One Flew over the Cookoo's Nest

“One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest”

In literature, the dynamic and enigmatic nature of relationships is a driving force for tension, complexity and reader engagement.

In the world of literature, the dynamic and enigmatic nature of relationships is a major driving force for the tension within the novel/movie also the complexity and reader engagement. Conflict and tension is the essence of drama, novels and movies rely heavily on the dynamic and enigmatic nature of the characters relationships to draw audiences to the characters and their stories, resulting in the readers being drawn to continue reading or watching the story.

By utilizing examples from Ken Kesy’s One Flew Over the Cuckoos’s Nest and selected poems by Robert Frost Fire and Ice, it will be argued that the use of tension, and complexity is the driving force for reader engagement.

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is about a mixture of mental patients, all male, that are divided into Acutes, who can be cured, Chronics, and who cannot be cured. Nurse Ratched, former armies nurse that runs the ward with a mechanical precision. Nurse Ratched conducts daily group meetings where she encourages all the Acutes to attack one another in their most vulnerable places, humiliating them into submission. Wretchedly, when and if a patient rebels they are sent straight to receive an electric shock treatment, occasionally a lobotomy.

Characters in this novel are all so diverse in character, Chief Brodem, the half-Indian narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a patient that has been in the Oregon psychiatric hospital for ten years. His paranoia is evident from the first lines of the book, and he suffers from hallucinations and delusions. Bromden’s worldview is dominated by his fear of what he calls the Combine, a huge conglomeration that controls society and forces people into conformity. Bromden pretends to be deaf and dumb and tries to go unnoticed, even though he is six feet seven inches tall.

When Randle McMurphy arrives as a transfer from Pendleton Work Farm, Chief Brodem senses that there is something unusual about this character. McMurphy prances into the ward and presents himself to the other patients as a gambling man with a keenness for women and playing cards.  After McMurphy’s first group meeting, Murphy already has a judgment of Nurse Ratched; he tells the other patients that she is a “Ball Cutter”. The other patients believe that there is no defying her, as they see her as the most powerful force. This then leads McMurphy to create a bet that he can make Ratched loose her poise and temper within a week, McMurphy makes it his mission to purposely provoke Ratched to prove himself to the rest of the ward.

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