FREE ESSAY ON ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NESTA HUMANITIES PERSPECTIVE

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NESTA HUMANITIES PERSPECTIVE

Ken Kesey's novel  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest  takes place in a mental hospital. The
main character, or protagonist is Randle P. McMurphy, a convicted criminal and gambler
who feigns insanity to get out of a prisoners work ranch. The antagonist is Nurse Ratched
also referred to as  The Big Nurse . She is in charge of running the mental ward. The
novel is narrated by a patient of the hospital, an American Indian named Chief Bromden.
Chief Bromden has been a patient at the hospital longer than any of the others, and is a
paranoid-schizophrenic, who is posing as a deaf mute. The Chief often drifts in and out
between reality and his psychosis ( Kesey does a good job of blurring the line between
the two). The conflict in the novel is between McMurphy and  The Big Nurse which turns
into a battle of mythic proportion. The center of  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is
this battle between the two, which Kesey uses to represent many of our cultures most
influential stories.
The dominant theme in this novel is that of conformity and it's pressure on today's
society. In the novel conformity is represented as a machine , or in Chief Bromden's mind
a combine . To the Chief, the combine' depicts the conformist society of America, this is
evident in one particular paragraph:
This excerpt not only explains the Chiefs outlook on society as a machine but also his
self outlook and how society treats a person who is unable to conform to society, or more
poignantly one who is unable to cope with the inability to conform to society. The chief
views the mental hospital as a big machine as well, which is run by  The Big Nurse  who
controls everyone except McMurphy with wires and a control panel( which the Chief see
quite clearly in his psychosis). In the Chiefs eyes McMurphy was missed by the combine,
as the Chief and the other patients are casualties of it. Therefore McMurphy is an
unconformist and is unencumbered by the wires of The Big Nurse and so he is a threat to
the combine. McMurphy represents the antithesis to the mechanical regularity, therefore
he represents nature and it's unregularity.
Another key theme in Kesey's novel is the role of women is society and how it contradicts
the males. In keeping with the highly contrasting forces of conformity verses creativity
Kesey proceeds to compare the male role to spontaneity, sexuality, and nature and the
female role to conformity, sexual repression and ultimately the psychological castration
of the male. Nurse Ratched was endowed with large breast which threatens her power over
the male patients because of her exposing herself sexually and Kesey's view in the novel
of male sexual dominance, therefore she try's to hide them the best she can. Nurse
Ratched gains her power through her sterility which she does with no makeup and white
uniform, as well as her emasculation of the male patients and doctors.  The Big Nurse '
takes the place of the mother role or other over domineering feminine role in a lot of
the patients lives, which led them to their psychological castration. To the Chief, the
nurse takes on the role of his white mother who orchestrated the downfall and
emasculation of his father and the selling of his tribal land to the white people ( also
referred to as the combine ) . Another patient Billy Bibbit a thirty one year old man
whose mental problems were due to his over domineering mother , who was friends with
Nurse Ratched. The downfall of Billy was toward the climax of the novel when The Big
Nurse brought to the surface Billy's inability to stand up to his mother and her years of
psychological castration, and soon after, came his suicide.
Kesey incorporates many other sub-themes into  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest  but all
of them represent a larger than simply the battle between The Big Nurse and McMurphy.
They all center around one central theme and that is the struggle between good and evil.
This struggle shows up In many of Americas most definitive stories. And among these
definitive stories is that of Jesus Christ. Kesey weaves this story with  One Flew Over
The Cuckoo's Nest with religious references and imagery. One example is the patient Ellis
who was given too much electro-shock therapy and stands permanently crucified against the
wall, which foreshadows other religious undertones later in the book when McMurphy is
forced into  more severe therapy. Mc Murphy's therapy and final days has a number of
overt religious references, such as :
This religious imagery was an intentional attempt on Kesey's part to bring the reader
into McMurphy's story and relate it to Jesus Christ's. While the role of McMurphy and
Christ have obvious differences some similarities are also apparent. McMurphy also died
for an unselfish reason, to better the lives of others and took on a cause more noble
than himself.
Another story of good and evil and one that played a large roll in the shaping of
American culture, is the civilization of the Native American and the confiscation of
their land. The combine comes from the Chiefs delusion of the taking over of his land by
the white people. The sound the  combine  makes in the Chiefs head is similar to to the
dam that was built on his land and forced his people from their homes. The selling of the
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.