Violence In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

The song ¨Like Toy Soldier¨ by the artist Eminem, speaks about his issues revolving around violence that he has encountered throughout his lifetime. These types of feuds led to his closest friends and family to get involved. In the song he refers to himself along with his friends as ¨toy soldiers¨, in a pointless battle where there is no winner. He portrays himself as a fearless leader, who makes decisions based on the benefit for those around him. The character being described in the situation, can easily parallel to Randle Patrick McMurphy in the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. As McMurphy attempts to fix the asylum, his rebellion against the nurses ends with the death of his two friends. “Like Toy Soldiers” contains verses that are …show more content…
From Chiefs point of view he says “He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”(Kesey 212). In both of these quotes we can see the obvious connection to McMurphy since the rap explains that people are constantly beaten down and ripped apart but never give up and still fight strong. Similar to Chief’s observation of McMurphy, he explains that he laughs at the things in life because the world is so cruel that this is one of the only ways to avoid going …show more content…
In the song, Eminem says “I spent so much energy on it, honestly I'm exhausted/And I'm so caught in it” . McMurphy is the one that provided the most in the attempt in freeing the patients from nurse Ratched controlled asylum. He was so committed that it lead to his reckless actions which caused the lobotomy that he received and constant electroshock therapies. He took a lot of risks throughout his journey, but it led to the death of two of his friends and although he was able to set some of his friends free it was not worth all the effort and suffering he