One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Other Ken Kesey Writing

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.