Response to film on blog: What does Nurse Ratchet represent? What does RPM represent? How about their conflict?
In the film, One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest, the setting takes place at an insane asylum, where patients are either placed there by force or freely chose to stay at the asylum for their own good. The main character, Randall Patrick Mcmurphy, is a patient at the insane asylum that is forced to be there; however, some doctors feel as if he is faking being insane in order to get out of prison. Randall Patrick Mcmurphy in the film represents hope for the rest of the patients staying there. The reason why Randall represents hope for the rest of the people at the asylum is because before he arrived there, the other people were just going through their everyday routine. However, when Randall showed up, he demanded a switch in the schedule and wanted to show the other people at the asylum that their lives are not full of a boring routine. The way Randall pursued this idea is by jumping over the fence and he drove away with all of his friends inside of the asylum. They went to the docks to go fishing, but this was not appreciated by the nurse, which caused Randall to get introuble. The head nurse of the insane asylum, Nurse Ratchet, represents death because of locking the patients in the asylum. She demands for their everyday routine to stay the same, representing the patients have no choice and freedom. The glass between Nurse Ratchet and the other patients who need to take their medicine for their insanity represents a barrier between freedom or trapped. Everyday she opens the glass for the patients to take their medicine but after she closes the glass door representing that the patients have no freedom on what they do. The conflict between Nurse Ratchet and Randall is that the nurse does not support freedom of the patients; however, Randall feels differently and thinks that the schedule should be changed and the patients at the asylum should have the freedom to do what they want.
Response to film: What does Nurse Ratchet represent? What does Mr. McMurphy represent? How about their conflict?
ReplyDeleteNurse Ratchet represents the power and barrier between the insane people and the nurses in the cuckoo house. Nurse Ratchet represents the power because she doesn’t allow the patients to have what they want and to do or go where they want. For example, the nurse told the patients that they couldn’t watch the World Series because they didn’t have enough votes but it was 9:9 and she adjured the meeting early so that McMurphy couldn’t get the extra vote from Chief Broom. Also, she shows power when she calls for security to resist the patients that were yelling and fighting with each other. Lastly, she said that Chezwik couldn’t have his cigarettes because of the incident in the bathroom and that nobody could have cigarettes or money for the gambling they did in the bathroom. Mr. McMurphy on the other hand is representing the lack of power and the opposing force. He shows this in a few ways, by breaking the rules and doing what they don’t want him to do, by talking back to the nurses, by fighting the guards and by escaping. He breaks the rules when he went into the nurses office. Also, he broke the rules when he stayed up late and called some girls to bring boo’s. He talks back to the nurses constantly in order to try and push to get what he wants. He starts fights and even began to fight the guards and resist them. Lastly, he escaped, which can be looked at as breaking the rules and going against what the nurses are trying to do. The conflict between Nurse Ratchet and Mr. McMurphy is an odd one. He constantly yells disrespects her. He gives her weird looks like he doesn’t like her and she always gives him a look like she really doesn’t care what he said and that she doesn’t have to care because she’s in power. However, what really threw me off was that when she was leaving one of the nights she waved and said bye with a smile to Mr. McMurphy and he smiled back. Overall, these two characters are opposites and there relationship seems neutral.