How to: Escape a Combine Harvester
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey explores the tendency of humans to conform to ideals proposed by popular society. The participants in this society process their new members, shunning those who deviate from the norm. Ken Kesey uses the image of a combine harvester to symbolize the organized way society classifies its inhabitants. As a person excluded from society, Chief Bromden feels pressured by the representatives of society who try to ‘fix’ him, to make him conform to the popular ideal. Chief imagines himself lost in a fog when he feels overwhelmed by the demands of society. However, this fog starts to disappear when Randall Patrick McMurphy enters the ward. McMurphy teaches the patients in the ward to value happiness and learning and admitting mistakes over striving for societal perfection. Kesey uses the Combine, Chief’s hallucinations of fog, and McMurphy’s laughter to express the manipulative, repressive character of popular society.
Kesey uses the image of fog to describe the suffocating nature of the ideals of society. When chief feels inferior to the demands of Big Nurse, he imagines fog leaking out of the vents in the ward: “it’s getting hard to locate my bed at night… Nobody complains about all the fog. I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and be safe” (114). The fog has been preventing Chief from sleeping, his everyday escape from the demands of society. When Big Nurse has more power, the fog seems thicker. Although Society has excluded the patients in the ward for their unique qualities, they feel ‘safer’ trying to fit in because they receive approval from Big Nurse and the representatives of society.
Chief compares society to a combine, reveal...
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... his rejection of and rise above the ideals of society.
Through his use of symbols to represent corrupt society, Ken Kesey renews the reader’s concept of insanity. The combine, a heartless machine reduces stray societal participants, shaving them down to the exact same length. Kesey proposes that the ‘insane’ are those who refuse to be cut down, not those who are naturally different. Chief, confused by the demands of society, refuses to talk in order to prevent his ‘harvesting’. He knows his participation in Big Nurse’s experiments will lead to his eventual ‘fix’. McMurphy, showing him how be comfortable with his differences, frees Chief from his paranoia against conforming. The ‘insane’ recognize the corrupt values of society and separate themselves from it, eventually becoming too far pressured and conforming or finding happiness and comfort in their differences.
Kesey through changing the structure of power in a society showed the similarity between the oppressed and the oppressor. This was a demonstration of the corruption of power, and a push back to the era. It symbolized an era of radical thinking of changing the power structure, but he advocated making all equal. In addition it exemplified the communist views of the era and the oppressive regime of those with absolute control. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest advocates the quest for equality in a time where disparity in power was great.
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 also uses characterisation to show power. The ‘Big’ Nurse Ratched runs the ward in which the central characters reside in a manner that induces fear in both patients and staff. The Nurse controls almost everything in the men’s lives; their routines, food, entertainment, and for those who are committed, how long they stay in the hospital. Nurse Ratched is the main example of power and control in the novel. The Big Nurse has great self-control; she is not easily flustered and never lets others see what she is feeling. Rather than accusing the men of anything, she ‘insinuates’. Although she isn’t physically larger than the ‘small’ nurses, The Chief describes Nurse Ratched as ‘Big’ because of the power she holds – this presentation of size is used for many characters.
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
Ken Kesey presents his masterpiece, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, with popular culture symbolism of the 1960s. This strategy helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. Music and cartoons of the times are often referred to in the novel. These help to exaggerate the characters and the state of the mental institution.
In the novel The One Who Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Kesey explores the use of mechanical imagery to represent modern society. By means technology, society gains control and overpower individuality and natural compulsions. The hospital consists of the assistants and ‘Nurse Ratched’ who are described by ‘Chief Bromden’ as being made of motley machine parts. In ‘Chief Bromden’s’ dream, when ‘Blastic is disembowelled, rust, not blood, spills out’, reveals that the aids ...
... Nurse Ratched hides her sexuality by trying to hide her large breasts with her heavy white uniform. Kesey seems to share the same point of view, which the author of the Rocking Horse Winner had. That was, we do not pay enough attention to our sexuality. These themes and may others are consistent and scattered evenly throughout the story, which again emphasizes the quality of this novel. The setting was explained with the greatest of detail, the characters were always true to their nature and the themes dealt with in this novel were in fact very real. A quite disturbing piece, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, makes you think about how people in such institutions live. However, as grim as his descriptions of the hospital may be, Kesey is not simply writing a book that criticizes such mental health facilities, for we realize that the outside world is not much better.
Ken Kesey in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest question a lot of things that you think almost everyday. With this famous portrait of a mental institute its rebellious patients and domineering caretakers counter-culture icon Kesey is doing a whole lot more than just spinning a great yarn. He is asking us to stop and consider how what we call "normal" is forced upon each and every one of us. Stepping out of line, going against the grain, swimming upstream whatever your metaphor, there is a steep price to pay for that kind of behavior. The novel tells McMurphys tale, along with the tales of other inmates who suffer under the yoke of the authoritarian Nurse Ratched it is the story of any person who has felt suffocated and confined by our
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey presents a situation which is a small scale and exaggerated model of modern society and its suppressive qualities. The story deals with the inmates of a psychiatric ward who are all under the control of Nurse Ratched, ‘Big Nurse’, whose name itself signifies the oppressive nature of her authority. She rules with an iron fist so that the ward can function smoothly in order to achieve the rehabilitation of patients with a variety of mental illnesses. Big Nurse is presented to the reader through the eyes of the Chief, the story’s narrator, and much of her control is represented through the Chief’s hallucinations. One of these most recurring elements is the fog, a metaphorical haze keeping the patients befuddled and controlled “The fog: then time doesn’t mean anything. It’s lost in the fog, like everyone else” (Kesey 69). Another element of her control is the wires, though the Chief only brings this u...
When norms of society are unfair and seem set in stone, rebellion is bound to occur, ultimately bringing about change in the community. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest demonstrates the conflict of individuals who have to survive in an environment where they are pressured to cooperate. The hospital's atmosphere suppresses the patients' individuality through authority figures that mold the patients into their visions of perfection. The ward staff's ability to overpower the patients' free will is not questioned until a man named Randal McMurphy is committed to the mental institute. He rebels against what he perceives as a rigid, dehumanizing, and uncompassionate environment. His exposure of the flaws in the hospital's perfunctory rituals permits the other patients to form opinions and consequently their personalities surface. The patient's new behavior clashes with the medical personnel's main goal-to turn them into 'perfect' robots, creating havoc on the ward.
Hunt, John W. "Flying the Cuckoo's Nest: Kesey's Narrator as Norm." Lex et Scientia 13 (1977): 27-32. Rpt. in A Casebook on Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1992. 13-23.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Dead Poet Society explore the struggle for independence through characters who are subject to an environment in which they are rewarded for their conformity. Dead Poet Society outlines the complications of young students at Welton Academy after a respected English teacher named Mr. Keating inspires them to seize the day. However, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest explore the events that transpire in a mental institute after an exceedingly ‘difficult’ patient arrives and the impact this has on Chief Bromden. Both texts critically explore the struggle for independence.
In Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author refers to the many struggles people individually face in life. Through the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, the novel explores the themes of individuality and rebellion against conformity. With these themes, Kesey makes various points which help us understand which situations of repression can lead an individual to insanity. These points include: the effects of sexual repression, woman as castrators, and the pressures we face from society to conform. Through these points, Kesey encourages the reader to consider that people react differently in the face of repression, and makes the reader realize the value of alternative states of perception, rather than simply writing them off as "crazy."
...rphy knows the other patients are not crazy but the big nurse convinces them that they are. One student says “the book gave her insight into the mental institutions and that she liked the characters’ care free quality, even though they were ill.”(LA times) Kesey expected the same response from all of his audience, although, he received a negative response from parents. As author Upton Sinclair said about his book The Jungle, ‘I aimed my book at America’s heart, but I hit it in the stomach.” (Books Reconsidered), so did Kesey.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. John Clark Pratt. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1996. Print. Viking Critical Library.