Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Book Reports One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Written by Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was published in 1967 by Penguin Books. This story was written based on the author’s experience while working in a mental institution. He held long conversations with the inmates in order to gain a better understanding of them. It was during this period that he wrote the first draft of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Most of the characters in the novel are based upon actual patients he met while working at the hospital. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is set in a mental hospital in Oregon. The novel is divided into four parts. Parts One, Two and Four are set in the hospital itself. In Part Three, the patients from the hospital go on a deep-sea fishing trip, and the setting is the boat. Except for a few outsiders, the characters are either patients or employees of the hospital. Kesey has drawn from his own experience to give the reader an insider's view of the hospital. The novel starts with the admission of Randle P. McMurphy to the Hospital. As he introduces himself to the other patients, the “head nurse”, Nurse Ratched immediately decided he is a troublemaker. Even though everyone else is afraid of the nurse, everyone that is except for McMurphy. He tires to make as much commotion as he can. He sings when he’s not supposed to, asks for things when it’s not time to, and appears half-naked, which really flusters the nurse. When a staff meeting comes up, the doctors diagnose McMurphy with everything from latent homosexuality to schizophrenia. Nurse Ratched, however, disagrees. She believes him to be an ordinary man and that he will eventually settle down. Nonetheless, McMurphy continues to do all he can to annoy her. Throughtout the story, the two battle against each other, seeing who will give in to who first. Everything is rather harmless until and inmates party rolls around. McMurphy smuggles in prostitutes to help out the inmate, Billy. When the nurse found out what had been going on she was furious. Billy ended up slitting his throat and bleeding to death. McMurphy was in real trouble with the nurse this time. To retaliate he tore open Nurse Ratched uniform. As a result, McMurphy is taken away and give a lobotomy. When he returns, he has been changed into a vegetable. His Indian friend known as Chief Bromdencannot bear to see his friend in such a state, and ends up smothering him to death to save him from such a miserable existence. However, he escapes to freedom after that. Ironically, dead Mcmurphy had given this man a new life. McMurphy is a gambling Irishman and convict, who grows tired of laboring at the Pendleton prison farm. To escape prison life, he feigns insanity and gets himself involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Oregon. He tries to bring about a change at the hospital, for he does not like the fact that grown men act like "rabbits" and are scared of the Big Nurse. He tries as hard as he can to "get her goat", by not doing the duties he is given. He also ironically ends up serving as a catalyst in bringing freedom to the other patients. Nurse Ratched is a large, cold, unemotional woman whose "face is smooth, calculated, and refined". She uses any means necessary to keep her patients in order; whish is perhaps why almost every inmate fears her. The only one who wouldn’t give into her, McMurphy, ended up being defeated by her in the end, even though his friend then had triumph over her by escaping. As for Chief Bromden , he was the narrator of the story. He had been a member of the hospital for over fifteen years, and is a paranoid schizophrenic. He is afraid of everything. That is why the ending has so much significance. He escapes the institution and is finally able to stand on his own. Societal suppression over the individual is the main theme of the novel. In the mental hospital, the patients (representing the individual) are subjected to all kinds of cruelty at the hands of the repressive hospital administration (representing the State). If they refuse to be controlled, the patients are given shock treatments, against their will, to bring them in line. If a patient still refuses to follow the repressive orders of the staff, the patient is lobotomized, as evidenced by McMurphy. I also there was a theme of the power women hold over men. Throughout the entire novel, the head nurse shows traits of forcefulness and power over the inmates, most of whom are terrified by her. I really like the way this novel was set it. Each chapter ended with a big victory for McMurphy and the patients. I also like how the story was told from an inmate’s point of view. I feel this made the story seem very real. It was also quite accurate since the author was influenced from his live experience in a mental institution. You knew the author knew what he was talking about which, to me, gave the story a lot more character. Bibliography: Word Count: 868
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