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Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Key Examples in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Part One
Explanation and Analysis—Dr. McMurphy:
In Part One, McMurphy vies with Harding for the unofficial position of lead patient. Harding uses an allusion and verbal irony to poke fun of McMurphy:
"As you see, all these natural talents certainly qualify you as a competent therapist and render you quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is a highly regarded psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching id and heal the wounded superego. You could probably bring about a cure for the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months ladies and gentlemen or your money back."
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Explanation and Analysis—Ratched's True Form:
In Part One, Bromden introduces Nurse Ratched not as a human, but as a machine "big as a tractor" who can disguise herself as a human. When the other patients come out of their dorms, there is an interesting interplay between dramatic irony and Bromden's status as an unreliable narrator:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[S]he has to change back before she’s caught in the shape of her hideous real self. By the time the patients get their eyes rubbed to where they can halfway see what the racket’s about, all they see is the head nurse, smiling and calm and cold as usual [...]
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Part Two
Explanation and Analysis—Committed:
In Part Two, McMurphy is shocked to learn from Harding that Scanlon is the only patient besides him who is involuntarily committed to the mental hospital. There is situational irony at play in this exchange:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“You have more to lose than I do,” Harding says again. “I’m voluntary. I’m not committed.”
McMurphy doesn’t say a word. He’s got that same puzzled look on his face like there’s something isn’t right, something he can’t put his finger on. [Harding] swallows and says, “As a matter of fact, there are only a few men on the ward who are committed. Only Scanlon and—well, I guess some of the Chronics. And you. Not many commitments in the whole hospital. No, not many at all.”
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Part Three
Explanation and Analysis—McMurphy's Hands:
In Part Three, when the men go on McMurphy's fishing expedition, they have an altercation with some men at a gas station. McMurphy uses dramatic irony and an idiom to intimidate the gas station attendant:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He put his hands up in the guy’s face, real close, turning them over slowly, palm and knuckle. “You ever see a man get his poor old meat-hooks so pitiful chewed up from just throwin’ the bull? Did you, Hank?”
He held those hands in the guy’s face a long time, waiting to see if the guy had anything else to say. The guy looked at the hands, and at me, and back at the hands.
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Explanation and Analysis—Keep Acting:
In Part Three, Bromden wants to sign up for McMurphy's fishing expedition but is afraid to do so because of the dramatic irony he has maintained so long around his hearing. He is amused by the situational irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[I]t’d show I’d been hearing everything else that’d been said in confidence around me for the past ten years. And if the Big Nurse found out about that, that I’d heard all the scheming and treachery that had gone on when she didn’t think anybody was listening, she’d hunt me down with an electric saw, fix me where she knew I was deaf and dumb. Bad as I wanted to go, it still made me smile a little to think about it: I had to keep on acting deaf if I wanted to hear at all.
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Part Four
Explanation and Analysis—Crown of Thorns:
In Part Four, Nurse Ratched sends Bromden and McMurphy to receive electroshock therapy. McMurphy goes first, using verbal irony and an allusion to make light of the scary situation:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He don’t look a bit scared. He keeps grinning at me.
They put the graphite salve on his temples. “What is it?” he says. “Conductant,” the technician says. “Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?”
They smear it on. He’s singing to them, makes their hands shake.
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