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...