Clash Of Opposites- One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

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In Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the clash of opposites is an integral part of the text’s thematic development. Centrally, three main polarities, or dichotomies are conformity vs individualism, power of the group vs power of the individual, and man vs machine. Kesey has used the clash of opposites, often demonstrated by characters or groups of character, in the evolution of oppression and authority as key ideas. The clash of conformism and individualism is very important in the text, and the struggle between parallel viewpoints leads to a clear understanding of theme. Nurse Ratched and the mental hospital in general are representative of rigidity and conventionalism. Chief Bromden, despite his drug induced hallucinations and delusions, sees that the ‘combine,’ which is conformist society, has rejected those in the hospital. Rather than the patients being insane, they are social misfits, put into a facility designed to make them institutionalised men. A strict set of guidelines imposed on patients, the ‘ward policy,’ is used to keep patients doing menial, repetitive work, and not allowing for freedom of expression, seen when the nurse states severely, “You must have a majority to change the ward policy. I’m afraid the vote is closed.” The institution of the mental hospital does not allow for emotional or mental development in the hopes of conditioning them to be unobtrusive in conventional society. In direct opposition to conformism is McMurphy in his capacity as an agent of change. Through his extroversion and confidence, Mc Murphy inspires defiance and a shrugging off of the institution among the patients. The effects of individualism can be seen in McMurphy’s protégé Bromden, who finds it in himself to embrace his difference, and come out of the comfortable but unsatisfying shell of deafness and dumbness. Bromden also finds the mental
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