While working as a night attendant on the psychiatric ward of Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, Ken Kesey was stricken with an idea that would later turn into his first novel. That novel, entitled One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, went on to become his most famous work and a celebrated piece of modern American fiction (Lupack 566). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells the story of a mental hospital which is running quite smoothly until a new patient enters the ward and sets chaos in motion. This new patient, McMurphy, disagrees with the rules of the ward’s authority figure, Nurse Ratched, and makes no attempt to hide it. Thus begins an all-out war between authority and the individual, leading to the suicides of several patients and even the eventual lobotomy and death of McMurphy himself when he crosses the final line (Kesey). In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest he employs the theme of sacrifice to reflect upon the counterculture struggle of the 1960s.
One way Kesey shows his theme of sacrifice is through the book's narrator, Chief Bromden. The Chief is a large, 6'8" Native American man who has been on the ward longer than anyone else but Nurse Ratched. He has gone through repeated electroshock therapy treatments to the extent of becoming deaf—or so everyone else thinks. In reality, he feigns deafness so that he will be left alone. The Chief explains this charade by saying, “ . . . it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all” (Kesey 210). Bromden sacrifices his own ability for expression—his speech, his apparent ability to hear and comprehend—in order to live a "safe" life, sheltered from the Nurse and her orderlies by pass...
... middle of paper ...
...ames Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara Pendergast and
Tom Pendergast. Vol. 3. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. Gale Virtual Reference
Library. Web. 2 Nov. 2011.
Madden, Fred. "Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner." Modern
Fiction Studies 32.2 (1986): 203-17. Rpt. in Bloom's Modern Critical interpretations.
Ed. Harold Bloom. New ed. New York: Infobase, 2008. 107-21. Print.
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 2. Detroit:
Gale, 1997. 218-39. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
Pendergast, Sara, and Tom Pendergast, eds. The Sixties in America Reference Library. Vol. 2.
Detroit: UXL, 2005. Biographies. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
Sherman, W. D. "The Novels of Ken Kesey." Journal of American Studies 5.2 (1971): 185-96.
JSTOR. Web. 29 Oct. 2011.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, a Novel. New York: Viking, 1962. Print.
Kesey, Ken. One flew over the cuckoo's nest, a novel. New York: Viking Press, 1962. Print.
The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey tells a story of Nurse Ratched, the head nurse of a mental institution, and the way her patients respond to her harsh treatment. The story is told from the perspective of a large, Native-American patient named Bromden; he immediately introduces Randle McMurphy, a recently admitted patient, who is disturbed by the controlling and abusive way Ratched runs her ward. Through these feelings, McMurphy makes it his goal to undermine Ratched’s authority, while convincing the other patients to do the same. McMurphy becomes a symbol of rebellion through talking behind Ratched’s back, illegally playing cards, calling for votes, and leaving the ward for a fishing trip. His shenanigans cause his identity to be completely stolen through a lobotomy that puts him in a vegetative state. Bromden sees McMurphy in this condition and decides that the patients need to remember him as a symbol of individuality, not as a husk of a man destroyed by the
Kunz, Don. Symbolization in Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A Casebook on Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1989.
This essay will be exploring the text One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey and the film Dead poet’s society written by Tom Schulman. The essay will show how the authors use over exaggerated wildcard characters such as McMurphy and Keating. The use of different settings such as an insane asylum and an all-boys institution. And Lastly the use of fore shading to show how the authors can use different texts to present similar ideas in different ways.
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a book in which he dealt with the issues of racism, sex and authority that is going on in a mental institute. In the novel, the women are depicted as the power figures who are able to significantly manipulate the patients on the ward. There are four ways of Ken Kesey’s using of “woman” as a subject: Superiority of male sexuality over female authority, matriarchal system that seeks to castrate men in the society, mother figures as counterpart of Big Nurse and “Womanish” values defined as civilizing in the novel.
From the arguments and supporting evidence presented throughout the essay, it can be established that the novel and poem, both contain the conformity discourse. The novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey and the poem Advice to Young Ladies, crafted by A.D. Hope, endorses conformity, sexuality and Christianity discourses presented; the poem differs by challenging them.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Viking Press. New York. 1973. Page 188.
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...
...e land to the white people is tied into the female role theme in the story. His mother's emasculation of his father made him smaller not literally but psychologically weakening him enough to sell the land and become victim to the combine: This excerpt best represents Keseys use of combining themes, and especially represent the story of the native Americans. Kesey combined The role of women, conformity, and the civilization of the native American throughout the novel. Kesey expertly weaves several very strong stories and themes in to the American myth of Randel McMurphy. He does so in a way that makes a particularly strong statement about American culture. Kesey makes a significant argument about the mechanical regularity supported by Western Civilization. By using Chief Bromden as the Narrator Kesey pulls the reader right in to the middle of the story and also The Great Conversation by using the only character that can shed light on all of the dominant themes present in the novel. Kesey's work takes on a shape outside of the mental hospital which for most readers is hard to relate with, and uses the insane to challenge some very real aspects and arguments present in today's world.
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
Malin, Irving. “Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Critique 5.2 (1962): 81-84. Rpt. in Kesey 440-444.
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 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."
...y themes and perspectives. Affected by World War II, they found a new direction and their works highlighted the inevitability of death and the circle of life. In the darkness, there is always existence of a hero who will rescue and give hope. The destruction of war also helped them to understand human conditions with weakness and fears of death. With the changes in modern society, Kesey and Heller emphasized their work on declining humanity and individualism of civilization machines. Also, the extreme power of institutions and bureaucracy restricts people from their free will and making their independent decisions.