One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 12th grade February 2008

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Cuckoo's Nest In this book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kessey, the characters had many conflicts with each other and within themselves. Three of those characters are Nurse Ratched, Chief Bromden, and McMurphy. Each of these characters, in this story, either became winners or losers at the out come of the conflicts they had. The winners overcame a great evil, Nurse Ratched and the system she represented. The losers became over whelmed by this same system.

Chief Bromden has been in the institution the longest out of the patients there. While in the mental hospital he pretends that he is a deaf mute so everyone lets his or her guard down while he is around. One example of this is on page 11 when Nurse Ratched sees him sweeping the floor in the hall smile because she believes he can't tell anyone about it. This is a little victory for him because he has taken advantage of her and that is not easily done.

Another victory for the chief is at the very end of the story on page 271 he throws the control panel through the window and escapes and this is an example of him overcoming the system.

Nurse Ratched was the big loser in the story. She was the only person who had been there longer than the chief. Although, it seemed that she had the upper hand throughout the story her thunder was weakening. An example of this takes place on page 108 when she forbids the patients to watch the World Series because it was on during their working hours, but McMurphy rounded up the patients and sat them in front of a blank TV screen while the game was on so even though they weren't watching the game they...