Part III: McMurphy and his twelve disciples

During Part III, you really see how McMurphy is working his magic with all the patients to improve their mental state and bring them back to their state of mind of being men instead scared mental patients. He does this in several ways throughout part III starting off with Bromden. First when the night worker comes in and takes all of Bromden’s chewing gum, McMurphy offers his own to him showing him the friendship that he is worth, and in return Bromden speaks and thanks him, showing that he is regaining some kind of security knowing he can trust McMurphy with his secret. You also find out that Bromden has more in common with McMurphy then we thought because he too pretended to be deaf and dumb one summer so he could listen to everyone’s secrets and cause havoc. McMurphy also shows Bromden he can still be a man when he talks to him about the boat trip and tells him that it is a prostitute taking them and not his aunt. This in return causes Bromden to get an erection which symbolizes Bromden’s own self-knowledge of knowing that he can be the man he use to be again with the help of McMurphy as his friend.
McMurphy also helps out the rest of the patients gain a little more self awareness when he takes them out on the boating trip. McMurphy brings back the feeling of sexual drive to the men by presenting them with Candy Starr who is a beautiful woman, and the men experience the feeling of their old sexual drive again without having to feel ashamed like Nurse Ratched has them feel. In McMurphy’s opinion, this is the first step to helping the men regain their confidence and manhood in order for them to regain their good mental health they once had before.
Another thing that McMurphy shows the men is that they can use their “insanity” to their advantage instead of letting people put them down and scare them. When they go to the gas station and the attendant starts to disrespect them McMurphy shows them that they can use being what is thought to be crazy to help show that they are men and they aren’t scared. He teaches them that they can cope with the outside world in a different way other then conformity.
The last situation that happens that really helps the McMurphy change the way these men think is when McMurphy doesn’t help them when they’re out at sea. Like Christ did with his twelve disciples, he shows them that they don’t need him and that they are men and they can handle themselves. And this really shows a great improvement to their mental health because they actually have a difference in confidence in themselves when they get to shore and the seamen compliment them on their large catches.

In this part you see McMurphy is becoming the men's very own savior and is taking the men under his wings and showing them how to fly... But how long can he carry these men until he falls under the pressure of his own mental health?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest : Part 2

During Part II of “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, you find out a lot about the characters in the book. McMurphy’s presence in the ward stirs up some tension with Ms. Ratched, who refuses to fall to defeat even when they offer to send him to the chronic level of the ward. She sees this as letting him win because then that will show that she couldn’t beat him. But shortly after McMurphy’s uproar, he finds out that the only way he can get out of the ward is by Ms. Ratched signing papers saying he is ready to, which totally changes his attitude. When this happens, you learn about and see a totally different side of McMurphy. He went from being this brave man who doesn’t take crap from anyone, to a scared little boy who is afraid to disobey. The total power shifts back to Ms. Ratched in Part two.
McMurphy isn’t the only character you learn more about in this part. You learn a lot about all of the characters throughout part II. One big thing you learn about all of them is that almost every acute patient is at the ward by self admission, meaning they could leave any time they wanted to. When I read this I found that it shined a lot of light on what all the acutes have in common and why they all stay in the ward: fear is their common enemy. Fear is what brought them their, what is bonding them to each other, and what is keeping them from leaving the ward. To me the book made me look at the ward from being a crazy person’s home, to just a shield for people who are afraid to face their fears. Now I don’t believe any of the characters of this book are crazy at all. They are all just afraid to face life in itself and they need someone like McMurphy to help and guide them back to their lives. I think McMurphy also realizes this when he sees Billy Bibbit break down about not being able to leave, because right after that the power shifts again. McMurphy slams his fist through the glass window and takes his cigarettes from Ms. Ratched while also taking his power back from her. Someone needs to be the leader and McMurphy sees this and takes the job.


And last I would just like to add that at first I was very confused as to why Harding wife had come to visit. I didn’t really understand the whole point of that scene. But then after rereading in it I realized it brings some insight on why Harding has put himself into the ward in the first place. When his wife talks about his friends with “limp-wrists” this is implying that his friends are gay, which I think also implies that Harding himself might be gay, opening another political issue into the book.

The Lost Cuckoo's Nest

When I was trying to think about what to write for my first blog, I was having a hard time thinking of what to write about. So, in order to get an idea of what to write, I decided to look at what other people blogged about. I came across Erica’s blog and found her comparison of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and the hit show “Lost”, a great idea. It shows how the ideas of this book are timeless and still relate to today. So I am also going to write about that comparison.

“Lost” is a TV show about two groups of people stuck on an island that holds many secrets and powers. The powers are beyond the control of the one group of people who crashed on the island, and in almost all control by the the other group of people who we would call “the others”. This situation in the show can very much is related to the book “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” because the hospital they are living in also holds many secrets and powers.
With secrets, you find out that Nurse Ratched knows anything and everything about each patient. Also, within the whole ward there are secrets talked about at each meeting that the ward holds within its self. Just like in “Lost” there are secrets about everything that the island holds, the same thing is true with the Ward.

The Ward also has powers just like the island in “Lost” does, although in a different kind of way. In “Lost” the island has the power to heal. In “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” the Ward also “heals” people or at least what they call healing. They use the power of the Shock Room and Lobotomy in order to “cure” people of their craziness.

There are also similarities between the people in both the book and the show. In the show “Lost” you have the group of bad people called “The Others” and the group of good people who just happen to crash on the island. In the book, you have the group of bad people who would be all the workers who torture the patients, and the group of good people, the patients, who happen to be put in the Ward somehow. Some voluntarily put themselves in the Ward, just like in “Lost” how some people voluntarily went back to the island, and some didn’t have a choice in the matter. Also in “Lost” there is the leader of the bad people, Ben, and what you would call the leader of the good group, Jack. This is also similar to the book because Nurse Ratched is the leader of the workers or the bad group, and McMurphy is the leader of the patients or the good group in the ward.

Another two characters that are similar in both the book and the show are Chief Bromden and the character Sun in “Lost”. In the book Chief Bromden pretends to be deaf and stupid so he can hear all the secrets throughout the Ward without anyone knowing that he knows. In the show “Lost” Sun does something similar by pretending she doesn’t speak English. She is one of the more important characters in the first season because she finds out things that no one else knows that she knows.

As you can see if you think about it, this book in many ways can still relate to entertainment and things going on today. As I read on I hope to find more ways to show how this book is timeless.