One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Insanity Analysis

When people witness someone with unusual behavior, they are often quick to surmise and diagnose the bane of his or her actions with one daunting condition - insanity. For example, a man who mutters to himself or hallucinates wild, imaginative scenarios is vulnerable to the harsh judgments of others. Bystanders immediately call him “insane” or “crazy”. However, how can one be so sure his behavior is truly insane or crazy? What are the criteria that claims abnormal people are abnormal and normal people are normal? In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey poses such questions. Kesey scrutinizes the thin line between insanity and sanity and challenges those who draw that line. Through his depiction of the characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s

Each individual is subjected to hospital residency and treatment for behavior that is regarded as strange or unethical by society, be it immaturity, violence, promiscuity, hallucination, or even homosexuality. As an example, Randle McMurphy is admitted on the premise of psychopathology. His symptoms are excessive sexual activity and violence. “‘I got in a couple of hassles at the work farm...and the court ruled that I’m a psychopath...Now they tell me a psychopath’s a guy fights too much and fucks too much…” (Kelsey 19). Additional examples include Chief Bromden, who suffers from paranoia and hallucinations; the lifeguard, a former professional football player who deludes wild fantasies of his past career; Dale Harding, a homosexual; and Billy Bibbit, a man with the innocence and the mind of a young child. For all their drawbacks and flaws, McMurphy, Chief, Harding, Billy, and all of the patients become the cull of society and are forced into the hospital for

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the patients of the mental ward assemble a group meeting every week, which supposedly fosters social skills. "The group can help the guy by showing him where he's out of place...Any little gripe...should be brought up before the group and discussed..." (48). Instead, the gatherings focus on the peer criticism of fellow patients. "They've been maneuvered again into grilling one of their friends like he was a criminal..." (54). This therapy is only effective in lowering the patients' self-esteems and making them feel more insane. Kesey suggests that humor, however, is a more powerful healing. Laughter, brought to the ward by McMurphy, mitigates the painful reality faced by the characters. "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" (213). By the end, a "howl of laughter" resonates the halls, an unequivocal sign that the patients have opened up and that laughter is a more effective therapy than meetings