Conflicts_in_Society

Conflicts in society Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental hospital. The main character, or is Randle P. McMurphy, is a convicted criminal and gambler who pretends insanity to get out of a prisoners work he is a boisterous man with much self-confidence and a very friendly personality. He claims that he’s only at the hospital to enjoy an easier life compared to the life he was living at a state farm. McMurphy quickly familiarizes himself with the people surrounding him and tells stories to all of the patients. His humorous personality enlightens the patients and the ward in general. However, Nurse Ratched doesn’t like this change because she feels McMurphy is a manipulator. Her controlling personality clashes with his easy going personality and as expected from anyone in power she tries to enforce rules, while he is ready to rebel against them. The villain in the novel is Nurse Ratched or “The Big Nurse” is a woman who believes in order at all times. She is viewed as the hospitals most powerful person, also the least liked by the patients. She is in charge of running the mental ward. The novel is narrated by a patient of the hospital, a Native American Indian named Chief Bromden. Chief Bromden has been a patient at the hospital longer than any of the others, and is paranoid, who is posing as a deaf mute. The Chief often drifts in and out between reality and his psychosis. The conflict in the novel is between McMurphy and The Big Nurse which turns into a battle of disproportion because at some points in the novel mcmurphy seems to gain more power than The Big Nurse and sometimes loses it. The center of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is this battle between the two, which the author uses to represent many of our cultures most influential stories. Some people may argue that the people of the mental hospital were better off without McMurphy because their lives were “normal” and routine. Their daily routine guided them through a series of happenings, which were both comfortable and tolerable to them, even though as a result of this they would remain subject to the manipulation from Nurse Ratchet. These people would say that the “oppressive society” that they lived in may not suit everyone but certainly suited them. But we see in the novel as well in a society close to the time period when the novel was written that the people revolted against conformity. The most powerful theme in this novel is influence and its pressure on today's society. In the novel influence or conformity is represented as a machine, or in Chief Bromden's mind a combine. To the Chief, the combine depicts the influential society of America, this is evident in one particular paragraph when Bromden observes a dog sniffing around the building and a flock of geese flying overhead. “I watched the dog and the car making for the same spot of pavement.” This is symbolic of a larger scale power conflicts in society because this excerpt not only explains the Chiefs outlook on society as a machine but also his outlook and how society treats a person who is unable to conform to society, or more importantly one who is unable to cope with the inability to conform to society. An example of a conflict which was around this time period was the early 1950's America was entered in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The situation in the United States was very hostile and many citizens did not approve of military and political decisions made by our nation leaders. One of these citizens was Jack Kerouac. Kerouac became the leader of the Beat Movement. Kerouac led many young Americans to rebel against conformity in the 1950's.McMurphy is the main character in the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and his actions parallel those of Kerouac's. Both men lead rebellions against conformity. their attitudes inspired other people and gave them the strength that they needed to face the reality of their lives. In Conclusion, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an inspiring novel of individualism that at tells the story of a hospital ward, but in other portrays society’s way of dealing with the unconformable things