One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of a number of works of art that came out of 1960s North America. Because of their counter-culture attitude and the distaste for any kind of social authority, these works became grouped together under the term Beat literature. Ken Kesey was certainly a prime example of a beatnik: he refused to settle down, and he experimented with drugs, sex and the literary form. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey created an enduring symbol of free-spiritedness and powerful rebellion in the book's central character, P. Randall McMurphy.
Overview: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The book is set primarily in the psychiatric ward of a mental institution and is narrated by a supposedly deaf-mute Red Indian by the name of Chief Bromden. The inhabitants of the ward are beaten by the orderlies who are supposed to look after them, and they live in constant fear of the authoritarian head nurse, Nurse Ratched. Their lives are lived in what is described in the book as a constant "fog." Then, one morning, a prisoner from a local work farm is admitted to the hospital. Many of the staff believe he is feigning mental illness to avoid a stint of hard labor.
McMurphy--the gambling, smooth-talking prisoner--soon begins to lead a rebellion against the rules and strictures of the institution. He wins small victories that slowly erode the powerful hold that Nurse Ratched has on the ward's inmates. When the nurse attempts to punish him by not allowing the ward to watch a baseball game, McMurphy and his fellow prisoners whoop and holler at the TV as though a game was on. He then manages to convince one of the doctors on the ward that a fishing trip would be therapeutic for the patients, and the coddled men of the institution overcome their fears of the outdoors and leave the safety of the ward.
The book is set primarily in the psychiatric ward of a mental institution and is narrated by a supposedly deaf-mute Red Indian by the name of Chief Bromden. The inhabitants of the ward are beaten by the orderlies who are supposed to look after them, and they live in constant fear of the authoritarian head nurse, Nurse Ratched. Their lives are lived in what is described in the book as a constant "fog." Then, one morning, a prisoner from a local work farm is admitted to the hospital. Many of the staff believe he is feigning mental illness to avoid a stint of hard labor.
McMurphy--the gambling, smooth-talking prisoner--soon begins to lead a rebellion against the rules and strictures of the institution. He wins small victories that slowly erode the powerful hold that Nurse Ratched has on the ward's inmates. When the nurse attempts to punish him by not allowing the ward to watch a baseball game, McMurphy and his fellow prisoners whoop and holler at the TV as though a game was on. He then manages to convince one of the doctors on the ward that a fishing trip would be therapeutic for the patients, and the coddled men of the institution overcome their fears of the outdoors and leave the safety of the ward.
One night, McMurphy goes too far and has a party in the middle of the night, inviting two hookers to join them. Ratched finds out and is so cruel to one of the more fragile inmates, Billy, that he commits suicide. In one desperate attempt to be free of the nurse's hold, McMurphy attacks her and is punished by having a lobotomy performed on him. McMurphy is finally neutralised by authority, but in the final pages of the book Bromden takes on his mantle. Bromden throws a water faucet through one of the ward's windows and escapes.
Tell the Story, But Tell it Slant: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One of the most fascinating things about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the way that the story is narrated from the skewed consciousness of Chief Bromden. To the Chief's strangled, paranoid mind, the ward is run by an enormous, mechanised conspiracy called "the Combine," which pumps fog into the rooms so that he can't see. It makes makes him small, feeble and unable to fight.
The blurring of the line between fiction and reality is not simply to call into question Bromden's view of events, but seems to be the only fitting reaction to the soul-destroying methods of the mental ward that emasculates and disempowers its patients. In this world, Nurse Ratched--far from being the caring and consoling maternal figure she seems to the outside world, is actually the instrument of the patient's inability to be free of authority.
Tell the Story, But Tell it Slant: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One of the most fascinating things about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the way that the story is narrated from the skewed consciousness of Chief Bromden. To the Chief's strangled, paranoid mind, the ward is run by an enormous, mechanised conspiracy called "the Combine," which pumps fog into the rooms so that he can't see. It makes makes him small, feeble and unable to fight.
The blurring of the line between fiction and reality is not simply to call into question Bromden's view of events, but seems to be the only fitting reaction to the soul-destroying methods of the mental ward that emasculates and disempowers its patients. In this world, Nurse Ratched--far from being the caring and consoling maternal figure she seems to the outside world, is actually the instrument of the patient's inability to be free of authority.
McMurphy, the protagonist of Kesey's book, is a great hulk of a man--written in the great American tradition of pioneers and lovers of liberty. That he is a lecher, a thief and a fraud, only seems to underline his status as the hero of the novel and a man of great moral strength.
As someone who lives outside of society, he is the only one able to pierce the compliance that the inmates of the ward show, and impress upon them the value of living their own lives. His final attempt at freedom--with his the attack on Nurse Ratched--and his subsequent destruction at the hands of those who are supposed to help the mentally ill, allows us to see his character to tragic proportions, making him a victim of a world that will not allow men to be free.
As someone who lives outside of society, he is the only one able to pierce the compliance that the inmates of the ward show, and impress upon them the value of living their own lives. His final attempt at freedom--with his the attack on Nurse Ratched--and his subsequent destruction at the hands of those who are supposed to help the mentally ill, allows us to see his character to tragic proportions, making him a victim of a world that will not allow men to be free.
Write a Revolution: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One of the most revolutionary novels of the 1960s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a considerable literary feat, as well as a heart-felt cry against the dull sameness that modern life imposes upon us. Touching, strong and idealistic--Kesey's book set a new bar for literature that dealt with the courageous outsider and their attack on the society that they rejected.
One of the most revolutionary novels of the 1960s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a considerable literary feat, as well as a heart-felt cry against the dull sameness that modern life imposes upon us. Touching, strong and idealistic--Kesey's book set a new bar for literature that dealt with the courageous outsider and their attack on the society that they rejected.
