The author, Ken Kessey, in his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, depicts how cruel and dehumanizing oppression can be. Kessey’s purpose is to reveal that there are better ways to live than to let others control every aspect of a person’s life. He adopts a reflective tone and by using the techniques of imagery and symbolism, he encourages readers, especially those who may see or face oppression on a regular basis, to realize how atrocious it can be and even take action against it. Kessey’s vivid imagery is a crucial part of Bromden’s perceptions as it provides insight to why Bromden resents the Combine, a metaphor he uses for society. For example, in one of his nightmares caused by a lack of medication, he imagines something “like the inside of a tremendous dam … [with] motors and dynamos red and coal black” (P87). What Bromden is visualizing is most likely what he envisions the Combine to look like because before, in numerous occasions, he described anything related to the Combine with mechanical aspects. However, unlike before, this is the first time that the full magnitude of the Combine is shown. By using such vivid imagery, each aspect described, from the color to the working parts, helps the reader understand why Bromden dreads the Combine so much. To illustrate, the author uses the colors red and coal black to associate the Combine with the image of a fire that burns all before it to ash. The parts such as the motors and dynamos create the idea that the Combine is powered by extremely complex, even incomprehensible workings that no one can compete against. Moreover, Bromden describes the workers in his dream with faces “brutal and waxy like a mask”, bringing up a key point about how he sees those who under the influenc... ... middle of paper ... ...es those who diverge from the norm and would quickly separate itself from them. Bromden’s description of the workers implies that society prefers order and efficiency over anything else even individual freedom. The furnace would symbolize society’s method of removing the different and the pace and rhythm of factory would symbolize society’s obsession with order and a uniform identity. In conclusion, through the use of symbolism and imagery, Kessey illustrates how everyone should value their individualism despite the horrors that society may try to bear down upon them with. To conform to society and simply do what others say is more similar to a robot than a human. However, to fight against these injustices would be an incredible act of heroism that many fear to do. Works Cited Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, a Novel. New York: Viking, 1962. Print.
The author Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado and went to Stanford University. He volunteered to be used for an experiment in the hospital because he would get paid. In the book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Kesey brings up the past memories to show how Bromden is trying to be more confident by using those thoughts to make him be himself. He uses Bromden’s hallucinations, Nurse Ratched’s authority, and symbolism to reveal how he’s weak, but he builds up more courage after each memory.
Contrast. Tone. Metaphors. These literary elements are all used in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s in relation to a larger theme in the novel – confidence. In the book, a man named McMurphy is put into a mental ward run by Nurse Ratched, who has complete power and control over the men. They all fear her and submit to her due to fear, suppressing their confidence and manhood. When McMurphy came, he was like a spark that ignites a roaring fire in the men; they gain back the confidence that they lost and become free. In one passage, McMurphy takes the men on a fishing trip where he helps them stray away from the Nurse’s power and learn to believe in themselves. Throughout the passage, the use of contrast, positive tone, and metaphors of
Kesey, Ken. One flew over the cuckoo's nest, a novel. New York: Viking Press, 1962. Print.
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the dysfunctions and struggles of life for the patients in a matriarch ruled mental hospital. As told by a schizophrenic Native American named Chief Bromden, the novel focuses primarily on Randle McMurphy, a boisterous new patient introduced into the ward, and his constant war with the Big Nurse Ratched, the emasculating authoritarian ruler of the ward. Constricted by the austere ward policy and the callous Big Nurse, the patients are intimidated into passivity. Feeling less like patients and more like inmates of a prison, the men surrender themselves to a life of submissiveness-- until McMurphy arrives. With his defiant, fearless and humorous presence, he instills a certain sense of rebellion within all of the other patients. Before long, McMurphy has the majority of the Acutes on the ward following him and looking to him as though he is a hero. His reputation quickly escalates into something Christ-like as he challenges the nurse repeatedly, showing the other men through his battle and his humor that one must never be afraid to go against an authority that favors conformity and efficiency over individual people and their needs. McMurphy’s ruthless behavior and seemingly unwavering will to protest ward policy and exhaust Nurse Ratched’s placidity not only serves to inspire other characters in the novel, but also brings the Kesey’s central theme into focus: the struggle of the individual against the manipulation of authoritarian conformists. The asylum itself is but a microcosm of society in 1950’s America, therefore the patients represent the individuals within a conformist nation and the Big Nurse is a symbol of the authority and the force of the Combine she represents--all...
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Toronto, Ontario Canada: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, 1962.
People often find themselves as part of a collective, following society's norms and may find oneself in places where feeling constrained by the rules and will act out to be unconstrained, as a result people are branded as nuisances or troublemakers. In the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, the author Ken Kesey conveys the attempt McMurphy makes to live unconstrained by the authority of Nurse Ratched. The story is very one sided and helps create an understanding for those troublemakers who are look down on in hopes of shifting ingrained ideals. The Significance of McMurphy's struggles lies in the importance placed on individuality and liberty. If McMurphy had not opposed fear and autocratic authority of Nurse Ratched nothing would have gotten better on the ward the men would still feel fear. and unnerved by a possibility of freedom. “...Then, just as she's rolling along at her biggest and meanest, McMurphy steps out of the latrine ... holding that towel around his hips-stops her dead! ” In the novel McMurphy shows little signs like this to combat thee Nurse. His defiance of her system included
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Viking Press. New York. 1973. Page 188.
Mark Twain best described courage when he said that, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear” (Twain). Both in The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and Watership Down by Richard Adams, the authors deal with the topic of courage and each share a similar view on it as this quote. Indeed, both authors suggest that courage is not accumulated simply by acts of heroism, but rather by overcoming fears and speaking one’s mind as well. These books are very similar in the way that bravery is displayed through the characters in an uncommon way. Firstly, an example of bravery
Kesey, Ken. A. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. London: Pan, 1973. http://www.pan.com/p/p/p
Throughout the novel ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ written by Ken Kesey, and the poem ‘Advice to Young Ladies’ crafted by A.D. Hope, there is evidence to suggest that the discourses represented by the characters in the novel and poem unveil the ways discourses of conformity underpin the characters’ actions, perceptions and motives, as well as inviting and silencing beliefs, attitudes and values. The author and poet are able to strongly convey their beliefs to the reader from their personal experiences. The four dominant discourses that both the novel and poem share and represents: conformity, sexuality and religious. These will be analysed and compared.
In the early 1960’s, Ken Kesey worked in the psych ward in a veterans hospital as an aide. During the course of his job, Kesey realized the administrators were giving patients experimental LSD to cope with their mental illnesses. After seeing this being done, he started to wonder, who is mentally stable and what classifies a person as insane (Kesey)? With this in mind Ken Kesey wrote, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. This classic novel depicts the image of a psych ward under control by the manipulative, Nurse Ratched. The patients on the ward are lifeless; every waking moment is scheduled and controlled, until one day when a new patient, Patrick McMurphy arrives. Patrick McMurphy brings life back into the patients and helps them push the boundaries. With McMurphy on the ward there becomes a new normal. When answering the question of what normalcy is, Kesey uses character development, symbols, and motifs to give insight of the psychological well-being of others and how it shifts with positive and negative changes.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. John Clark Pratt. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1996. Print. Viking Critical Library.
In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” The father of transcendentalism, Emerson believed that people who resist change to be what is most natural, themselves, are the true heroes of the world. Ken Kesey, another popular writer, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a similar spirit. His novel takes place on the ward of a controlling army nurse at an Oregon mental institution in the late 1950s. The storyline mainly follows the interactions between Nurse Ratched, a manipulating representation of society, and Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient, gambler, and renegade. Kesey echoes the transcendentalists and romantics in his work by
Throughout the sixties , America- involved in the Cold War at this time- suffered from extreme fear of communism. This caused numerous severe changes in society ranging from corrupt political oppression, to the twisted treatment of the minority. Published in 1962, Ken Kesey ’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , manages to capture these changes in the variety of ways. Kesey’s novel incorporates some of the main issues that affected the United States during the early and mid 60s. The government had no limits and was cruel to those who did not fit into society, including the mentally ill. The wrongful treatment of the people caused an eruption of rebellion and protest- thus the Beatnik era was born. The novel, written during this movement, sheds light on Kesey’s personal opinion on this chaotic period in US history . The treatment of mentally ill patients, the oppressive government, and uprising in the 1960s inspired Kesey while writing his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, a Novel. New York: Viking, 1962. Print.