Theme Of Freedom In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Recommended: What did Ken Kesey want the reader to think about in One Flew Oer the Cuckoos Nest

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom are the chirps you can hear from the patients of the ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. This novel explores a plethora of themes that are unraveled throughout the use of Kesey’s literary devices. Firstly, we can determine the antagonist of the novel, Nurse Ratched, symbolizes a man and his masculinity while she emasculates the patients of the ward from their freedom. Additionally, the inability for the patients to have freedom and change ward policy leads them to take their own life like worthless garbage which is what Nurse Ratched made them feel. Furthermore, Kesey analyzes the theme of freedom through the symbol of Nurse Ratched and the death of the patient, Cheswick. Secondly, we can conclude that Kesey’s include the religious item of a crucifix to symbolize purity and authority. Moreover, Nurse Ratched recognizes herself as a “good catholic girl” with the irony being she came straight from hell. Kesey uses the theme of religion by means of symbolic religious items and irony. Although most of the patients of the ward are allowed to leave whenever they would like, they choose not to because they have women in their lives that dominate over them. We can see Nurse Ratched's domination over the ward when it says, “There’s something strange about the place where the men won’t let …show more content…

We can see Nurse Ratched struggles when it says “At home she locks herself in the bathroom out of sight, strips down, and run that crucifix all over that stain running from the corner of her mouth in a thin line down across her shoulders and breasts.” Signaling that Nurse Ratched needs to purify her body from all the bad deeds that have occurred to her that. Additionally, the crucifix could also epitomize regaining power after a stressful day since Jesus Christ is pegged to the cross and has profusion of

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