Intro
· Intro
The book One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, written by Ken Kesey in 1962, talks about the story of mental hospital after the arrival of a rather different and revolutionary patient. In a deeper sense, the book refers to the situation of the US society in the 1960’s, and to how ideas of individualism and freedom were being suppressed by the ones that were in positions of greater power.
· What is the importance of the passage
In the passage, it is possible to see many themes and symbols that are extremely relevant to the rest of the book. The most apparent themes from the passage are Gambling, Power Manipulation, and Be a man. All of those are strongly intertwined with each other and to certain motifs such as “Big and Small”, ”Machinery”, the glass window and the black boys.
· How is it going to be shown (Examples)
To demonstrate how the themes and motifs are exposed, we are going to use a series of quotations from the passage together with some other important ideas that are presented throughout the book.
Context
· Where in story
The fragment that is being analyzed happens right after McMurphy discovers that it is the nurse who controls how much time he will spend in the ward. With this discovery, McMurphy has his first shock, followed by a sudden change in the way he acted and behaved. McMurphy changes the way he thinks of everything in the hospital, and stops going against the nurse and trying to make the others stronger as he previously did. The passage shows the moment at which McMurphy comes back to his normal behavior. With his reaction, the nurse is left with no words, and all of the other patients start to see him as a martyr – the person who gave up on is own self-interests to help the others.
Pragraph 1 – Gambling
· Intro
The entire passage is strongly connected with the theme of Gambling. The theme appears mainly in McMurphy’s actions, which are described and implemented by the narrator, Chief Broomden. The idea of gambling is associated to the characteristics of McMurphy, who is a Risk-taker and that knows how to play with people to get anything he wants
· Examples
“His eyes were blue striped under those white eye-browns, and they shot back and forth just the way he watched cards turning up around a poker table”
“I eased up…beginning to think I’d been wrong”
· Explanation
The first quotation demonstrates how McMurphy was calculating his actions since the beginning, and it gives a clue to the whole idea of gambling playing with people.
The second quotation shows how McMurphy could even make the Chief think that nothing was going to happen. After pretending he had lost to the big nurse, he unexpectedly reacted and gained control of the whole situation again.
Paragraph 2 – Power Manipulation
· Intro
The idea of control is also extremely important to the passage. It appears in the way the nurse tries to control the patients (weaknesses), and in the battle that occurred between McMurphy and her.
· Examples
“It is entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline and order’
“This was supposed to be her final victory over him…here he comes and he is as big as a house”
· Explanation
The nurse gained power by making the people think that they needed help and that they were nothing without her. She tried to expose the patient’s weaknesses and to make them think that all of their problems were their own fault.
Secondly, the ‘battle’ shows the struggle for power that was occurring between the nurse and McMurphy.
Paragraph 3 – Be a man
· Intro
The principal strategy that the nurse uses to make the patients weaker is by attacking their masculinity.
· Examples
“We have decided that there would be a certain justice in taking away the privilege of the tub room that you men have been using for your card games during the day”
· Explanation
Smoking, Playing cards and freedom are all symbols of masculinity that are discussed in the story. By prohibiting the Acutes of using the tub room for their card games, the nurse was once more trying to ‘cut the men’s balls’ as a way to make them weaker.
Similarly to the rest of the story, McMurphy was trying to help the men and to stop the nurse of following her plans.
