Motifs and Images in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

In Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest there are many recurring motifs and images. One very prominent motif is laughter. Following the motif of laughter throughout the novel, it is mostly associated with McMurphy and power/control. McMurphy teaches the patients how to laugh again and with the laughter the combine loses control and the patients gain their power back.

McMurphy’s first day on the ward, just seconds after entering the room and getting a good look at all the patients, he lets out a rumbling laugh that practically shakes the walls. Bromden, the narrator of the story, tells us that it’s the first laugh he’s heard in years (Kesey, 12). Bromden also tells us that McMurphy’s laugh is much different than the fake laugh of the Public Relation guy- McMurphy’s laugh is real and genuine. McMurphy caught Bromden’s attention right away and captured it even more with his big, loud laugh. This is the first occurrence of laughter that the reader encounters and already we can see it’s healing powers.

As the story continues and McMurphy’s influence over the patients strengthens, the reader sees other occasions where the laughter is healing. With McMurphy’s big, boisterous laugh dominating the ward, the patients begin to laugh themselves. Their laughs sound awkward at first- forced, simulated- but nevertheless they are laughing and whether the patients, or Bromden realize it, this phony laugh does begin to heal them.

McMurphy’s laughter, while healing to the patients, is disrupting to the Big Nurse and her Black Boys. Bromden mentions that laughing must be the only thing that keeps McMurphy from falling captive to the combine’s power, “He’s safe as long as he can laugh,” (Kesey, 117). His laughter is a big disruption to ...

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... him for this, too.

While McMurphy is being punished, the rest of the men slowly start to leave the ward. Laughing at Miss Ratched’s shocked face, the men had their wives come pick them up, or they just up and checked out one day. The Big Nurse, using what little power she had left, issued a lobotomy to McMurphy. With McMurphy unable to laugh anymore and eyes that used to be full of life and energy now drained, Bromden does his hero a last favor- he suffocates him and escapes the ward that same night. McMurphy’s own energy depleted as he distributed it to all the patients. He tried his hardest not to show it, and he fought until the very end to keep from showing his exhaustion, but the fact of the matter was that the patients took his energy, unbeknownst to them, and bettered themselves, allowing them to be free of the combine and escape Miss Ratched’s control.