Now that people seem to have finished reading I have some other points I want to address/clarify why I believe. Hopefully will get it done and posted by the end of Saturday.
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Now that people seem to have finished reading I have some other points I want to address/clarify why I believe. Hopefully will get it done and posted by the end of Saturday.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I'm about halfway through the book, I think it's a good read. Although I don't care much for the parts where Bromden is into his hallucinations.
Describing things in terms of machinery seems to be in keeping with how the patients and even the hospital staff are being made to function like machines, like clockwork.
I was still a child when the movie came out, I went to watch it with my parents. I hardly remember it; and I don't think I even understood much of the story at that time.
Referencing the movie, many commentators on Jack Nicholson's role have said that he has to have a little crazy in him to play it so well. This seems to have helped him in many other films. In this particular rendition of the book, he injects an element of sane and crazy that is the catalyst for all the other actors to play off of. This is the man's genious...that he can employ his personal exteme to create an atmosphere at once sane and insane. When he intoduces all the patients on the fishing boat as doctors, it is believeable and to the authority...probable. quasimodo1
Nicholson is good in the film (when is he not) The main problem with the film (& the fishing scene in particular) is that is completely different from the book.
Well I started reading this a few days ago, but I don't want to read too many of the posts here in case something gets spoiled! :x!! I'm loving it so far.
I love how reality is spun and turned into this other reality. Love ittt. (:
What I'm curious about is...do you think Kesey is being racist and misogynist in this novel, and why? For all I love Ken Kesey, these two elements in this novel trouble me the most.
Quote:
Originally Posted by motherhubbard
My take on Nurse Ratched is that she equates her job to being able to wield power over her patients (and even over her colleagues). Her aim in executing her duties is to establish order, conformity, discipline, control. There is no humane side to her being a nurse.
I don’t think that Kesey was being raciest or misogynic at all. I think that the story was set in a time when that was the way things were. I don’t think white people thought twice about calling black people darkie or Sam. Women, especially women with authority were b*****s and should go home to their true calling and purpose in life and stop trying to wear the pants. McMurphy was a poorly educated, crude, base, alpha male of that time. Additionally, I think that at the time the Irish still harbored a greater prejudice against blacks left over from the days that black slaves were held at a higher value than migrant Irish workers. Had McMurphy been a gentlemen the story wouldn’t have been the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
But, not only does McMurphy utter racist and misogynist remarks, but the author describes the "black boys" in a manner that seem racist. It is interesting that Kesey uses a Native American as the narrator and integrates racial overtones (regarding Blacks). It is simply excusable to say that it is a sign of the times that the "black boys" are described in the way that they are? And too, is it just a sign of the times that the women portrayed in Cuckoo's Nest are either "ball-breaking" women or prostitutes? Or, do these sentiments echo the author's beliefs?Quote:
Originally Posted by motherhubbard
Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
In Part 3, Chief Bromden describes McMurphy as follows:
He'd shown us what a little bravado and courage could accomplish, and we thought he'd taught us how to use it. All the way to the coast we had fun pretending to be brave. When people at a stop light would stare at us and our green uniforms we'd do just like he did, sit up straight and strong and tough-looking and put a big grin on our face and stare straight back at them...
McMurphy may not be considered a hero by people like Nurse Ratched but he definitely sways a positive and extraordinary influence on Chief Bromden and the other patients. One commendable trait that struck me right away with regards McMurphy is his ability to laugh; and he is quite concerned that his mates do not have - or have lost - this gift, he tries to resurrect this valuable faculty that has been extinguished in them.
Good point! Observing who laughs, and how definitely has some symbolism. McMurphy is not one who allows himself to suppress emotions.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouquin
Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
Bromden describes the boys with racist terms, and the women as ball-breakers. I think that it was typical to talk that way at the time. I know people who still watch Archie Bunker or that still use terms like ‘little colored boy’ thinking it is polite. It’s easy to think that white people are prejudice against Natives, or blacks or anyone who is not white, but there was also racial tension between Irish and blacks and Natives and blacks, and Natives and Irish, and Hispanics and everyone, too. I hate to say that it was the author’s beliefs although it could have been. Most people of that generation still harbor some kind of idea that white people are somehow genetically superior in someway.
Also, not every woman was portrayed so negatively. The nurse in disturbed was very nice, the nurse with the birthmark was troubled, but not a ball-buster. And remember that the black boys that made the cut and met the nurses standards were much worse that the others.
WARNING: SPOILERS
Ok, finally got some time to address these points correctly & have pulled my copy out of the box it has been in for the last 8yrs.
An example of what I am referring to about the patients being better than people on the outside can be seen near the beginning of the book when Chief is talking about Ruckly. The Hospital considers him to be a failure because instead of fixing him has instead been turned into a chronic due to mistakes in treatment. Kesey (through the chief) suggests that he is better in his altered state than if the treatment had worked and turned him into "the sweetest, nicest, best-behaved thing you ever saw.... a hat pulled low over the face of a sleep-walker wandering around in a happy dream." Instead of how he is currently "sitting there fumbling and drooling over his picture"Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
Yes the patients have an issue with assertiveness, but this is not the only issue they have and they were not made like that by the nurse. They had been like that previously on the outside as well. McMurphy believes what would really help them would (to put not too fine a point on it) be a good kick up the backside. He doesnt recognise the underlying issues however and this is partly to blame also for Bibbits commiting suicide. McMurphy doesnt realise Bibbit's issues with emotional attachment (eg his claims of love for the hooker who is sleeping with him because McMurphy pays him to) and Bibbit is not capable of dealing with the thoughts and emotions rationally, it is all a case of too much too soonQuote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
Kesey throughout the novel alludes to the fact that you should stand up to authority at all times however, context is really unimportant to a lot of the happenings. At what point does McMurphy become a hero? Is he always one, midway through or only at the end when he attacks the nurse after Billy commits suicide (something he must also accept some responsibility for.Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
I have addresssed some of this in an earlier part of the post, but another thought I have is how concerned is he really about the others? Does he do anything for the patients that he does not gain from in some way with respect to making them laugh? If he was more benevolent I would not have an issue but everything is for his gainQuote:
Originally Posted by bouquin
Surely there are times tho' when we should suppress our emotions?Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
All of this may be true, however, one cannot discuss this episode without emphasizing that the nurse is ultimately the reason why Bibbit commits suicide. It is the nurse who makes Bibbit ashamed of himself and she threatens to tell his mother about him sleeping with the hooker. The nurse and Bibbit's mother both symbolize controlling, threatening, fear invoking women. Who is to say that Bibbit didn't have a genuine good time with the hooker? Perhaps it was the only real enjoyable experiences he ever had with a woman. Nurse Ratched was there to spoil it. And, she used something pleasurable to him against him. She made him commit suicide out of fear for facing his mother about his sexual experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
I think Kesey's main statement is that mental patients are perhaps better off without any treatment at all, or that these particular patients are worse off after being treated by the institution. For example, is McMurphy better off or worse off after his lobotomy?Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
My question is did McMurphy's behavior warrant such drastic intervention. After he attacks an aide, they give him shock therapy three times in the span of one week. He assaults Big Nurse, they remove the frontal lobe of his brain! I wonder if instances like these used to really happen in actual mental institutions.
Whilst it is true that the Nurse acts terribly, I do not feel this excuses McMurphy actions or that we should forget about them and focus solely on the Nurse. McMUrphy must take his share of the blame as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
In the example I pointed out however, it is fairly explicit that Ruckly is far better of as a result of the treatment failing and turning him into a fumbling, dribbling wreck who will be confined to the institution for the rest of his life, than if it had succeeded and he had been released to get on with the rest of his lifeQuote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
I think that similar treatments (though exaggerated by Kesey) did used to happen in facilities like the one in the story.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouquin
Regarding whether McMurphy warranted such intervention. No, he didnt. However it should be remembered that he recieved it for a lot more than just the attack on the aids & Nurse. He had tricked the institution into believing he was a violent sociopath in order to get out of having to be on the work farm because he wanted an easy life, and after arriving at the hospital did everything he could to make himself a pain in the neck of the staff. Because of his history of violence/troublemaking he was always going to be on a shorter leash than other inmates
What did McMurphy gain after he attacked Washington the aide (in trying to shield George from the "cautionary cleansing")?Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
What did McMurphy gain when he attacked Big Nurse in outrage for Bibbit's death?
Firstly, I don't remember reading about McMurphy paying Bibbit to sleep with Candy the hooker.Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
Secondly, Bibbit did not commit suicide as a consequence of any emotional attachment he may have started to nurture towards Candy. The poor fellow committed suicide because he had an abnormal emotional rapport with his mother and he could not face up to the consequence of that. I believe that if Big Nurse had not said that she would tell Bibbit's mom - any other punishment but that - he would not have killed himself.
Thirdly, I would not consider Bibbit's losing his virginity at age 31 as a "case of too much too soon."
I completely agree with you. I think your first point may have been a typo on the original poster's end. Further, the diagnosis of Bibbit having an "emotional attachment" issue is not discussed within the book. This is purely the original poster's diagnosis; one that I disagree with.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouquin
I think that can lead to an interesting discussion of the anti-hero...Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
Or possibly that she equates " order, conformity, discipline, control" with humaneness?? There is a long tradition in post WWII America elevating the techincal over and above the natural. It is still alive and well in America- the sense that that which can be measured and dispensed and regulated is preferred above non-quantatative, natural functions with far broader terms of normalacy- or even tolerance for that which is outside the norm.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouquin
I think this is particularly true in regards to present day mental health, poignantly demonstrated in how many children are on medication for ADD, how many people are on medication for depression, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by _Shannon_
Well yes, it could very well be that Big Nurse, from her own point of view, equates rigid conformity and control with humaneness. We never get to hear her side, though. In the story she comes across as a manipulative, unfeeling and unsympathetic character without any sense of benevolence.
Sometimes I laugh, but I mostly roll my eyes. It's just a poor narrative. Might have been better using third-person limited. I thought the best part, prose wise, was the incident between Mcmurphy and the young nurse: when she drops the pills.
Something that I find interesting about the history of this novel is that it is just that, Kesey's first novel, and that he wrote it largely while experimenting with LSD in a controlled environment, and that many of the episodes were inspired by his experience of actually working in a mental hospital.
It seems like he wrote after the trip, rather than on it; the latter would have been a better read.Quote:
Originally Posted by genoveva
I pushed myself and finished the damned thing.
The only thing I took from this was a possible reference used in the 1996 film 12 monkeys- I might be reaching.
Some might say Billy is the Judas to Mcmurphy's Christ, but Judas' betrayal was not motivated by cowardice. But this is to be an allusion and not a retelling of the Gospels.Quote:
... upset bad by what a tough bunch of monkeys ... Mcmurphy lead the twelve of us.
I only see minor differences between Mcmurphy and The Big Nurse. Male/Female; Agressive/Passive; Controling/Controling; Influential/Influential; Self-centered/Self-centered. The are not complete opposites and that's the conflict- two Chiefs and not one will be an indian, pun intended.
The Chief has a few gears missing from his clock.Quote:
Originally Posted by motherhubbard
Medication.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
It's impossible to be objective. All of the information is being relayed by the Chief. We can on speculate.Quote:
Originally Posted by motherhubbard
The nurse isn't the only one who has done time with the green machine: Mcmurphy, Bromden, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by motherhubbard
Yes, yes and yes! I wouldn't be suprised if the Chief is up on Disturbed playing imaginary football games with the lifeguard as he narrates the story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Funniest part of the book. Funniest part of the book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
The mens trust.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouquin
Justice.Quote:
Originally Posted by bouquin