One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." There is indeed much to be said for this statement, as it can be taken to mean many things. Initial impressions are that Hemingway is speaking of personal honour, and how no man can have his honour taken away from him forcefully. No matter how great the suffering, or how undignified the death, the very nature of honour is that it is something that can only be lost through fault of the man. Hence the quote, you can "destroy" a man, but you cannot defeat his spirit. The quote can also be taken to suggest martyrdom; while the man himself may be dead, his cause and influence lives on in the hearts and minds of others. Lastly, the quote could be taken as describing someone who was defiant and true until the end, never relenting, even in the face of death or worse. All of these things can be said, in varying degrees, about the character of McMurphy in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The initial impression the reader gets of McMurphy is that of a roguish, liberal, free spirited, street wise, non-conformist and rather extroverted man - we immediately feel he is going to be a thorn in Nurse Ratched's side. The Big Nurse is order and control, and in her
As McMurphy settles into the ward, things begin to change. His influence over the other patients is interesting, and rather heartwarming to behold. Emboldened by McMurphy's influence, they begin to assert themselves in certain ways, such as standing up to the Big Nurse, or even making demands. Of course, Cheswick had always done this, but it was never taken seriously by anyone, least of all Nurse Ratched. McMurphy encourages freedom of speech and thought, a concept Nurse Ratched perceives as unstable and dangerous elements to be introduced to a mental ward. As this continues, cracks in Nurse Ratched's iron-tight control over the patients begin to show. McMurphy seems to blissfully disgregard Nurse Ratched's position of authority, and being unacustomed to this, she gradually starts to show the strain in subtle, but no less noticeable ways. Hemingway's quote comes to mind when studying McMurphy's numerous "victories" over Nurse Ratched; although McMurphy often does not get his way with the nurse, he never shows defeat in any way, nor even acknlowledge that there was a contest of sorts. This is what distresses Nurse Ratched the most - she can never truly win over McMurphy, as nothing she does seems to so much as dent his spirit. Perhaps the most literal example of Hemingway's words in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is when McMurphy is lobotomized, following a physical assault on Nurse Ratched. While she did truly destroy him this time, he was never defeated. His legacy lived on in the lives he touched, and changed. Many of the Acutes left soon after the party or when McMurphy was lobotomized. McMurphy had given them what no doctor, nurse, or psychologist could - he had given them the taste of a normal life. He had made them feel like real people, not waste products
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Approximate Word count = 1198
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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