One flew over the Cuckoos Nest

Question: Describe about the Report for One flew over the Cuckoos Nest. Answer: Argument Presents a world that prevents revolt by labelling iconoclasts as mad In this article we are going to see why the argument above is proved right by the movie One flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Does the movie really prove such a view? Yes, it does and an overview of the movie below would help us understand why! Storyline: The movie is adapted from a book of the same name, however there are significant departures from the books content. For instance, in the book Chief Bromden (Sampson) is a very important character whereas in the movie more importance is given to McMurphy (Jack Nicholson). This movie won all five top Academy awards for Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay. (Ebert, 2003) This was the first instance of a movie winning all the top awards after It Happened One Night in 1934. The story opens with Randle Patrick McMurphy, who is supposedly the iconoclast, is sentenced to a short term prison sentence, however he wants to escape from the awful prison experience and therefore pretends to be mad so that he would be transferred to a mental asylum which he feels would be a more comfortable and smoother experience when compared to the prison. His experiences in confinement at the mental asylum are what the movie is about. The three dominant characters in the movie who keep the audience spellbound by their performance are, McMurphy, Chief Bromden and Nurse Ratched played by Jack Nicholson, Will Sampson and Louise Fletcher respectively. One flew over the Cuckoos Nest was one of the biggest hits of 1975. Analysis Insanity can be used as a political tool to manipulate victims. That is exactly what this movie portrays. People use this tool of insanity to hide in order to avoid responsibilities and label themselves deranged. This is what McMurphy questions. He sees the silent submission of people who are manipulated to stay under the control of the Big Nurse, which he objects to. McMurphys character is that of a rebellious man who believes in living life to the fullest without any restraint. He is a nonconformist and one who dares to challenge all authority. Unfortunately, to save himself from a few days of imprisonment he ends up in a special ward because of his pretence of being insane where Nurse Ratched is in charge. Nurse Ratched is a person who keeps everyone under her autocratic control in the ward. If anyone dares to mess with her she would either give them shock therapy, send them to the disturbed ward or get them lobotomised. She manipulates patients by stirring patients against each other and keeping them divided so that they didnt understand her plans of never letting them get alright and leave. Chief Bromden, meanwhile is pretending to be a deaf and dumb man in order to be left alone, to himself. He is befriended by McMurphy. The movie does not include any of his background history which the book addresses. He is shown as a war veteran and a paranoid schizophrenic! The iconoclast in the movie is obviously none other than McMurphy. He disregards every form of authority, unlike the rest of the patients in the ward. He is someone who defies rules and authority. He gambles, makes racist remarks, uses profane language and is incorrigible. He does not realise that he is being the focal point of Nurse Ratched and little does he know the extent of Nurse Ratcheds brutality. Throughout the whole time in the mental asylum McMurphy challenges the autocratic rule of Ratched. He would break ward rules, by among other things, holding basketball games in the hospital which was not allowed and as a result McMurphy gets into the bad books of Nurse Ratched. His rebellious attitude does not go down well with the Nurse who decides to retain McMurphy post his prison sentence. He gets wind of her plans from an older ward personnel and discovers that many people were being confined at the asylum as a result of Ratcheds dominance. These inmates were not exercising their personal will to leave even though legally they were entitled to leave after completion of their sentence. His rebellious nature is so infectious that the rest of the patients begin to follow his footsteps. In one instance, when his request to watch television in the ward is denied McMurphy still goes ahead and turns the television on. Upon seeing this, Nurse Ratched turns off the power connection to the television but this does not move McMurphy one bit. He continues staring at the blank screen which is followed by the rest of the inmates. He is warned that this kind of attitude can get him into a bad tiff with Ratched which can turn ugly. There are moments of awareness of Nurse Ratcheds gruesome behaviour which make McMurphy back off a bit, however, it does not last long. His iconoclastic behaviour begins to rub off on others and soon everyone in the ward start to feel challenged to get out of the Nurses tyranny and desire to be set free. Had it not been for McMurphy they would have probably lived a life of non revolt without any challenges and neither would they have experienced the joy of living life on the edge. In his final act of rebellion, McMurphy decides one night to get two prostitutes into the ward, he gets all the patients drunk and also breaks into the drug station. He coaxes Billy Bibbit, an inmate, into having sex with one of the prostitutes. The next day ends up becoming the most disastrous day in the life of the patients in the ward. Everyone in the ward is guilt tripped by Ratched and Billy Bibbit is manipulated by Nurse Ratched by threatening him that she was going to let his mother know about the previous nights incidents. McMurphy although totally aware of the mind games Ms. Ratched was capable of playing to get her way, underestimates the extent to which she would go to keep her inmates in check. What follows are a series of events that brings the movie to its climax. Billy Bibbit commits suicide out of shame of his mother getting to know about the previous nights affair. McMurphy loses his sanity on seeing Billy lying on the floor dead and he strangles Nurse Ratched in an attempt to kill her. Ms. Ratched who is rescued by ward personnel, then orders McMurphy to be taken upstairs to the lobotomy room and gets him lobotomised. When the Chief sees marks of stitches on McMurphys forehead, he realises that his dear friend Randle McMurphy has been lobotomised. He couldnt imagine seeing his effervescent friend lying like a dead vegetable all his life and hence decides to end his life by suffocating him to death with a pillow. Chief Bromden then takes his friend McMurphys advice, pulls off the heavy panel in the tub room, breaks open the windows and escapes into his freedom to Canada with the help of a Mexican guy he meets in the highway. (Kesey, n.d.) The movie although set in a mental asylum is reflective of the world view of how iconoclasts are seen as a threat to authority and are labelled as mad by the ones who wield authority. The people in charge will go to any extent to neutralise what they see as a threat even if it means having to conduct a lobotomy. However the movie also holds out hope that even as iconoclasts are lobotomised they inspire some at least to escape that very authority. (Gregory Shafer,2014) References Shafer,Gregory. Madness and Difference: Politicising insanity in Classical Literary Works. Volume 30, Issue1. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2041context=lajm. Accessed 20th September, 2016. Kesey, Ken. One flew over the Cuckoos Nest. Character List.1975, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/cuckoo/. Accessed 21st September, 2016. Kesey,Ken. One flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Summary. 1975, https://www.shmoop.com/one-flew-over-cuckoos-nest/summary.html. Accessed 21st September, 2016. Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest Book Summary.1975, https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/book-summary. Accessed 21st September, 2016. KEsey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest . Analysis. 1975, https://www.enotes.com/topics/one-flew. Accessed 21st September, 2016. Ebert, Roger. One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest. Review. 2003. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-1975. Accessed 21st September, 2016.