Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange

When African slaves were sold to Americans, they lost their fundamental rights as human beings. However, their inferiority was further cemented when slaves eventually conformed to their white owners. In slavery’s infancy, almost all slaves resisted against their oppressors in one form or another but had limited to no success. These failed resistances eventually led to hopelessness for the slaves as they even began to consider slavery as an accepted practice. Many slaves developed a notion of performing their forced labour more willingly and in turn their owners decreased the beatings and cruelty towards them (“Slavery in the United States.”) For instance, slaves who displayed respect towards their owners were assigned to perform less physically demanding tasks such as housework, whereas the other slaves would become field workers and complete hours of hard labour in the plantations. In fact, the term “Uncle Tom” was a derogatory title given to slaves that were considered to betray their people by being subservient to their oppressors rather than rebelling. Ultimately, “Uncle Toms” were thought to have legitimized the colonizers’ rule; thus, the whites were made more powerful (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”) The novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, and A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, both deal with authorities that deprive their people of freedom for the sake of their rule. The former takes place in a contemporary mental hospital, where a conniving nurse torments her patients with her stipulations, and tortures those who do not abide by her standards. The latter novel, set in the dystopian future, is about a criminal teenager who is arrested by the government and undergoes a new reformation treatment intended to ind...

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... ideal governing system, citizens must face the difficulty in removing an unsuitable leader from power. Indeed, all governing systems are ultimately flawed in one way or another, but the well-being of a society can vary depending on the potential of its constituents and leaders.

Works Cited

Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: Buccaneer Books Cutchogue, 2009. Print.

Doolittle, Robyn. "Rob Ford scandal: Three-quarters of those polled want mayor to step down." Toronto Star 13 Nov. 2013: 1. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Toronto: Penguin Books, 2007. Print.

“Slavery in the United States.” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online School Edition. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013.