One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Other Ken Kesey Writing

1732 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Social movements of the 1960s

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest “If it feels good, do it.” This is a quote many people in the 1960’s lived by and tried to use in their everyday life. This was a time of rebellion and change in the United States. Many young citizens turned against the life styles of their parents and decided things needed to change. They felt intense rage from the war in Vietnam and this is when the rebellion began. Many young people turned to radical politics, wore hippy clothes, used drugs and had extremely liberal sexual attitudes. They believed “the man,” or the government wanted to take them down and try to silence their opinions. During this time, the government also institutionalized people into mental wards who were crazy in their opinions. They used outlandish and damaging forms of treatment on these patients such as frontal lobotomy and electroshock therapy. It was a time of change in the United States and you can see Ken Kesey’s perspective on it all through his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Ken Kesey, “The Intrepid Traveler” The late author Ken Kesey was born on September 17, 1935 and passed away on November 10, 2001. He was the author of many works including Zoo, Caverns and the most popular One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He is a well known author known internationally and across generations. He began writing his now famous novel in the early 1960’s after an experience he encountered that year. He was working a night shift at the Menlo Park Veterans hospital in Virginia. He got an opportunity to speak with some of the patients and started to form his own opinion on them. He didn’t believe they were crazy but rather being pushed out of society because they did not fit into the conventional ideas of how people were s... ... middle of paper ... ...nstitution makes a reader trust his reliability and believe that he knows exactly what he’s talking about. It’s safe to say the 1960’s were a time of strong rebellion, change and oblivion to mental wards. Anything that was considered “different” or “strange” was overlooked and tucked under the rug. This is why television shows such as Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were so popular because they deterred people from the sick truths of society, just as it still is today. Ken Kesey followed the road less traveled and exposed the world to what was really happening. The sick conditions of mental institutions, the teen’s who wanted to rebel against the government, and the conformity that just needed to be broken. This is why critics everywhere agree, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of the realest, provocative and stimulating novels written in the last century.

Show More
Related

  • Corrption of Power On All in One Flew Over the Cuckoo´s Nest

    837 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

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

    848 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • AP Lit Final

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    1643 Words  | 4 Pages

    I hated Nurse Ratched before and I sure do now. Her sneaky little schemes to turn the patients on each other make’s me furious. I’m glad McMurphy broke down the window; it’ll remind the patients that her power is limited and changeable. Although, she made McMurphy stronger than ever, even with the countless electroshock treatments. Proving his desire to remain strong in the face of tyranny. “And he'd swell up, aware that every one of those faces on Disturbed had turned toward him and was waiting, and he'd tell the nurse he regretted that he had but one life to give for his country and she could kiss his rosy red ass before he'd give up the goddam ship. Yeh!” (Kesey, 187) I agree to some extent, that without her there wouldn’t be a book, she makes the book exciting even if her methods are all but pure. Her character stands as a symbol of the oppression woman received during that time and in a way, the society in which these characters live are flipped. While on the outside woman have no rights, in the ward they are the all mighty, all knowing, powerful, controllable force. So yah, we need Nurse Ratched but I still hate her. During the course of the short novel she destroyed three men, two of which died and the other was lobotomised. “What worries me, Billy," she said - I could hear the change in her voice - "is how your mother is going to take this.” (Kesey, 231) I can’t say I enjoyed Nurse Ratched being strangled by McMurphy, but I do think she deserved it. Although, it was the end to the battle since the Nurse had won the war. By infuriating McMurphy to that point and her ability to remain calm throughout it all, she proved that McMurphy’s action didn’t faze her. She proved that rebelling is feeblish and by lobot...

    Read More

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

    382 Words  | 1 Pages

    A hero is considered to be any man noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose;

    Read More

  • Examples Of Social Isolation In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1899 Words  | 4 Pages

    In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is much controversy and bias present throughout the characters in the Combine. The patients have been rejected and forgotten about by society and left to rot with the antithesis of femininity: Nurse Ratched. But even Ratched isn’t immune to the scrutiny of the outside world, and she has to claw her way into power and constantly fight to keep it. With his own experiences and the societal ideals of the 1960’s, Ken Kesey displays how society isolates and ostracizes those who do not follow the social norms or viewed as inferior to the white american males.

    Read More

  • Symbols and Symbolism in Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Violence In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1189 Words  | 3 Pages

    Violence and death surrounds everyone, from movies to books to news. These subjects are particularly prevalent in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Kesey's main goal for writing the novel was to show his readers the atrocities within mental health wards. However, he managed to have a greater impact in young adults' lives than ever imagined. Although there are instances of death and violence in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it should be included in high school curriculum because exposure to these topics helps teenagers to properly deal with similar situations in their own lives.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Analytical Essay

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    The use of theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey brings upon the ideas of misogyny, sexual repression and freedom, and salvation from an omnipotent oppressor, through the story of Chief Bromden, who lives in an insanity ward. Even from the beginning pages of the novel, the reader is introduced to such characters as Nurse Ratched, or the “Big Nurse,” who is said to be the dictator of the ward and acts upon the ward with the utmost control. Another branch of the theme of oppressors and salvation that relates to Nurse Ratched, as well as Randle McMurphy, is the idea that they are both representatives of figures based in Catholicism. Sexual repression and freedom is seen with the ultimate punishment in the ward, a lobotomy, being stated as equivalent to castration. Both of the operations are seen as emasculating, removing the men’s personal freedom, individuality, and sexual expression, and reducing them to a child-like state. All of these different pieces of the theme relates to a powerful institution that, because of the advances of the time, such as technology and civil rights for women, is causing men to be common workers without distinctive thoughts that must fit the everyday working mold of the 1950s.

    Read More

  • Life During the 1950s in America

    1948 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey argued that this presumed model society was actually quite the opposite. Kesey argued this through the use of the characters in the novel. Nurse Ratched was a character who symbolized the communist rule in Russia, and she displayed absolute power over the patients in the ward. She was depicted as what was wrong with society, and the patients feared her as the Americans feared communists. Randle McMurphy retaliated against Nurse Ratched in order to challenge her control, just as the Americans fought against Communism in the Cold War. Although it seemed as though there were some positive aspects of domestic life in the 1950s, Ken Kesey argued that American society at the time was tainted due to the roles of fear, the rejection of those who were different, and t...

    Read More

  • Persecution Explored in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Trial

    2225 Words  | 5 Pages

    Sutherland, Janet R. "A Defense of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NEst." English Journal 61.1 (1972): 28-31. JSTOR. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. .

    Read More

  • Essay On One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    2040 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fred Wright, Lauren's instructor for EN 132 (Life, Language, Literature), comments, "English 132 is an introduction to English studies, in which students learn about various areas in the discipline from linguistics to the study of popular culture. For the literature and literary criticism section of the course, students read a canonical work of literature and what scholars have said about the work over the years. This year, students read One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey, a classic of American literature which dates from the 1960s counterculture. Popularized in a film version starring Jack Nicholson, which the class also watched in order to discuss film studies and adaptation, the novel became notable for its sympathetic portrayal of the mentally ill. For an essay about the novel, students were asked to choose a critical approach (such as feminist, formalist, psychological, and so forth) and interpret the novel using that approach, while also considering how their interpretation fit into the ongoing scholarly dialogue about the work. Lauren chose the challenge of applying a Marxist approach to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Not only did she learn about critical approaches and how to apply one to a text, she wrote an excellent essay, which will help other readers understand the text better. In fact, if John Clark Pratt or another editor ever want to update the 1996 Viking Critical Library edition of the novel, then he or she might want to include Lauren's essay in the next edition!"

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Transcendentalism

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: 3 Points

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    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."

    Read More

  • Ken Elton Kesey and His Works

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Goodwin, Susan. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey." 2012. Lone Star College System. 8 April 2014 .

    Read More

More about One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Other Ken Kesey Writing

Open Document