One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest story
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American psychological comedy-drama film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. The film stars Jack Nicholson as a new patient at a mental institution and Louise Fletcher as the abusive head nurse. Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, Sydney Lassick, William Redfield, Christopher Lloyd, and Brad Dourif play supporting roles, with the latter two making their feature-film debuts and Sampson having never acted before.
18 total · 3 choice · 6 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| conformism in society | choice | At the heart of the story was the main protagonist McMurphy who was highly intelligent and probably not mentally ill in any way, yet was institutionalized because of his eccentricism. He ended up at the receiving end of a forced lobotomy. |
| treatment of the criminally insane | choice | The story concerns a ward in a mental institution and its 18 patients, some of whom were there voluntarily and some of whom were committed. Notably, the main protagonist, McMurphy, was highly intelligent and probably not mentally ill in any way, but was nevertheless subjected to electric shock treatment and ultimately a lobotomization that left him practically a vegetable. |
| what it is like in a psychiatric institution | choice | The story concerns a ward in a mental institution and its 18 patients, some of whom were there voluntarily and some of whom were committed. Notably, the main protagonist, McMurphy, was highly intelligent and probably not mentally ill in any way, but was nevertheless subjected to electric shock treatment and ultimately a lobotomization that left him practically a vegetable. |
| abuse of authority | major | Central to the story was the conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. McMurphy maintained that she "liked a rigged game". The viewer is invited to ponder whether things she did and said where therapeutically appropriate or whether, perhaps, she played sadistic mind games. Notably, Ratched tried to humiliate Billy by invoking his mother, and this directly lead to Billy committing suicide minutes later. |
| euthanasia | major | The story ends with Chief smothering the lobotomize McMurphy with a pillow. The viewer is invited to ponder whether this was perhaps more merciful than the operation which turned him into a living vegetable. Foreshadowing this was the revelation that Chief had likely mercy killed his own father. |
| medical occupation | major | Dr. Spivey and Nurse Ratched were running the mental hospital ward where McMurphy and the other patients were being housed. |
| prisoners' rights | major | McMurphy had feigned mental illness in order to be moved from a labor prison to a mental institution. Although life there was apparently laxer, he was irked when he found out that his new incarceration did not have a time limit. |
| standing up to a bully | major | McMurphy was rattled by the control Nurse Ratched, through the mental institution, imposed and tried to assert his own agency by perpetrating various kinds of mischief. |
| the need for freedom | major | McMurphy, in particular, railed against the strict routine forced upon the mental patients by Nurse Ratched. The patients, led by McMurphy, rebelled against her by in one instances taking an unapproved fishing trip. |
| choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering | minor | The story ends with Chief smothering the lobotomize McMurphy with a pillow. |