the main character throughout the whole novel and the one that starts off all the conflicts in the ward. The first time he gets there he can already sense that there is going to be trouble. Right from the start he makes a bet with the men on the ward. This bet states that he can make Nurse Ratched crack and go crazy. He plans to go against her by doing things that wont provoke her to send him to the disturbed ward that's on the floor above their ward. Already in the beginning of the novel we begin to see a conflict start to arise.

The event that seems to anger McMurphy the most is the group meeting that they have on the ward every day. In this first meeting Nurse Ratched asks Harding, a smarter man on the ward, what his problems with his wife are about. McMurphy doesn't like the idea of a person being singled out and made fun of by the rest of the ward. After this meeting he is very angry and nurse Ratched and calls her a "ball-cutter" because she likes to deprive men of their pride by constantly asking them embarrassing questions. The conflicts between Ratched and McMurphy provide some sort of entertainment for the other patients. However, as time goes on McMurphy's conflict soon becomes their problem as he gets them involved in the conflict by encouraging their rebellion.

As McMurphy's ongoing struggle to overturn the ward continues, it is soon stopped short when he fails to have his suggestion of changing the television schedule so they can watch the World Series approved. The Series was going to take place during the time scheduled for cleaning chores. McMurphy gets very angry at this and doesn't know what to do that wont cause him to go into the disturbed ward but that will anger Nurse Ratched. Mcmurphy and the other patients then stage a protest by sitting in front of the blank television instead of doing their work. This plan works and Nurse Ratched becomes very anger and screams at them to return to their work. After this Cheswick, another man on the ward that would always side on McMurphy's side, commits suicide.

Cheswick decides his fate after he is denied one of his packs of cigarettes from inside the nurses' office. He becomes hysterical because he wants some of his own cigarettes and none of the men on the ward decide to back him up on his decision. He turns to McMurphy so that he can back him up, but all McMurphy does is continue shuffling his cards. This saddens Cheswick and causes him to scream loudly protesting that he gets his cigarettes back. These actions cause him to be sent to disturbed ward for a couple of days. Upon his return, he commits that horrifying act in the ward pool.

Mcmurphy sudden change is due to the fact that he learns from the lifeguard that there are two types of patients on the ward, those who commit themselves voluntarily and those who are committed permanently and cannot leave the ward on their own free will but have to instead be given approval by the doctors and the nurse to leave the ward. McMurphy suddenly realizes that his insubordination could have probably had him committed to the ward for a very long time. This then makes him be more quiet and not to have his radical thoughts anymore. Since McMurphy cares about the rest of the men in the ward, he helps out his friend Big George and starts fighting with Nurse Ratched's aides. This causes McMurphy to be sent upstairs for Electric Shock Therapy. After going through that experience his "obligation" towards the other patients wears away his strength as well as his sanity.

After these events, I feel that the most climactic part of the novel occurs. It all starts off the week after the men of the ward have their fishing trip. During this fishing trip, McMurphy sets up a date between Billy Bibbit and Candy Starr. McMurphy doesn't want to leave the ward until after he sets up the date between the two.

McMurphy pays the orderly in charge of the night shift, Turkle, to open the window and let the two prostitutes in. Billy Bibbit goes in the other room with Candy while McMurphy and the other men on the ward get drunk and smoke marijuana outside. Mcmurphy then tells Turkle to unlock the window and to wake him up after he's done so that McMurphy can then escape. Turkle, being drunk and high, forgets his duty and falls asleep. Nobody wakes up until the morning when Nurse Ratched steps into the ward.

She finds everyone drunk and thrown on the floor and her anger begins to rise to an all time high. She wakes everyone up and counts to see if everyone is there. She find out that Billy Bibbit is missing and begins to search for him. She then finds him in one of the rooms and confronts him about his sexual encounter with the prostitute Candy. After arguing with him and threatening to tell his mom, which just so happens to be a friend of hers, she tells one of the black orderlies to escort him to the doctors office so that she can have a word with him later. Billy is torn, worried, scared, and angry because he doesn't want Nurse Ratched to tell his mother.

Since Billy is assured that she is definitely going to tell his mother, he feels that there is no way that he can confront his mother. Sadly, Billy Bibbit then precedes to killing himself. He gets a glass cup from inside the doctors office and slits his neck. This completely angers McMurphy and causes him to snap. He goes into the nurses office where Nurse Ratched is thinking about the events that have just occurred, pulls her out, rips open the front of her shirt and starts strangling her. He is strangling her for a very long time until one of the orderlies hits him in the back of his head and starts beating him up so that he can be contained.

After all of these events happen, Nurse Ratched orders McMurphy to get a Lobotomy done to him. Once his lobotomy has taken place, McMurphy cannot seem to understand anything anymore or reason for that matter. He is suffering and in pain. The Chief, which became one of McMurphy's closest friends throughout the course of the novel, is saddened by the course of events and he feels that its his duty, as a friend, to end McMurphy's suffering. That night, Chief Bromden gets a pillow and suffocates Randle McMurphy. After this is done, the Chief goes into the tub room and rips off the control station from the floor and breaks the glass window just like McMurphy had planned.

The Chief escapes and flees to the land where his people once were to see if they might still be there. The Chief feels like its time that he caught up to how things are and that he started catching up to the things he was away from for many years of his life since he's "Been away a long time". Characterization The character that I feel had the most changes occur to him throughout the course of the novel would have to be Randle P. McMurphy. From what started off as a fun loving gambling man who was insubordinate and hated the way things were run, ultimately ended in him being a vegetable.

McMurphy went through a series of changes. From changes in his personality, attitude, to changes in his perspectives on life. Many events cause him to change this way. For example, the deaths of Cheswick, and Bibbit, and the constant threat of Nurse Ratched.

McMurphy changed from hating the system and wanting to bring it down, to understanding he had to follow certain rules. McMurphy hated the system but he wasn't stupid. He didn't want to do anything that would provoke Ratched to send him to the disturbed ward, so this in turn cause him to follow the rules for a short while. These changes in his personality and attitude soon change back to what they once were after the death of Billy Bibbit.

He goes from a man that follows the rules and tries not to get in a very big deal of trouble, to the crazy insubordinate man that he came in as. This is shown after he attacks nurse Ratched for being the cold-hearted woman that she is. I personally was kind of disappointed in the way that Kesey decided to end this mans role in the book. But thinking about it, it was actually a good ending for a man that did so much for the other men on the ward. And of course, McMurphy ultimately succeeded in doing what he wanted to do in the first place. Which was bring down Nurse Ratched reign of terror, and to prove to her that she was not exactly what she thought she was.

This in turn, makes McMurphy the most drastically changed character. Relevance The things that One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest teaches us are ideas that will never go away. The morals like, not letting people take advantage of you and abuse of you, are morals that will never go away. McMurphy's stand against Ratched's tyrannical rule proved that man will stand up for things that he believes aren't right and that he wont let anyone abuse of him.

Now in the 21st century, this still holds to be true. You cannot let a person decide your fate and rule over you like as if they were more important than you. That's just not right, and Kesey does a good job of explaining this throughout the novel. Also, the personal problems that the men on the ward had with themselves and with others, will never go away. To this day many men in the world have problems with their wives, not just the men in this novel.

Chief Bromden's problem of not thinking that he "big enough" is also a common problem among teens and people of various age groups these days. People lack confidence, when they shouldn't have to not believe in themselves. Bromsted learns at the end of the novel that he is "big enough" and that he is capable of standing up for him self. These are things that we have to learn about ourselves, that we have to make sure doesn't' happen to us. These key things that were important enough to be mentioned in this book, are still true to this day.

Man won't ever get rid of the never-ending struggle between himself and his confidence. The only thing to do is make sure certain things don't happen to us as how they did in the novel. We can only hope that our marital, personal, and confidence problems aren't resolved on account of someone else's death. Memorable Passage I chose the last three paragraphs of One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest as my memorable passage because I feel that it finally lets the reader know exactly what the Chief wants and exactly what hes thinking. I'll never forget that because I never expected that it would be the chief that escapes and the chief that gets to leave the ward. This passage also gives the reader a sense of resolution.

Like as if all the problems are over in the novel and everyone else can finally start living their own lives. The use of words that Ken Kesey uses on describing the way the Chief leaves, and what he feels, help give the reader a good understanding of what Bromsted is feeling as he is running away from the wretched ward that gave him so many problems throughout the course of his life. And although you couldn't really know how the chief interacted with other people, you can finally know that he really is a very good person inside. After he offers to pay the man back later when he gets back up on his feet, just goes to show that the chief was a very kind man. I personally liked the character of the Chief, because he didn't really say much throughout the whole novel, but he actually had a very significant impact and played a very important role on the outcome of certain events that transpired throughout the course of the novel.