One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nes
Analysis of ?One Flew Over the Cuckoo?s Nest? Every sixty minutes, when the clock strikes the hour, the cuckoo bird of a cuckoo clock will come out of its hiding place and herald the time with it?s chirping of ?cuckoo! cuckoo!? In the film, Nurse Ratched and her assistant, like clockwork, call the patients to form a line and receive their medication. Everything has to follow a certain order for Nurse Ratched and those who don?t conform are dealt with severely. But the poor treatment of mental patients is not the message that Milo? Forman wishes to convey in the film. It is that our rigid and conformist society punishes and mistreats those who go against the system. Randall McMurphy, as played by Jack Nicholson, is the ultimate non-conformist, having been sent to prison for crimes such as rape. When he arrives at the mental institution, he turns Nurse Ratched?s organized, predictable system on its head by gambling, proposing to watch the World Series on television, and even taking the patients on an impromptu, and unauthorized fishing trip. All of this, of course, annoys and disturbs Nurse Ratched to no end. Always dressed in pristine whites, not a hair out of place and her eyebrows perfectly plucked, her rigid cont
Big Chief, who was drawn out of his silence by McMurphy, is moved to euthanize McMurphy. By keeping most of the film within the walls of the mental institution, he reinforces the caged-bird feeling that most of the patients have. rol and unwillingness to be flexible to the needs and desires of the patients, represent the majority of society who is not willing to accept radical changes and ostracizes all those who try to introduce them. The squirrel on the barbed wire is symbolic of this sub-theme. After this, Big Chief proceeds to wrench the hydrotherapy console from the floor, break the glass window and escape, something McMurphy attempted to do before but couldn?t. He constantly keeps you guessing as to whether McMurphy is really insane or not. By placing the squirrel on the fence, the movie challenges us to examine just where the line between sanity and insanity is drawn. As punishment for his role in the fracture of the order of Nurse Ratched?s domain, represented by the stained glass of the nurse?s station and the dirtied white cap of Nurse Ratched, McMurphy is lobotomized and his spirit is quelled. The quiet that haunts most of the screen time somehow conveys the sanitized atmosphere that the patients live in. The film is rife with symbolism, and director Forman keeps the atmosphere consistent. Big Chief represents all those who see the injustices and mistreatment in society but say nothing because they don?t want to get involved. A third faction of society is represented in the character of Big Chief, a seemingly deaf-mute Indian giant. After all the commotion of the escape attempt, Billy blames McMurphy for what happened, then subsequently kills himself because of Nurse Ratched?s threats to tell his mother. For him, McMurphy no longer had any spirit and dignity, and it was better for him to die than to live his life as a vegetable.
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Acceptance Essays
