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Friday, 17 February 2012

One Flew Over The Cukoo's #1

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
My favorite character is Randle Patrick McMurphy .Randle is an attention seeker. He won’t settle for simply playing monopoly and reading magazines every day in the asylum. Instead he convinces the men to make bets , gamble, and challenge the authority of the Nurse. From the very beginning Randle does not like the Nurse. At every opportunity that presents it’s self Randle is rebelling against her and trying to get under her skin. The conflict in the novel revolves around himself and Nurse Ratched. Randle is a lover of women , a gambler and despite his flaws he is a loveable character and becomes very much a father figure to the other men. One of the men that look up to Randle and view him as a father figure is the Chief.
The Chief Bromden often says that Randle in many ways reminds him of his father. Randle is the first person that Chief breaks his vow of silence too. Chief was considered to be deaf and dumb by all of the staff and other patients. Little did they know that Chief was neither of the two. Chief was very observant and watched, and listened to everything that went on around him in the asylum. Chief also suffered from frequent hallucinations in which he was trapped in a dense fog that was triggered by the combine. It was from Randle that Chief regained his identity.
One of the other characters in the novel, one that runs the asylum with an iron first and causes much grief for Randle Is the Nurse Ratched. The Nurse is a symbol of power that is similar to the power that stripped the Chief’s father of his home. According to the Chief the Nurse keeps the machine going. The Nurse has a rather steel- like but also calm and somewhat tense appearance. The Nurse’s facial expression rarely changes and if it does it just changes enough for the Chief to notice. The Nurse losing her composure is very rare. It is the Nurse that shames poor Billy Bibbit into committing suicide by cutting his own throat and them puts the blame on Randle. In his rage over Billy’s suicide Randle tries to kill the Nurse by strangling her. This lead to the Nurse having Raddle lobotomized which lead to his death.
Each of these characters are vital in the novel. It is the conflict between Raddle and Nurse Ratched that creates the story , and the narration of the Chief which allow’s us to see the transformation of the protagonist.


Perhaps one of the most important elements of a novel is the characters. In the case of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest there characters were my favorite part. The characters were what made the n novel so interesting . Each of them with their individual personalities and reason’s for being in the asylum. Or the reason’s they believe they are in the asylum because as we all know Nurse Ratched manipulates and shames the men into believing that they need to be in the institution.

2 comments:

  1. I completely agree! The characters in this novel were great, and McMurphy actually reminded me of a Newfoundlander. Great post!

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  2. I agree with you as well! All the characters have a quality about them that makes them easy to like! I love how McMurphy constantly tried to get under nurse Ratched's skin! It makes reading the book that much more enjoyable!

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