AnalysisofOneFlewovertheCuckoo’sNest.doc

Analysis of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
“I will never see the movie because it is not represented from the angle of Chief” Ken Kesey claimed to the world angrily and even took the producer to court after his famous book---《One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest》was adapted into the movie of the same name, which sounds quite crazy and inconceivable for most people, of course, me included at the first time. However, after reading the book by myself, I strongly have the same feeling with the author not only because the changed narrator but also because the great difference in details between the movie and the book. Compared with the book, this movie removed lots of distorted and bloody parts and omitted much cruel violence to make it more acceptable and mild. More importantly, it overlooks almost all the mental activity of chief and his uniquely personal emotion as a American Indian. Because of that, a new perspective of gazing at those social problems is created and comparatively looks more pale and feeble than the original version.
Background
As a movie adapted from book, even though it is shot in 1975, what it really wants to reveal is the unquiet American society in 1860s, which would never be regarded as a calm and peaceful era with its tense political issues and complex social problems. As for me, the two pieces of news inserted in the movie are quite interesting. The former is about The Berlin Wall, and the latter is about a bomb attack. One is political issue while the other is about social problem. However, both of them are trying to expose the hidden crisis of American states, which is Contrary to the apparently prosperous phenomenon that we saw.
On the one hand, what we saw before this is that After WWII, American entered into an transition period from the wartime to the peaceful state and became into the super power among capitalist. Politically, American carried out antagonistic policy towards socialist countries led by the Soviet Union, trying to expand capitalist globally and solidify its hegemonic status. Militarily, it set up North Atlantic Treaty, frightening other countries with its one and only atomic bomb. Different from that, what the book and movie try to convey is that some problems should not be neglected, otherwise, concealed by the government under the cover of superficial prosperity, Opening the Berlin Wall, for example, as also mentioned in the movie. As is known to all, the Berlin Wall as a symbolic building of separation between socialist and capitalist had been attracting much attention. But, more secretly, it is also a tool for Central Intelligence Agency to gather Intel against Soviet Union and avoid war. Once opened, it may bring lots of danger to American. So, the government was quite cautious and nervous at that time, not so peaceful as we saw. The hidden war is on the verge of breaking out.
On the other hand, what we saw is that economically, American established its domination position with the help of Bretton Woods system and control the economic artery. However, as reported in the movie, “from Alabama, three men were arrested because they are related to a church bomb, killing three Negro children who are attending to pray.” From this piece of news and combining with our knowledge, we know that the great gap between rich and poor was windening from day to days in American, which was more complex with the mixture of racial conflicts. Most of the poor people are Afro-Americans. “We shall overcome” is a famous song sung by black Americans in Greensboro Sit-in, affirming their commitment to fight racial prejudice and social inequity. Besides, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, Counterculture, Women’s Liberation Movement, all of them happened in 1960s. Faced with so much domestic and international problems, Government of United States felt much pressure and wanted to settle these problems as soon as possible, along with which medicine and uniform system were created with high expectation to prevent people from making troubles. The author---Ken Kesey himself was the volunteer to try those medicine.
As the saying goes “Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance”. Under such oppression, groups of people rebelled and they were given a colourful name---Hippies(originated from beat generation). They persued for happy and free life, taking drugs, making loves, wanting personal independence and so on. Except for Ken Kesey’s《One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest》and Allen Ginserg’s 《Howl》, Jerome David Salinger’s《the Catcher in the Rye》also stand for their particular thinking and behaviour. From Caulfield point of view, everything around him, including his teachers, friends, even the taxi-drivers are disgusting. They all want him to obey the rules and be a model student and son. At the end of the book, Caulfield expresses his wishes of freedom ---“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. ”
The Movie
Up to now, I think the theme of the movie(or the book) is quite obvious---rebellion and freedom. As a eternal theme of the western world, freedom are above all, which is consistent with an ancient Chinese saying “Give me liberty or give me death”.
“Wire, bliar, limber-lock /Three geese in a flock /One flew east, one flew west/One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”It is a Children’s folk rhyme from Chief. Why Ken Kesey used a simple Children’s rhyme as the title? “Cuckoo”is not the only time appearing in Literature works. In Emily Brontë’s 《Wuthering Heights》, little hindley provokes Heathcliff , saying “Cuckoo in the nest? Cuckoo in the nest?”so, we guess there must be some hidden or symbolic meaning in cuckoo. In nature, cuckoo puts her eggs into others’ nest instead of nesting herself. When her birdie incubates, it will push the master’s eggs out of the nest and forcibly occupy the nest. That’s the reason why cuckoo is often regarded cruel and violent bird by the westerns, just as those mental patients. But I think Ken Kesey had other reasons. First of all, this simple and innocent title symbols the low intelligence quotient of these patients, pure and kind, but easy to be deceived, just as majority of the citizens Secondly, cuckoos symbol the governors, they fool its people and drive them out their homes and rob their property. After all, that is a time of the strong’s domination. Thirdly, Ken Kesey wants to express his wishes to get rid of those unnecessary regulations and rules and have a innocent and free living environment, just as David Salinger says at the end of his book(mentioned above) .
Apart from the book’s name, the main Character---R.P.McMurphy means Revolutions Per Minuts, the same rebellion and fight for freedom.
No matter in the movie or in the book, I think two important things, medicine and routine, gain most of our attention. Medicine, meant to cure diseases, have departed from its original functions both in the movie and in the society of that time. Those medicine are mainly for tranquillizer and numb, making people obey rules and giving up their own will. In the book, Mr.Taber was curious about the medicine and wanted to know what are the two little star red capsule. But doctors didn’t tell him and managed to cut off his curiosity and finally “reformed” him cruelly. Secretly, Chief found some mini electric components with metal wiles and transistors, which is awful enough to remind me of Luxun’s novel of eating human flesh. More awfully, the patients have already got used to their limited life and firmly believed those Pecksniffian doctors. “You have completely ignored the fact that what they do is good for me!” Mr.Harding replied when McMurphy told him that nurse Ratched was a butcher. That’s the most awful phenomenon. Routines in the movie is quite rigid and boring. Kesey described Ratched in the book: She sitted there like a argue-eyed robot in the center of the mental net and watched her net with her machinery skills as a insect. Anyone who goes against the rules should be punished severely. For her, making patients to be harmony with the land is her most important duty. I think it is the same truth with the movie《Modern Times》. As the nurse, she didn’t care for her patients at all and compel them to say their privacy in the name of therapy, which looks quite cruel. I looked into some information about mental treatment, nothing is so stark-naked as her so-called therapy.
All in all, The whole hospital is the epitome of American society. Medicine and routines are real and McMurphy is the representative of Hippies and those patients are ordinary people. They have already been controlled by the government and lost their own independent thing. The movie finished with McMurphy’s death is a kind of mourn. But the free soul will never be tied.
“we are voluntary” these few words have confused me for a long time. Will anyone give up his happy life on his own will and be willing to live in a mental hospital? My first answer is no, absolutely. But After I looked into some information, I know that their choice is reasonable. Most of the mental patients have feelings of inferiority, which is usually described as customarily low self-osteem. When getting along with normal person, they tend to feel sad and low.So, to protect themselves, they try to use different kinds of concealments to reduce their anxiety. A man of low self-osteem has much difficult in conjunctive motivation(the impulse of satisfaction and safety, especially emotion ).That’s the reason why they voluntary to live in the mental hospital. Besides, I also think it is a metaphor that all these ordinary people are voluntary to live in the society controlled by the authorities. That’s also the reason Billy dared not to face women independently. What’s more, Billy show symptoms of not-me. It’s the Third expression except for good-me and bad-me, which drives him to have an uncanny feeling of awfulness. Normally, this kind of disease is not dangerous. But once he is terrified , he will feel horrible and that kind of terror will result in eyeless crazy action, which is quite dangerous both to himself and others. That’s why he kill himself after Ratched threatened him.
Put the book aside, the music and the pictures of the movie are also very attractive. At the beginning of the movie, the scene from 00:00:00 to 00：01:20 is rested in the dark and dim mountains along with Jack Nitzsche’s fearful music, which lays a fundamental tone of the miserable story. After that, the lens shifted to a silent and still picture of sleep and finally rested on a twisted and grisly pencil sketch, indicating the strange atmosphere in the hospital. Then, what is worth mentioning is Medication Valse. The cheerful tone of the music makes a contrast between the music and the numb patients. All the blooming is superficial. And the last music of the movie is echo to the open music, making it a complete and thought provoking ending.
References:
【1】 刘绪贻《美国通史》人民出版社 2002（10）
【2】 朱永涛 王立礼《英语国家社会与文化入门》高等教育出版社 2009（7）
【3】 王镇平 《高级英语视听说》外语教学与研究出版社 2006（5）
【4】 弗洛伊德《精神分析引论》陕西人民出版社 2001（1）
【5】 飞越疯人院 百度百科
【6】 飞越疯人院 豆瓣电影
【7】 喜鹊 百度百科
【8】 心理学 百度文库
【9】 哈里 斯塔克 沙利文 浙江教育出版社《精神病学的人际理论》1999（11）
【10】 杰罗姆 大林 塞林格 《麦田里的守望者》译林出版社 2010（6）
【11】 肯 克西 百度百科