Novel Packet

Name: ______

Analysis Page

Major Themes / Explanation/Evidence
Sanity/Insanity
Social Pressure and Shame
The Combine: Machine, Nature, and Man
Institutional Control vs. Human Dignity
Emasculation and Sexuality
Major Symbols / Explanation/Evidence
Fog
The control panel
Laughter
Gambling

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

When you begin reading “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, you may become a bit perplexed bit the narrator’s perception of reality. Chief Broom is a mental patient at a state psychiatric hospital who suffers from schizophrenia. Ken Kesey’s choice of storyteller is at once functional and ingenious. (Be a bit wary of what this narrator tells you, as he is not the most reliable narrator you will come across.) Chief Broom does, however, possess a profound insight into the workings of the hospital and the patients and staff that work and live there. He doesn’t always speak in literal terms but it is his twisted and disturbing acuity that allows the reader to see the truth behind the words.

What is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a complex brain. The illness is characterized by a breakdown of thinking, emotions and a loss of contact with reality. It usually begins in late adolescence or early adulthood and occurs at equal rates across all races, cultures, classes and sexes. About 20 to 30 per cent of people with schizophrenia experience only a few brief episodes, for others it may become a chronic condition.

Symptoms of schizophrenia vary and may include:

Hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, blunted emotions, inappropriate responses, lack of insight.

Not all people affected by schizophrenia have all of these symptoms. And some symptoms appear only for short periods or ‘episodes.’

Schizophrenia does not indicate a split personality; in fact, there are many myths about schizophrenia. Sufferers are not intellectually disabled, and while aggression may occur among a minority of patients during an untreated acute episode, it is usually self-directed.

Current treatments for schizophrenia: medication, hospitalization, and rehabilitation

There are other forms of mental illness that will be recognizable in the characters in the novel.

They include:

Anxiety disorders: describe a number of emotional states, each characterized by high arousal levels, discomfort and the fear of sudden, uncontrollable panic attacks. Usually there is no real reason for the anxiety and fear of panic. These conditions are common but can be eased with medication and therapy.

Bipolar disorder: A person with bipolar disorder experiences alternating episodes of mania and depression. The exact cause is unknown, but a genetic predisposition has been clearly established.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of a group of psychiatric conditions known as 'personality disorders'. People with BPD have difficulty relating to other people. With treatment, the symptoms of BPD can be managed, reduced or even eliminated.

Obsessive Compulsive disorder: OCD can have a profound effect on a person's life. Obsessions and compulsions are distressing, exhausting and take up a lot of time. They cause the affected person to become anxious and depressed.

Obsessions: (recurring unwanted thoughts and images that intrude on the person's mind) Obsessions like these can occupy the person's mind for many hours a day. Compulsions: (repetitive behavioural and mental rituals).

The Patients in the hospital are divided into two categories: the Acutes (patients having the possibility of being cured) and the chronics (patients who are in the hospital for life).

THE ACUTES

(The Acutes) /

Diagnosis

/

Role in the novel

Randal P. McMurphy

Harding

Billy Bibbit

Cheswick

Sorenson

Selfet

Frederickson

Martini

Scanlon

THE CHRONICS

Diagnosis / Role in the novel
Chief Broom
Bancini
Old Blastic
Ellis
Col Matterson
Ruckly

OTHERS CAST MEMBERS

Character / Significance
BIG NURSE
AIDES
MR. TURKLE
MARY LOUISE BROMDEN
Candy Starr
PUBLIC RELATIONS MAN
DR. SPIVEY

Part One

Chapters 1-4 Questions

1. Who is the narrator? How does he get his name?

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2. What does the narrator believe the Black aides are talking about? Why does he believe they are filled with hate? Explain this in the socio-cultural –context of the novel.

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3. What episode does the narrator suffer that suggests that he is genuinely psychologically disturbed? What does this episode infer about Nurse Ratched? How does her name show her character?

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4. Describe Nurse Ratched’s physical appearance as chief Broom sees her.

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5. What do the aides do with Chief’s breakfast? What does this say about the type of care that facility offers?

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6. Sum up the Chief's history. How did he become deaf and dumb? What happened to him in the war?

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7. What does the Public Relations man say to visitors that the notices? How important is this to the story?

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8. What disturbing implication does the Chief make about what happens when the aides get a new patient?

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9. What is unusual about McMurphy? His voice and his laughter affects the ward, explain. Hands are an important symbol in the novel. How are McMurphy and Harding’s hands different?

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10. Why is McMurphy in the hospital?

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11. Describe the ward prior to McMurphy’s arrival. How does McMurphy upset the ward? How is he able to establish control among the patients?

12. What procedures are used by the hospital to transform Acutes to Chronics? How has Nurse Ratched set the ward up as an anti-cure?

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13. What happens during the morning? (Generally) How does that make the inmates less than men? What does the word docile mean? Why does Ratched want “docile” men?

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14. What is a “manipulator”? Why doe s Nurse Ratched smile to herself thinking about Mr. Taber?

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16. What connection does the Mill have with the Ward?

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Chapters 5-8

1. The fog is a manifestation that originates in the mind of Chief Broom. Explain the fog., Where does it have its origins? Why does the Chief need it? Are there any patients totally lost in the fog? ______

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2. What are the (hypothetical) good intentions of the meeting? What is the ugly reality? How does Harding get hurt?

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3. What does Nurse Ratched do to try and intimidate McMurphy? How is he supposed to feel when she says that? How does he feel? How does McMurphy turn the tables on her?

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4. How does Ken Kesey explore issue of sexuality? How does McMurphy feel about his own sexuality?

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5. What is the theory behind the Therapeutic Community? What event in the Chief’s memory shows how the Nurse has perverted this theory? Why does the Chief believe the men do this?

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6. Provide a dictionary definition for emasculation. Who does this term accurately describe?

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7. What is a pecking party? How are the meetings like "a bunch of chickens at a pecking' party"?

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8. What is Harding’s rabbit and wolf analogy?

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9. What bet does McMurphy make with the others? In reasoning his bet, what does McMurphy admit?

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10. What is the significant about Chief’s Santa Clause story at the very beginning of the chapter?

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11. What happens between McMurphy and Nurse Pilbow? Explain the irony in this situation.

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12. There is heavy symbolism at the end of this section. Consider the following:

The Nurse’s Birthmark
The Nurse’s Crucifix
McMurphy’s Tattoos
The Co-ed

13. What does McMurphy discover about the Chief? How does this comment on perception in the story?

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14. What does The Chief believe about the pills the aides give to him before bed time?

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15. Describe what the chief sees at night. Explain this in terms of an analogy.

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16. The events that occur at night , are they true, "even if it never happened?"

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17. According to his vision, what happens at the end of your time on the ward? What role does the Public relations man have in all of this?

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Let Me Hear Our Song
Hear the laughter
of the universe
soar into the smile
of playful shooting stars
Hear the laughter
of crisp Spring leaves
tasting the warmth
of blossom time
Hear the first smile
of a baby’s first breath...
swim in the perfume
of a new mother's tears of joy
/ Let me hear the silence
of love’s piercing peace
as the sparkle of glittering rain
laughs in the smiling dark
In your eyes the colors of laughter
...the blushes of our rainbow
are brush strokes
in the mating of our minds
As the chatter of morning birds
is a smile for nature’s new day,
the harmony of our loving hearts
is a song that for all eternity will play

Chapters 8-11

1. What does Mack do early in the morning? How does he attract attention? How does he win his bet?

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2. What Does Ratched assume about how the men feel about their sexuality? How does this bet show this?

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3. How did Mack manipulate the doctor? Why does the Doctor fall for it? How is the Doctor manipulated by Ratched?

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4. Does Kesey come out and tell you who is speaking through the Monopoly game? Explain. How is the Monopoly game better therapy than the talks?

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5. What gets McMurphy really upset? Why didn’t the men do anything? Where else in society do we see activity like this?

______6.What does Mack teach them in the Tub room? Does it work? What does he mean when he states “I tried, though.” Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much didn’t I?”

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7. One critic has said that the men “hate” McMurphy. Why might this event show this? What does McMurphy force them to do?

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8. Explain the symbolic significance of Old Rawler’s death.

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9. What will happen if the Chief lost himself in the fog? How does McMurphy bring the Chief back? What unusual thing happens to the Chief when Mac brings him back?

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10. What important event does Ratched miss in the voting? What trick does she pull? What do nurses Ratched’s actions here illustrate to the men?

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11. What insight does chapter fourteen provide with regards to Broom’s condition?

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12. What happens to Nurse Ratched when the men stage the World Series Rebellion? (Explain it in the metaphorical terms that the chief uses)

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11.  McMurphy has accomplished a tw0-fold victory. Explain?”

PART 2

Chapters 16-19

1. In Part two how have things changed?

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2. Chief Broom is beginning to undergo a metamorphosis, but he is still very fearful. What is he afraid of? How does he trick the aide?

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3. How much validity do you put in the doctors’ diagnoses of McMurphy? How do they reflect upon psychology as a science?

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4. Why does Nurse Ratched totally discredit the Doctor’s final diagnoses, what do her action here reveal about her true nature? ______

5. How does Nurse Ratched illustrate her influence and power great power in the staff meeting? ______

6. How does McMurphy’s behaviour positively affect the Chief’s mental illness?

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7. Chief experiences a breakthrough when he wakes up one evening and looks out the window. Explain. What is significant about the Canada geese? What happens to the dog, and how is this significant? ______

8. What symbolic meaning does the Chief attribute to the nurse with the birthmark on her chest? How does this comment on the conflict between society and nature?

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9. What reason does Nurse Ratched offer for locking the dorm on the weekend? What is McMurphy’s comment on this so called therapeutic rationale?

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10. What does Cheswick complain about during the group meeting? How is this comment on her continued use of power? How does Ratched defend her practice? Do you think at this point the men buy what she is selling?

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11. Explain the irony associated with the life guard at the hospital pool? How did the life guard end up at the hospital? Why is he still there? What comment is Kesey making regarding the validity of institutionalization?

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12. What sobering, even frightening, fact does McMurphy learn? How does he adjust his behaviour? How do the men on the ward react to his sudden transformation?

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13. What happens to Cheswick? Who is responsible?

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14. Why causes Selfet to have an epileptic seizure? How does Nurse Ratched use this incident to her advantage?

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15. Think about the comment Scanlon makes at the end of this section “Hell of a life, dammed if you do, dammed in you don’t. How does this comment relate to McMurphy?

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PART 2

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST

Part Two

Chapters 20-23

1. Chapter 20 is only a paragraph long. What is the essence of this short chapter?

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1. How does the design of the library, mimic and mock the function of the hospital?

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2. How is Vera Harding like Nurse Ratched? How is she different?

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3. What does Vera confirm about her husband’s supposed “illness”? Why is Harding voluntarily in this hospital to treat this perceived illness?

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4. When Vera leaves, why does McMurphy fail to emotionally support Harding?

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5. What was hydrotherapy? Does it seem to have had the ability to work, or did it appear to just be a fancy method of appearing to address mental illness? In the Chief’s opinion, who benefited the most from it?

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6. In the earlier Monopoly game, McMurphy most patiently endures Martini’s hallucinations and keeps him in the game. In what way does McMurphy act differently toward Martini at the end of this chapter, and why?

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7. What irony does Sefelt observe about the use of EST? What is the origin of EST, as Harding explains it, and why is this also ironic? What does McMurphy compare it to?

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8. What is a “Frontal-lobe castration”? Why does he refer to the procedure in this way?

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9. What privilege does Nurse Ratched revoke? Why does she do it? Is this justified?