Anti-Social Behaviour in One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

Anti-Social Behaviour in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

ABSTRACT
Anti-Social behaviour runs rampant in the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, however for one character it consumes his entire life. This paper will research, analyze and discuss the anti-social behaviour of Randall P. McMurphy as he battles his personality and life, along with authority making one able to perceive McMurphy as an anti-hero.
INTRODUCTION
Ken Kesey's experiences in a mental institution urged him to tell the story of such a ward. We are told this story through the eyes of a Native who everyone believes to be deaf and dumb named Chief in his movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". Chief is a patient in an Oregon psychiatric hospital on the ward of Mrs Ratched. she is the symbol of authority throughout the text. This ward forms the backdrop for the rest of the story. The men on the ward are resigned to their regime dictated by this tyrant who is referred to as 'the Big Nurse', until McMurphy arrives to disrupt it. He makes the men realize that it is possible to think for themselves, which results in a complete destruction of the system as it was. Randell P. McMurphy, a wrongly committed mental patient with a lust for life. The qualities that garner McMurphy respect and admiration from his fellow patients are also responsible for his tragic downfall. These qualities include his temper, which leads to his being deemed "disturbed," his stubbornness, which results in his receiving numerous painful disciplinary treatments, and finally his free spirit, which leads to his death. Despite McMurphy being a noble man, in the end, these characteristics hurt him more than they help him. He forms the basis to my study of rebellion. McMurphy's slight acts of conformity, show that he is still human and still in touch with his senses. If these did not exist we could full rightly say that he is clinically insane and hence would only be able to state that his condition gives him rebellious...