Cool Hand Luke: Car wash Scene Analysis
BY: Jessica, Kendra, Donnie, Seo, Esha, and Corey
*New & Improved Car Wash Scene
Billy Bibbit=
emasculation
- stutters; acts like a teenager
- no manhood until chance with Candy
Car Wash Analysis:
- Nurse Ratched humiliates him afterwards->leads to suicide
- McMurphy gives him sexual confidence and curiosity
- "Billy and the girl had climbed around to the bow and were talking and looking down in the water (213)."
- As the men are working, they are enticed by an attractive girl purposely washing her car.
- THE THIRST IS REAL.
- Represents connection to outside world and their sexual desires.
- The men fantasize
about her all night.
Nurse ratched analysis
Nurse Ratched in the men's eyes
How TO Read Lit. LIke a Professor Comparison(CH. 16 & 17 it's all about sex, ..Except Sex):
- In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the men's confidence and masculinity levels increase as they're in the presence of a good-looking woman, Candy.
- They are all attracted to her and enjoy being around a woman who embraces her sexuality.
- Her shirt breaking open on the boat is the highest point of sexuality in the scene.
- forms a sexual release in the novel in comparison to all of the built-up sexuality in the hospital (Nurse Ratched). In that moment, they're free. They're men.
- Get your mind out of the gutter, cause in literature sex is not always just about sex!
- Sex usually represents an underlying symbol, like freedom or restrictions.
- Nurse Ratched plays a huge part in the importance of sexuality in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
- Emasculates the men/ "Ball-cutter".
- Refusal to embrace her own sexuality and physical attributes.
- Emphasis on her great rack.
- SHIRT RIPPING SCENE!
- Only solution- finally expose her femininity. Let those puppies free!
- Exposing her breasts takes away that power she had over them.
so what is it really like...?
- The sex symbols in both Cool Hand Luke and One Flew Over Cuckoo's nest brings out the men's sexual desires, but also their desire for freedom.
- Ironically the symbol for freedom and liberation serves to frustrate and enclose the characters due to its difficult nature to obtain.
“Only at the last—after he’d smashed through that glass door, her face swinging around, with terror forever ruining any other look she might ever try to use again, screaming when he grabbed for her and ripped her uniform all the way down the front, screaming again when the two nippled circles started from her chest and swelled out and out, bigger than anybody had ever even imagined, warm and pink in the light”
“When they’re writing about other things, they really mean sex, and when they write about sex, they really mean something else. If they write about sex and mean strictly sex, we have a word for that. Pornography”
In both novels, women possess power and are able to control men simply with their sexuality. Their attractive assets drive the men crazy and they're able to strip men of their masculinity by flaunting (Car wash) AND even not flaunting (Big Nurse) them. Women and sex are portrayed this way often in literature.
But how does this compare to REALITY?