One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
By: Us
Journal #1
The Controlling and the Controlled
• Sexuality
• Brutality
• Verbal assault
Thesis
Contrary to popular belief, there is more than
one way to control someone. Utter
dominance can be established through
sexuality, brutality, and verbal assault, all of
which are explored in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest.
Sexuality
Control may be established mentally, and an
extension of that comes in the form of sexual
control.
Sexuality
• Nurse Ratched masks her sex by means of her
clothes (covers herself up).
• Nurse Ratched has a form of "castrating
power", causing the men to lose their feeling
of being male.
• She emasculates the men.
• McMurphy is free as he constantly discusses
sex and makes passes at Nurse Ratched
(flaunting his sexuality).
Sexuality
Brutality
Brutality and drugs, two opposites of the
spectrum of superliminal and subliminal, also
make for incredible, severe control.
Brutality
• Nurse Ratched authorizes brain-work on those
who may not need it, causing them to settle
down.
• The "Black Boys" rough up the patients
occasionally.
• The "Boys" were ordered to rape a patient
that was too rowdy.
• The patients are given mind altering
substances.
Brutality
Verbal Abuse
Verbal abuse may sometimes be more powerful
than physical attacks; words are powerful.
Verbal Abuse
• Nurse Ratched demoralizes the men with her
words.
• When she loses her voice, it shows just how
powerful her words were as the men start to
rise up.
Verbal Abuse
Concession
• Concession A: One may argue that control isn't the main idea of the
novel. It can be argued that there are other reasons for the
empowerment of Nurse Ratched. It can easily be seen, however, that
these methods of control are predominant and play key roles in the other
themes of the novel, such as sanity vs. insanity, and others.
• Concession B: One may argue that these methods are not perfect
methods of control. Shown by McMurphy, it is possible to bypass this
ascendancy and therefore, regardless of how many methods there are,
they all remain ineffective. It can easily be seen, however, that the utter
control of the patients is key to the novel. Without the patients being
controlled, the Jesus-like McMurphy would not be needed in the novel as
a form of conflict resolution. His overcoming of the control there is, and
his ability to withstand all these forms of control are what make him, and
the idea of control, key to the novel.
Concession
Right Behind You
Journal #2
Book vs. Movie
SEE MOVIE
Thesis
"The book was better." Why is this might one
ask? Surely it would not be because a book
will always uses more powerful literary
devices, have superior character development
and will be generally more in depth.
The Language Used
Imagery
"she's swelling up, swells till her back's splitting out the
white uniform and she's let her arms section out long
enough to wrap around the three of them five, six
times. She looks around her with a swivel of her huge
head. Nobody up to see, just old Broom Bromden the
half-breed Indian back there hiding behind his mop and
can't talk to call for help. So she really lets herself go
and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open
snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a
tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way
you smell a motor pulling too big a load." (pg.11)
The Language Used
Imagery
Language Used
Comparisons
"sitting there is silence...quiet as an electric
alarm about to go off." (pg.44)
Language Used
Irony
A hospital that promotes pain?
Character Development
Given up for the sake of time
"They spy on each other. Sometimes one man
says something about himself that he didn't
aim to let slip, and one of his buddies at the
table where..." (P19)
Who need’s half of the story?
Deleted Scenes
“While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and
farther backward against the cabin top, spreading
his laugh out across the water—laughing at the
girl, the guys, at George, at me sucking my
bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier
and the bicycle rider and the service- station guys
and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse
and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh
at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in
balance, just to keep the world from running you
plumb crazy.” (p.237)
Concession
Movies take away the responsibility of imagining
and let us enjoy the story.
Concession
WRONG
Concession
The delight of reading a story is having near
total control of what you see in your head.
All in all, the book wins