Harold Bloom is a famous literary scholar. This is his picture. Our BVHS Library has access to his collections of essays about famous literature, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Go to the BVHS website and under "Student Resources" click on "Library" to find the Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Once there, login and search for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Take time to study an essay about Cuckoo's Nest, then write 300+ words of your own responding to the essay. Summarize the essay you read. Include the title and the author of the essay to which you're responding. Copy/paste 30-40 additional words from the actual entry you study at Bloom's Literary Reference Online.
OR you may search for 1984 by George Orwell, then summarize and respond to an essay about Eric Arthur Blair's great dystopian novel.
- This blog task is worth 100 points, so do not include filler/fluff. Analyze & dig. Write with passion, polish, and proof.
Username: "brandon" Password: "valley"
91 comments:
Henning pd. 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
by Thomas J. Slater
In this essay the author is comparing the movie directors angles to Chief's narration in the novel. I really like how Slater is comparing the movie to the novel. He is showing how the movie director portrays certain aspects of the novel in his angles he uses during the movie. Thomas J. Slater thoroughly explains Forman's angles in the movie One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. He tells us what Forman was trying to capture in his angles and the meaning behind all of them. "If McMurphy's ideal world is one of complete disarray, Nurse Ratched's is one of total order." Slater talks a lot about the binary oppositions in his essay as well. The perspective of Chief in the novel is somewhat portrayed through the angles in the movie that Forman creates. I believe that Thomas J. Slater is right about his analysis of the characters in the book and movie and the angles in the movie. "In contrast to the book, the movie establishes the Chief as the only character that McMurphy sets free because he is the only one who has gained the courage to act on his own. Forman gives the story a contemporary meaning by showing it as a struggle for power among McMurphy, Ratched, and Harding. On its surface, Forman's film appears to have a conservative message because the hero is battling an oppressive social system dominated by a woman and a homosexual (Dale Harding), but his film is neither sexist not anti-gay. His depiction of all three characters as failing to achieve or maintain power because of their very lust for it presents his true theme. Forman shows that people who strive for power are susceptible to their own human weaknesses, a fact that everyone needs to realize. In the end, each individual must work towards his or her own freedom or remain entrapped by the whims of those in power." Slater's essay was about analyzing the characters through Forman's camera angles in the movie. Chief thinks of McMurphy as a mythic figure according to Slater. McMurphy acts under strong feelings of hatred and guilt when he goes against everything that Ratched does. In Chief's eyes Nurse Ratched plays a major role in life because she is the controller of "The Combine". In the movie it seems as if Chief is the only one that McMurphy sets free because Chief was the only one that had enough courage to act on his own. Chief is a lot less subtle about making McMurphy out to be a Christ-figure than Forman does in the movie. Forman uses certain aspects of the book exactly and sometimes he changes it up to work better for the movie.
Herrman pd3
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Cheif as Narrator and Executioner By Fred Madden.
Summarization- This essay is debating whether or not McMurphy is a hero or not. One, is he a hero? Two, is he being Condemed. And it also talk alot about Chief and the novel through Cheifs Perspective. Readers who condem McMurphy look at his language and attitude. As it goes on it talks about McMurphy and his role in the novel. He comes in being against everything and not conforming like the rest of the ward. He realizes that Nurse Ratchet is controling how long he stays on the ward so he begins to conform but soon realizes how much his rebelion is important to the patients. The essay talks about how McMurphy is the central character and Cheif is his side kick. Ken Kesey says " It's the Indians Story" when being interviewed. "Individual Sanity". You end up unerstanding Cheif's sanity ant the end of the novel then McMurphy's During it. It shows how Kesey explains Cheif is the most complex Character in the Cukcoos nest. This essay is pretty much explaining the roles of McMurphy and Cheif. It shows Kesey's thoughts and reasoning behing everything he wrote about in the Novel.
Herrman pd 3 Continued...
Response- As it begins it talks about what we think about mcmurphy. weather or not he is condemed or a hero. What i have read of the novel shows to me that he is a hero for the most part. he brings the patients in the ward to think for themselves and stand up for what they beleive in. But there are some traits about Mcmurphy that make him seem not so hero like. Such as his racism and sexism and being Biast. Also pretty full of himself. When it talks about how McMurphy rebels and beats up washington to stand up for George and then after Billy's suicide he trys to strangle nurse ratchet which leads to his labotomy. McMurphy Sacraficed himself for the other patients. And i dont think they really realized it beside Chief. He continued to cause trouble with the staff and push the patients further to better themselves. He goes to the extreme to help and stand up for them. Cheif understanding what McMurphy has done for them and doesnt want Nurse ratchet to use RPM as an example of what will happen if they continue not to conform Cheif Kills him by Smuthering him and then escapes in Sure proof that he is not Deaf and Dumb what so ever. The ending when Chief escapes out the window is glorious. He as Beat conformity and realeased himself to Freedom. Although Cheif is the person we are seeing the story through McMurphy is the central Character and Chief is his right hand Man. When it talks about how Kesey wanted to create a character "who leaves the ground and breathes in print" I think is so awesome and I think he fully achieved that! Where it talks about "Individual Sanity"closer to Big Chief's at the end of the novel than to McMurphy's during it. I belive is so true and I am glad that is the way it ended up. I enjoyed it reading form Chiefs prospective and not only seeing how McMurphy helped and the other patients grew But how Chief Became sane and Free'd himself. I think that From the start of the book we have a special connection with Chief because he is the narrator and the most abused. In the essay it says "Big Chief is Kesey's most complex creation in the Cuckoo's Nest because he is both a character in his own right and one whose perspective controls the reader's." I agree with this entirely. I think from the very minute I began this Novel i saw everything thorugh the Perspective of Chief. All His thoughts about conformity and proof of Dehumanization made me dig deeper into who cheif was and what this was all about. When Cheif escapes the asylum i think it is so powerful in meaning. He is finaly taking his life back into his own hands and proving that he can and will do what he wants. McMurphy helped him realize his own strength and allowed him to escape to freedom. This essay explained topics and events in to clear and complete detail that i could understand and think deeply about the Novel.
Excerpts- The"individual sanity" expressed here is a position closer to Big Chiefs at the end of the novel than to Mcmurphy's during the novel. There is, however evidence against the reading of the novel. In an interview after the release of the film version of Cuckoo's Nest(during the production of which he "walked off the set" in disagreement with Milos Forman), Kesey stressed that "it's the Indian's story- not McMurphy's or Jack Nicholson's(Grunwald 4).
Engebretson, 7
The Hipster, the Hero, and the Psychic Frontier in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Thomas H. Fick
In Thomas H. Fick's essay, the author is comparing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to the novel The White Negro. Like described in The White Negro, there is a "hipster" that is described as a "philosophical psychopath living on the fringes of society", and that could be compared to that of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because of Randal P. McMurphy's "hipster" ways throughout the novel. “Committed to the asylum as a psychopath, McMurphy is a down-home hipster who vitalizes the sterile ward with the energy of his language”. " ‘Some thief in the night boosted my clothes’ " (93), he explains to Nurse Ratched when he appears the first morning wrapped in a towel strutting himself with his white whale boxers underneath. When he sees Nurse Ratched’s confusion, he is encouraged to play with her some more, and throughout the novel that is exactly what he does. As the essay continues, Fick mentions how McMurphy is one of the few patients that are fully committed to the ward, not voluntarily, and how this changes McMurphy when he hears this from the voluntary patients. When McMurphy see that the patients are literally afraid of what is on the outside of the ward, he helps the patients “let loose” (reference to the time period of the hippies in relation to Ken Kesey himself) and find their real selves within. Ficks also mentions the fishing trip and how that affects both the patients and McMurphy himself. “The centrality of process rather than goal can be seen in the relative weakness of the fishing expedition and final party, scenes that offer a telling contrast with the dominant narrative rhythm of parry and thrust. Both belie the energy of conflict because they seem to promise not temporary respites but permanent victory”. Later, on the fishing expedition, McMurphy helps the patients be themselves by serving alcohol and bringing a special lady with as well. “Billy 'Club' Bibbit, he was known as in them days. Those girls were about to take off when one looked at him and says, "Are you the renowned Billy Club Bibbit? Of the famous fourteen inches?"… "And I remember, when we got them up to the hotel, there was this woman's voice from over near Billy's bed, says, "Mister Bibbit, I'm disappointed in you; I heard that you had four—four—for goodness sakes!" (98–99)
The characters in both novels I feel, and agree with Thomas Hicks, are overlooked and underexpressed.
Kramer pd. 7
The Gail Knight Arrives by Raymond Olderman.
In this particular essay, Olderman is comparing the how McMurphy comes and saves them from Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest directly and how it directly correlates with April coming in T.S. Elliot’s poem “Wasteland.” “ He literally drags the unwilling asylum wastelanders out of the tranquilized fog that protects them—a fog that is forever "snowing down cold and white all over" (p. 7). The Wasteland waiting for the day god appears and everything is transformed into lush, green meadows where the combine cannot overwhelm you. Olderman thourghly portrays how McMurphy brings these acutes ,who are soon to be chronics, out of the blank, thoughtless world of Nurse Ratched’s ward. The combine tries to make them line up in rows to be the same, making it easier to harvest the crop and get ready for the next bunch. “Behind almost every ruined man is a grasping, castrating female whose big bosom belies her sterility but reveals a smothering momism.” Kesey comes right out and shows that Ratched is a “castrator,” cutting the balls off of every man who steps onto her ward; looking at the other female figures Billy’s mom, Harding’s wife they are the reason their loved ones are in the “hospital”. They know what to do, “the way they get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by getting' you where it hurts the worst" (p. 58). Olderman shows how Ratched is the Wasteland of the ward, she keeps these men feeling scared, guilty, alone making sure that they will not ever be big enough to deal with the everyday grind and grit of the combine. He shows us how Kesey shocks us over and over with what is controversial but that relates to everyone, we know it is there we’re just not supposed to talk about it. “The whole shock in the sixties was the character's discovery that deep down he may be the source of unrelenting insanity.” Knowing that and not being able to control it was very frightening, fear of what the combine was capable of kept the patients at the ward voluntarily. Afraid of the world going mad, I agree with Olderman saying that was the biggest reason for staying in the ward.
Hanson, 6
Stories Sacred and Profane: Narrative in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
In this essay the author is writing about how the world we live in is made of not atoms, but stories. We are all ‘storytelling animals’ and we all have our own story, or stories, to tell. It says in this essay that Cuckoo’s Nest is made up of two main literary expressions; myths and parables. He says that the use of binary opposites in the novel proves to us that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a myth and the use of various Christian symbols proves it is a parable. Cuckoo’s Nest is not a Christian novel but it tells words of faith and shows various Christian symbols (such as the cross or the bible) throughout the novel. Kesey relates McMurphy to Jesus through the novel as well. From the very beginning it is obvious that Chief and all the other men look up to him and look to him for help or advice. He is saving the men from the combine and he eventually sacrafices himself just like Jesus did for all of us.
This essay states that it is essential to understand the use of myths and parables to understand the ‘Christ figure’ within this novel. I completely agree with the author. When I read this novel I was surprised at how many symbols there really was within each chapter. It really taught me to read between the lines. From an obvious symbol like the EST table shaped as a cross, to a subtle one like the log book and the bible, Christianity is a key theme in the novel; even if it was not intended. By using the binary opposites in the novel we can compare what it would be like in reality to what it is like in the novel. For example, outside vs. inside, inside the ward it is very strict and scheduled with each of the men possessing very little freedom. However, outside of the ward in the real world freedom is all the men would have. They would make their own rules and be their own people.
My favorite passage from the essay: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel that is critical of its own formulations, shows us that, particularly in a modern world ridden by bogus myths that make false promises to order our existence and bring delusive comfort, an appreciation of the parable's truth-bringing power becomes crucially important in our personal and collective lives. Further, for all its secular wisdom, Kesey's novel points to the power of the Christian story in particular by placing at the center a naturalized version of Jesus as the Parable of God.”
Engebretson, pd 7
The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Jack Hicks
In this essay, the author, Jack Hicks starts off by comparing to Ken Kesey to Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg because all of these authors represent the unsettling artistic type. Kesey has sought to transcend the category of poet or novelist by making his life a larger poem or fiction. Kesey has also become a powerful cultural figure over the last decade because of his characteristics of living a countercultural life-style, and this helps all types of readers relate to his novels. Not only is this proven in Ken Kesey’s own One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but also in Tom Wolfe's pop biography, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Kesey began his profound passion for writing while attending the University of Oregon. Kesey was a minor celebrity on campus being an athlete and an accomplished actor. While attending Oregon, Kesey fell under the influence of James B. Hall, a writing professor. Hall helped Kesey realize his strengths and weaknesses in his writing, and help him focus on putting himself in his writing without it being a autobiography. While at Stanford as a writing student, Kesey began writing short stories, one-act plays, poetry, and eventually an unpublished novel about college athletics, End of Autumn. As years passed, Kesey was exposed to an extracurricular experience as a medical volunteer at Menlo Parks Veterans Hospital. While here, he was paid seventy-five dollars a day to be the experimenter for drug analysis with "psychomimetic" drugs. Although the singular effects of his drug experiences would have been quite powerful enough, Kesey took a job as night attendant on a psychiatric ward at Menlo Park Hospital to increase his income. His experiences from this psych ward are extremely vivid in his profound novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey was both intrigued and oppressed by the types of things he worked through in the ward, but because of they he developed one of his most successful novels of all time.
“ ‘I been silent so long now it's gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It's still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking on it. But it's the truth even if it didn't happen.’ ”
Groninger pd 2
The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Robert P. Waxler
In the essay “The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest “ written by the author “Robert P. Waxler “ He is pointing out that Ken Kesey is challenging us with the issue of mixed heritage through Chief Bromden’s half breed status. He talks about how Chief is on the symbolic search for his father and at the same time on a search for his manhood. The issue becomes complex when looking at this through a Freudian lens since if the son is to achieve manhood, he must symbolically kill the father and marry the mother. Chief’s father was put down by the government for being a Native American along with at the same time being made smaller by his wife. Another main point is that later on in life Chief is dominated by a woman nurse which creates the thought that women dominate the society in this book. Ironically in the begging of the book the Big Nurse walks in carrying a wicker basket that was most likely made by Native Americans and it holds the tools she uses to control and dominate the ward. Along with the government as an oppressive force that has helped hold down Native Americans. McMurphy coming onto the ward symbolizes the entrance of a father figure who gets Chief to come out of his shell along with teaching him how to beat the oppressive women and show him the path to manhood. At the end of the book Chief lifts the control panel and throws it through the window, and then leaps out. This symbolizes his willingness to take control of his own life and break free from the oppressive bonds that have been placed on him and to take control of his own future and be his own man.
What the critics seem to have avoided when discussing One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is that Bromden's "mixed heritage" is at the root of the Chief's problem of identity, accounting, to a large extent, for his schizophrenic narrative. More specifically, the Chief's family history puts him in the precarious position of a son who believes that his roots can only be discovered through his father, a man with an ethnic minority status.
Phillips. Period 7
In this essay I found some verily disunited opinions about O’Brien, Winston and Julia. It is only the men who we know the last names to and Julia is signified as "… every man's most potent sexual fantasy … sexually liberated, healthy, a creature of instinct and emotion, but not intellect, a man-identified woman …" (Mellor, 118). Is this the way that we are to believe that this author might have been a little sexist? Surely all the feminist who look upon this article saw a sexist pig but not I. I found the comment and description of Julia quiet interesting as to how a feminist and the author think. He was simply relating his own wife to a character in his most famous novel. Clever as he might be his sarcastic humor amuses me.
Winston is foreshadowed as the hero and the thought criminal. He enjoys that Julia is "a rebel from the waist downwards," after all sex in this novel is viewed as a crime against the party. Smith remembers things from his childhood, which proves to be disturbing. “After being given three-quarters of a chocolate ration, he had grabbed the other quarter from the hands of his starving baby sister. He ran out of the room, but looking back, he saw his mother cradling his sister to her breast.” He had often had repressed memories of his mother and sister. Still he never seems to come to terms with them. He never thinks that Winston Smith was just as bad as the party members themselves. Stealing what they could from the lower classes and stuffing their rich pampered butts with the goods. They could not see how there own people were suffering. So is it a crime to not be loyal to the system and listen, do and think as the party wants you too?
I think that what Julia and Winston are doing is liberation to the people who dare not do so for them selves.
Brianna Bly Pd. 6
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
By Thomas J. Slater
By comparing the movie director’s angles to Chief Bromden’s narration, Thomas Slater shows just how affective both are. Throughout the entire essay, Slater brings up all kinds of questions and statements that I hadn’t thought of before. He makes a good point when he says the director faced a problem with having the paranoid-schizophrenic Chief narrate the story. Being the judgmental humans we are, it’d be hard for a viewer to believe what they’re seeing when they know of Chief’s mental state. “Throughout the novel, Kesey subtly undercuts the Chief's biased presentation of McMurphy as a mythic figure”. Instead of seeing the film through Chief’s limited eyes and sharing his biased views, we are allowed to make our own assumptions and to see everything as it truly is. Slater later talks about how “McMurphy is mainly fearful of losing his own soul, and he is not basically concerned with saving others”. As much as Chief would like to believe that McMurphy cares about the patients, everything Randle McMurphy does is to his own benefit. “McMurphy therefore realizes that conformity and fear are interrelated, feeding on each other and producing the kind of hollow men that Nurse Ratched desires”. Both the book and the movie do an excellent job at proving this statement. Unlike the movie, the book allows our imaginations to take flight and lets us decide how things look for ourselves. “Forman shows that people who strive for power are susceptible to their own human weaknesses, a fact that everyone needs to realize”. The director shows that the patients must work towards their own freedom, or they shall be stuck under Nurse Ratched’s power for the rest of their safe lives. The author of this essay starts by explaining how Chief portrays the characters, and then discusses Forman’s different camera angles. I found it interesting how Thomas Slater talked about how the camera angles and Louise Fletcher together made the viewer have to question how Nurse Ratched was evil. Even when the director added and deleted parts in Kesey’s story, both brought me to the same conclusion about society and how it operates.
Kalo pd.2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living
These essay that these men write are completely right, I almost feel like I am there in their shoes. They are exactly right when they said that Nurse Ratchad ran the place, she literally ran the place she could do whatever she wanted to do and she didn’t care what people said to her. People tried firing her but her friend from the army ran the place and so they can’t fire her.” Women in the novel, one comes to see quickly, are powerful forces of control. They represent a sinister contemporary version of a feminist tradition in American literature that goes back, at least, to Dame Van Winkle and that percolates through the popular fiction of the nineteenth-century in the form of domestic tyranny-as Helen Waite Papashvily has shown with her chapter “. Another thing that I thought I would never see in this book was black male orderlies that really surprised me that the nurse wanted to have black nurses follow her around. I’m not trying to be racist but wasn’t it back then when they were fighting over racism and now she has male orderlies, helping her in this you could call a business almost, she shocks them if them don’t behave and if they don’t take their medicine they have to take it anal . Sounds kind of weird maybe she wanted to have all women employees but knew they couldn’t do the same job as men could, as protecting her and such. The other thing that plays an important role is the medicine cabinet, it could be good to some extent and to other extend it can turn into a bad thing, because when McMurphy broke into it, all hell went loose!! The final thing that ties the story together is when chief and McMurphy stand up for the nurses crap and McMurphy tries to strangle her, but he fails and he ends up dying himself, but he would die in misery if it wasn’t for Chief to have him die in peace.
Moschell pd 2
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey
The essay speaks a lot about the profanity of McMurphy. Schools have been taking this book out of there reading simply because the language that is used in it. I think this book should not be read to young children but it is okay for highschoolers to read the book. Highschoolers use worse language in there everyday vocabulary. This book is more about the life lessons than the swearing and the sex, people may need to read this book more than once and analyze it to understand what the lessons are. I had to further analyze the book to understand what the book was saying. Times have changed since the essay was written. I think the parents of today’s times would be more understanding towards this book. Parents are not as high strung as they once were; they let their children do things that their parents would not let them do or even think about doing. Also parents need to read this book before they decide this book is just about indecencies. The indecencies make the readers want to read more into the book. I enjoy how McMurphy challenges the system. One person can change the system or change the way people look at the system they have been using. My favorite part of this essay was: “Identified as containing "obscene, filthy language," the novel was challenged in 1971 in Greeley, Colorado, where parents in the public school district demanded that it be removed from the nonrequired American Culture reading list along with I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and Love Story. In 1974, five residents of Strongsville, Ohio, sued the board of education to remove One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Manchild in the Promised Land from the classroom.” Some of the most challenging books have the most promising life lessons are in those books. People need to read past the foul language and other things in the book. Since it was nonrequired obviously it was the students own choice to read the book and they could have stopped any time it turned to graphic for them.
Zins 7
The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by: Jack Hicks
This essay talks about Kesey’s life experiences in his college and after graduate life. It says that Kesey was introduced to his first great writing teacher in 1958. After this he was extremely into his studies at Stanford University. He then wrote an unpublished novel called Zoo about the North Beach in San Francisco. His next adventure was trying out drugs for hospitals for money when he was running low on cash; however, this drug use eventually led him to more extracurricular drug use outside of the hospitals. Kesey then took a job on a psychiatric ward in Menlo Park on the night shift. This job helped him write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest showing his disgust with life in a psychiatric ward. By 1964 Kesey was in his addiction stage of his drug use and put his money into a bus that was meant to travel coast to coast where he was arrested many times with possession of marijuana. After this, to avoid getting prosecuted by the FBI Kesey faked suicide and fled to Mexico, after a while he surrendered and served two three month terms in jail. He eventually moved to a farm where he raised his family.
The essay also says that Chief Bromden is clinically insane and the only way he can put together things is to see them taking on a cartoonish shape like a cartoon strip of his life. Everything Bromden sees is real. Nurse Ratched’s fog, Blastic’s death, and the Black Boys abusive behavior towards the patients; it’s all real. To him. Once McMurphy is introduced to the novel, however, the fog the Ratched turns on suddenly starts to subside and he visions McMurphy helping him out of it. Bromden now sees himself in relation to the outside world, also he sees the world as humanized and not cartoon anymore.
Excerpt- "Things are unreal for him, 'like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be really funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys' (31)."
Angerhofer
period 7
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” from: Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds, Revised Edition.
Ken Kesey
“The boisterous, fun-loving, rebellious McMurphy is a lusty and profane fighter whose brawling and gambling challenge the rigidly structured world over which Nurse Ratched presides. Against all hospital rules, he initiates gambling among the inmates and smuggles women and wine into the ward. As he openly defies Big Nurse, the other men gradually emerge from their fear-induced inactivity and learn to express happiness, anger, and other emotions that have long been repressed….”
I found this essay very interesting because it reveals what the whole book is about, unconformity. This essay shows how Big Nurse had complete, unbeatable control over all the men on the ward untill Randal Patrick McMurphy shows up. McMurphy, being the gambler/partier that he is, show the men what they are missing. He shows the men that they have personalities and that they can let their spirts free from captivity. McMurphy comes in and literally turns the ward into a completelely different place than it was before his arrival. You could compare it to real life and how one person like McMurphy, or Charles Manson can brainwash, allude, persuade, and gain the confidence of everyone around them and make them trust them. This trust consequently leads to death, destruction, and total chaos within the ward and within the characters themselves. Three main characters, Cheswick, McMurphy, and Bibbit, end up perishing which I don’t belive would have happened if McMurphy would have stayed on the work farm. This alone is enough to convict McMurphy of being a tyrant, like Adolf Hitler. He Stole, drank, killed (mentally), punished, sinned, destroyed, mutinized, alienated, ravished, ransacked, scrutanized, and criticized everyone on the ward, making it literally hell on earth for the other patients. In the essay, Kesey does a great job of summerizing the book for us. He forshadows the power stuggles that take place, lights the stage for McMurphy, and introduces characters like he should, without revealing or giving away the book. Kesey was a mastermind at building suspense and making you want to keep flipping pages to see what will happen next with McMurphy. For this, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest deserves the attention it gets for being a different, nonordinary, rebelious book.
Trey Martin- Pd. 3
I am responding to the essay Stories Sacred and Profane by Janet Larson. The question that Janet makes about whether or not the narrative structures of our beliefs bear truth or no truth at all is controversial but needed. Never tell a Christian that there is no God because you could either get a door slam in the face, or an earful of their true beliefs. But who is to say that what they are saying is false or true. All beliefs have to come from somewhere be it in the past history or a certain tradition that has been carried out. She states that McMurphy, the messiah, can be save and be saved from stories that are rotten with perfection, and I could not agree with her more. The patients of the ward thrive off of the light that McMurphy shines on their darkness, their weirdness. They begin to start their own light that begins to emulate McMurphy even more, and comes to be a source of life for him. He needs the response, the reaction from these men in order to keep doing what he is doing, and making it know that he is here for a purpose, which is to make boys to men. She states that if a person who has been parabled begins reorganizing his life to achieve and sustain a static coherence, he too has slipped back into living by myth rather than remaining open to the experience of being “parabled”, meaning to me that instead of trying to go away from structure and order, if one tries to stay with the grain and not go against they are refusing the role of being recognized as something great, and instead being recognized as just another being who has no specialties and no non-conformist ways. McMurphy tries to show the men this by not trying to change himself in the process of changing the men. He shows them that you can be the exact way you were brought up to be and still have a chance to achieve some sort of change in the world, even if it is not a colossal affair.
“An opposition between two terms that cannot be reconciled (binary oppositions) will be represented by two fictional surrogates, and these replacements will allow a reconciliation or mediation which the original pair could not receive.”
Hillary McNamara Pd: 3
The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Robert P. Waxler
“In an important sense, the family is always the matrix for social and individual identity. We are our family. And in such a context, we need to ask how Chief Bromden can possibly gain back his manhood,”
In this essay Waxler made many points. He noticed the many issues of mixed heritage through Bromden because of his Caucasian mother and Native American father. He describes this as a very unsettling conflict. In this novel Waxler states that Chief is looking for a father figure. This is very evident in the novel because after many complications McMurphy indeed becomes Chief’s “father figure.” For the time period that Bromden did not have a father figure it gave his mother supremacy. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a very problematic novel. Chief’s parents enabled him to see the real legacy of a white person. During the novel Chief displays his very precocious position because he is very leery to connect with anyone else except McMurphy, his “father figure.” Chief jumping out the window in the end of the novel enables him to rediscover his legacy as a true Native American. Whites at the time period over rid the Native Americans, which degraded them in society. The Native Americans always seem very precocious in life and this degrading of there culture leads them to believe they are not significant figures in society. This novel helps illuminate the relationship between racial and sexual identity of Chief. When Nurse tells the black boys to shave Chief in the novel Chief quickly overcomes this so, it could symbolize the removal of the fog that Chief is trapped in. McMurphy also helps Chief in the ward because he is able to create strategies in order for Chief to see his real potential. But throughout the novel Nurse attempts to silence McMurphy, with this Chief sees the image of the Combine silencing his father. Chief looks highly upon McMurphy because just like his father he to is helping Chief come out of the fog, because McMurphy will not allow Nurse to trap him in her “system” to create normalcy.
Sorensen period 3
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
Author: Thomas J. Slater
In this essay Thomas J. Slater states all different kinds of questions that some, when I say some I mean like one or two, that I have thought of before and some that I wouldn’t even imagine of thinking of before. Also in this essay Slater compares Chief’s narration from in the novel to his narration in the movie. I agree with Milos Forman on his thoughts of the Chief’s vision of the fog and machines. I too believe it is comic and absurd but it also reveals the reality of the world and what events take place inside the ward. He also states that McMurphy is not really the man that the Chief presents him to be in the novel. Ken Kesey undercuts the Chief's biased presentation of McMurphy as a mythic figure. When McMurphy smashes Nurse Ratched’s office window Slater states is an act that the Chief relates in mythic terms as a calculated act of self-sacrifice. The book allows our imaginations to be free and lets us make our own decisions on how things look. Unlike movies and they have the pictures of how you are supposed to see things as and how they look. I love reading books then watching the movie. Although I am sometimes disappointed on how I imagined them and how the movie showed them. I think we get more out of using our imaginations than just seeing things how we are supposed to see them. We use more creativity. I also found it interesting how Slater states that Nurse Ratched is also a larger than life character in the novel. He says that in the novel Ratched is pictured by the Chief as a machine who sits at the center of a system which in this novel and movie is called the Combine. Chief narrates that she operates both inside and outside the ward to keep people contentedly going about their business without any complaints. The Chief sees Ratched’s battle with McMurphy as a struggle between two large conceptions of what America is, and his hero's one chance of victory is to get Nurse Ratched to recognize her own humanity. I found that at the end of the novel, McMurphy simply chooses not to leave the ward, and the Chief once again allows for the possibility that McMurphy's act is a heroic gesture interesting. The movie shows that McMurphy is unable to leave; when the aides arrive in the morning, he is still passed out on the floor from the previous night's party.
“McMurphy is also a Christ-figure in the film, but Forman suggests the idea much more subtly than the Chief does in the novel. He shows McMurphy on the ward for the first time exercising with the other men before the daily therapy session. Forman shoots him from behind as McMurphy stands briefly with his arms stretched out in the crucifix position. The camera angle is significant because it emphasizes that McMurphy is not conscious of others seeing him as a Christ-figure. In the film, he never shows any intention of playing the hero. He makes all of his challenges to Nurse Ratched when he has no knowledge of her power to keep him institutionalized indefinitely. He acts openly only because he does not understand the risk he is taking.”
Sorensen period 3
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
Author: Thomas J. Slater
In this essay Thomas J. Slater states all different kinds of questions that some, when I say some I mean like one or two, that I have thought of before and some that I wouldn’t even imagine of thinking of before. Also in this essay Slater compares Chief’s narration from in the novel to his narration in the movie. I agree with Milos Forman on his thoughts of the Chief’s vision of the fog and machines. I too believe it is comic and absurd but it also reveals the reality of the world and what events take place inside the ward. He also states that McMurphy is not really the man that the Chief presents him to be in the novel. Ken Kesey undercuts the Chief's biased presentation of McMurphy as a mythic figure. When McMurphy smashes Nurse Ratched’s office window Slater states is an act that the Chief relates in mythic terms as a calculated act of self-sacrifice. The book allows our imaginations to be free and lets us make our own decisions on how things look. Unlike movies and they have the pictures of how you are supposed to see things as and how they look. I love reading books then watching the movie. Although I am sometimes disappointed on how I imagined them and how the movie showed them. I think we get more out of using our imaginations than just seeing things how we are supposed to see them. We use more creativity. I also found it interesting how Slater states that Nurse Ratched is also a larger than life character in the novel. He says that in the novel Ratched is pictured by the Chief as a machine who sits at the center of a system which in this novel and movie is called the Combine. Chief narrates that she operates both inside and outside the ward to keep people contentedly going about their business without any complaints. The Chief sees Ratched’s battle with McMurphy as a struggle between two large conceptions of what America is, and his hero's one chance of victory is to get Nurse Ratched to recognize her own humanity. I found that at the end of the novel, McMurphy simply chooses not to leave the ward, and the Chief once again allows for the possibility that McMurphy's act is a heroic gesture interesting. The movie shows that McMurphy is unable to leave; when the aides arrive in the morning, he is still passed out on the floor from the previous night's party.
“McMurphy is also a Christ-figure in the film, but Forman suggests the idea much more subtly than the Chief does in the novel. He shows McMurphy on the ward for the first time exercising with the other men before the daily therapy session. Forman shoots him from behind as McMurphy stands briefly with his arms stretched out in the crucifix position. The camera angle is significant because it emphasizes that McMurphy is not conscious of others seeing him as a Christ-figure. In the film, he never shows any intention of playing the hero. He makes all of his challenges to Nurse Ratched when he has no knowledge of her power to keep him institutionalized indefinitely. He acts openly only because he does not understand the risk he is taking.”
Bachman Pd. 6
I chose the essay “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Encyclopedia of Beat Literature. The essay starts out by telling a little bit about Ken Kesey and how his novel came to be and what affect it had on his life. “The immediate success of this work pushed the young author into the countercultural spotlight where he would serve as a bridge between the earlier Beats and the hippies of the 1960s. The novel was inspired by Kesey's stint as a hospital aide for the Veteran's Administration in Menlo Park, California. While working there, Kesey was introduced to hallucinogens as a volunteer test subject.” It then proceeds to describe the major themes in his books which is the conflict between a strong-willed individual and a community that demands conformity to a universal standard. Afterwards, the novel is starting to be summarized by telling of the narrator, Chief, and that he thinks Big Nurse is the Combine trying to conform everyone. At this point in the story Randle Patrick McMurphy shows up and is portrayed as the classic American hero. He tries to threaten and erode the control that Ratched has over the men by making them more individual. McMurphy takes the men on a fishing trip to help break Ratched’s control and show the men that the real world isn’t scary. After a party the men have, Ratched threatens to tell Billy’s mom what he did thus regaining her control of the men and thus making Billy kill himself. McMurphy tries one last attempt to stop her control by physically attacking her and revealing her “true self.” McMurphy then get sacrificed by lobotomy and is in a vegetative state. Chief kills McMurphy with a pillow to save him. The Chief then symbolically breaks out of his self-imposed silence by breaking out of the asylum and running across the hospital’s lawn toward the highway in the distance. The essay sums up by telling the setting of the book and of the themes in the book relating to issues in Kesey’s time. It also tells about the movie that was made from the book staring Jack Nicholson.
Moss pd. 7
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner. Fred Madden.
Many people question if McMurphy really is a hero in this novel. He uses profound language and has a horrible attitude. In this essay, many people wonder why he should be named the hero. I believe McMurphy is a hero in this novel. McMurphy gives the patients life and hope. Something they have not had since the beginning. Yeah McMurphy can be sexist and a pig, but hey, joking is never a bad thing. The patients loved it! In this novel, McMurphy and Chief work as a team. McMurphy is the leader and Chief works as his sidekick. I think McMurphy felt closer to Chief because he saw potential. I would copy and paste something from the essay, but for some reason it is not letting me log back in. I remember the first paragraph talking about McMurphy and how many believe he is not a hero. I strongly disagree with what is stated in the first paragraph. McMurphy sacrafices his life and brings the ward back to life. He is a majore character in this novel and definitely saved alot of the men in the ward.
Erickson-2
I read the essay,“The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest_,” written by Robert P. Waxler. Robert explains Chief’s background information more deeply. He says that his father’s low social status lead his mother to be superior to him. Chief also during the book is searching for his manhood within his father. Robert proves a point that we should be a lot like our family because it is what makes us. Bromden does not face his heritage which should be a big part of him. This leads him to be questionable about what his identity actually is. Chief is rediscovering his manhood and legacy of being Native American by looking back at his father. Waxler also mentions the Oedipal story and how to prove manhood you must kill your father and marry your mother. I don’t think Chief would really want to do this because his mother dominated his father. To be manly, you must have control over the household in my opinion. You would be controlled. Robert mentions that marriage is impossible according to Ken Kesey. Therefore, Bromden must provide an attack on Big Nurse. I didn’t quite understand why he would have to attack on Ratched. Waxler also mentions about Bromden becoming the new McMurphy and perhaps even bigger than McMurphy. He later mentions that many authors fail to define mixed heritage when their characters are of a mixed heritage. Due to mixed heritage, their characters go through a stage of oppression which shows a lot of who a character actually is. Robert closes with saying that Kesey failed to understand exactly how gender and race affect the harmful situation of the man controlling the house. After reading this essay, I believe that Waxler had a very good point and I completely agreed with him. Robert asked how a person with a dominant white mother ended up having a heterosexual personality. I believe that he probably turned that way because he didn’t want to be like his father. Chief probably made sure he didn’t turn out to be dominated by a completely different gender and race.
“The image here is of the world of the mother, the feminine body as the Chief would like it to be. But McMurphy's violent attack undercuts such an image, aggravating instead the divisions in the battle of the sexes.”
Shabino pd.6
The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Written by Robert P. Waxler he tries to explain the difficulties Chief Bromden has while trying to get his manhood back. His “search” to get it back is complicated because the fathers minority status gives the mother social supremacy. This way it is hard for chief to regain any manhood because nurse ratched is like his mother. She is the social supreme and chief is the minority. Robert states, “We are our family. And in such a context, we need to ask how Chief Bromden can possibly gain back his manhood, in a sense rediscover "the name of the father," when he is rooted in a family which has denied that name, privileging instead the name of his white mother (Bromden).” I completely agree with this statement. How can he possibly remember how his family was when they gave up the name and who they are. It’s like how most kids probably don’t know or barely pay attention to their mother’s maiden name. It’s a lost name and in a sense seen maybe as less of a family since they don’t have you last name. Robert states that since Kesey has given us an Oedipal story and in the simples Freudian version of the Oedipal story, if the son is to achieve manhood, he must symbolically kill the father and marry the mother. This is a huge problem for chief because his father is his safety net. He thinks about the times he had with his father while on the dalles when the black boys try to shave him early in the morning at the begging of the novel. Also if Chief were to symbolically marry his mother it would be like him having to marry Nurse Ratched the person who is all but keeping his manhood locked away
Edwards p.7
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey
In this essay the author talks about how some parents think the book is bad for students to read because of the language that is used. They don't think that anything good can come from reading this book. The parents of these students also think that if they read this book it may also make them do bad things that defies authority just because they read about McMurphy defying authority in the book. How can "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" be that bad of an influence on students. Does reading a book make you do things that you normally wouldn't do? These parents that made the schools take the books out of classes are doing more harm than good. This book is a very educational book. It makes you go outside the box and look at things like you have never looked at them before. The parents that got rid of the books in there schools probably have not read more than a page or two of the book. Those parts were probably the more indecent parts of the book that their children pointed out to them. Some people just need to go out into the real world and see what it is like. If you walk down the halls you hear swearing all the time from the students. Indecent words are not unfamiliar to students. Even if you watch T.V. there are shows that have sex and all sorts of other things in them. Most of the more realistic books are going to have a lot of bad language because almost everyone has sad a bad word every now and then. These realistic books are very good to read if you can be mature and read through it seriously. I thought one of the best parts of the essay was "In 1974, five residents of Strongsville, Ohio, sued the board of education to remove One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Manchild in the Promised Land from the classroom. Labeling both books 'pornographic materials,' they charged that the works "glorify criminal activity, have a tendency to corrupt juveniles, and contain descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination." Cuckoo's Nest literally does none of these unless you are a immature child, and if that is the case you probably shouldn't be reading this book. But when i got done reading the book I didn't go around slashing tires and writing "Coon" and "Jap" on the side of the school. After reading the book I didn't start kidnapping and torturing people or hold up banks. These parents need to read the book to fully understand what it is about and to see that it is a really beneficial book to read.
Taylor Garner Pd. 2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Rhetoric and Vision
Michael M. Boardman
Michael Boardman talks about the difficulties in writing something that everyone will like. He states how either readers believe or they don’t and some readers find it hard to believe. All authors want to have an interesting story to share or they want to amaze the reader, but if someone just isn’t buying what the author has to offer than the story will not get read. Michael discusses how some authors are so set on expressing their own personality through their writing that they focus more on their own imagined life. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. Either the reader will be entranced or they will be turned away. Boardman asks why someone should see Cuckoo’s Nest as a tragic story. Why couldn’t it be amusing or entertaining? “The book also seems to contain far too much humor to be beaten with the stick of tragedy.” Cuckoo’s nest was very entertaining to readers, and Chief Bromden did not die, he escaped or was liberated. Yes, the men were held in confinement and yes McMurphy did die, but what about everything in between? McMurphy took the men fishing, he threw a party, he picked on nurse Ratched. That was the stuff that kept the reader wanting more. Michael talks about how so many authors want to write tragic stories, but it is a challenge. Instead of pushing themselves to accomplish what they began they either stop all together or they change it into something humorous. Another tough detail that is very rarely written about is sexism. People called Kesey “a concealed sexist bias”. Boardman considers Cuckoo’s Nest “a bit dangerous”. Peter G. Beidler summarizes the charges against Kesey, “the book has ‘obvious flaws as a novel—its merely heroic hero, its once latent (not blatant) anti-feminism, its too carefully contrived plot, setting and characters.” Even though the public thinks that Kesey pushed the limit and expresses that they are uncomfortable with the novel, other authors are saying he could have pushed just a little more. They believe that Kesey held back some of what he was capable of.
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.Ken Kesey
Tayler Frisch pd2
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.Ken Kesey
The irony of this essay is too hard to ignore as we are studying Cuckoo's Nest and 1984. One person complains and an essential lesson is lost because of it. I have never analytically studied a book more meaningful in so many ways than One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.. Yet, people across the nation have been outlawing this book since it was published. Ken Kesey tells an incredible story through madness to give insightful knowledge and opinionated values of our society. One of his main binary oppositions in the novel is conformity vs. non conformity. Where is the individual voice if we are not taught freely? Society is cheating itself from learning how to rebel and live free. Our leaders in our community are not thinking twice about the literary value of the book. “The school superintendent did not read the book, but he collected all copies from students without attempting to determine its literary or scholastic value.” This to is irony from the very book they are rejecting. Without his own reasoning the superintendent continued to have the book banished from the district. This seems as if George Orwell did indeed predict the future or at least the beginning? This novel has rightly so challenged our society and its power. It could easily be banned and our youth would never get to read America’s finest literature. I believe if they read the novel they would feel differently about banning it.
Janaye Sjoberg Pd. 3
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living
By: Terence Martin
In this essay Terence Martin approaches the though and thesis of we must be big enough to afford the high cost of living. I completely agree with this for we must think big to do big things. Also by looking weak in society people will judge you for being weak. Throughout the essay the author talks about female dominance and how it is an important factor in Ken Keseys novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Martin also talks about the significance of the fog, and how a character is the noise of his name. All the patience on the ward are a factor of female dominance, only McMurphy stands outside of woman-power. Harding is overpowered by his promiscuous wife, Billy his mom and Nurse Ratchid, and Bromdens mom is considered “bigger” then him and his dad. It is only McMurphy who tries to breakdown this power by breaking down Ratchid. Martin makes a point how a character is the noise of his name. From the very beginning McMurphy is considered to be big. The moment he walked in the ward he was laughing free and loud. It was the first laugh the Chief and many other patients have heard in years. By laughing you come across bigger to other people. McMurphy mentions how the patients do not laugh. The patients do no laugh because they think they are small compared to the rest of the world. They don’t believe in themselves that they can be big in the world and in this society too. The patients have been broken down by the female dominance in the ward (Nurse Ratchid) into little boys. She is holding them back from being men, and what comes with being a man is acting big and like a man.
“When she finds Billy Bibbit with Candy, she shatters his new-found sense of manhood by wondering how Billy's mother will take the news. Billy wilts immediately; stuttering once again, he disavows affection and friendship, and the Big Nurse leads him into the office, ‘stroking his bowed head and saying "Poor little boy, poor little boy’ (p. 302). After which Billy commits suicide, unable to become a man and be jerked back to boyhood all in the space of a few hours.”
Mork, pd.2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
In looking at this entry placed in by Thomas Slater I completely agree with him in that even though Chiefs vision of things is comic and absurd something like that is happening he is just putting it as he sees it; placing it into his own words what goes on in the ward. The absurd things reveal some of the reality that is taking place on the ward just it is taking a worse shape in Chiefs mind perhaps. As in the line from the novel “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen” (13). In my reading of the book I also see why the Chief matches up McMurphy as a Christ reference in that he comes gets his followers and dies for a cause. Also just like Slater mentioned why doesn’t Chief mention why McMurphy starts acting out again by the end when in the middle he started to behave so the Big Nurse wouldn’t be able to keep him there as long as she wanted to. Why is that? But I do disagree on that McMurphy feels guilty for the death of Cheswick I don’t think he felt that guilty at all. I strongly agree in that by the end you should see that the Chief is the hero in this story not McMurphy because all he did was cause death and trouble. But I guess he did help Chief come out of the “fog”. Slater says “In contrast to the book, the movie establishes the Chief as the only character that McMurphy sets free because he is the only one who has gained the courage to act on his own.” I also disagree with this because in this statement because in the film Bibbet also is set free by McMurphy for a time till Ratched has something to say about and he kills himself.
Nick Vigants Period 2
Title: The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Author: Robert P. Waxler
Robert has dug for thoughts of how a half breed would achieve manhood “Kesey has given us the vision of a half-breed, a man of color rooted in a mixed heritage, and he has asked the question—how does such a person, with a dominant white mother, achieve manhood within a heterosexual arrangement? Kesey has begun to explore that question in Cuckoo's Nest”. Robert said that the matrix for social and individual identity and knowing this he says we need to know how Chief Bromdan can possible gain back his manhood or in other words rediscover the name of his father. He also says too many critics avoid his mixed heritage is the most significant problem of chiefs identity, his family history also makes him believe that his roots can only be discovered through his father, but this is not easy to do in a world dominated by women, ex all the nurses. Plus having his mother not being a Native American also adds another struggle to the story because now he needs to find multiple cultures and somehow intertwine them together. But his fathers is definitely the most important due to the fact that the memory of his mother doesn’t give him any comfort but the memory of his father in his early childhood gave him bonding memories with his father. This I would say is normal because essentially we want to become are parent someday, essentially becoming who they were, carrying on their legacy. This is also the reason why we all want children too. This making it so we live on in spirit forever. The person in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest who changed everything for Chief was McMurphy; because McMurphy takes the role as chiefs father which ultimately allows chief to name and remake the father in himself. All of this leads to one of keseys main points,” Males with fathers of ethnic minority status married to mothers from the dominant culture must travel a difficult and radically indirect route to achieve manhood” but in the end he doesn’t clearly say that this worked out for chief, so he may be trying to say that it is so complex that it is near or close to impossible to overcome such a struggle.
Jess Peterson pd-2
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Ken Kesey
In this world today a lot of things are accepted and said to be ok. In Ohio in 1974 five parents sued the school and band the kids from reading One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Did the parents that complained read the book or realize that there is more to the book then foul language and sex. This book is not easy to read and really challenges a reader to look more in depth at things that happen then just reading it without analyzing. I’m sure if you ask any kid in high school if they care if books swear or if there is sex in it the majority wouldn’t care. In fact society these days likes to read about rebellious things. Most months I even get a cosmopolitan magazine because I feel rebellious and if my mom found it she’d be mad so that makes it kind of fun and makes me feel as they say “bad ass”. Times have changed since the novel was written and different things in this world are accepted then they were back in the earlier years when One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was written. Back then people were use to watching leave it to beaver or whatever else shows were being played and when this book came out it was a real shock and kind of offensive to some people. I do agree that young kids in schools shouldn’t be taught the novel but I find if ok for high schoolers to read and analyze it. Maybe they should put ratings on books like they do movies. All I’m saying is this was a very interesting essay and has some good points but parents should relax because the world is changing right before our eyes.
Hansen Pd. 6
I am responding to the essay, "The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Jack Hicks. I think that this essay is a very good and informative essay. He talks a lot about Ken Kesey's past and how it most defiantly affected the novel. He talks about his child hood. He has depth on Kesey's childhood; he was born in Colorado in 1935, but moved westward with his parents at a young age. He goes on to talk about his teen and young adult years, Kesey was decently popular; he was in sports and was becoming an elaborate writer. He later writes about Kesey's personal life and how he was struggling with money, so he began experiments with the government for $75 a day! He began to crave it and got himself a job at the mental institute there. His experiences there have been a major factor in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". He writes vividly about the cruelties he witnessed there and the effects of the ward. His book has changed the way that we look at mental institutions greatly! I was very impressed with this essay; he has clearly put in massive amounts of time to research about Ken Kesey and his Novels. He also inserts excerpts from the novel to help scholars out if they haven't studied the novel.
Ken Kesey's overriding passion in the last eighteen years, both personally and artistically, has been the qualities and possibilities of human consciousness and particularly the modes of literary rendering of every sort of mental state. This passion has been a constant element, from the fragments of the unpublished Zoo to those in the current Seven Prayers by Grandma Whittier. Frankly, one can learn as much in the turnings and tracings of his life as in his fiction, for we can read in the scattered lees of his past a cultural history of underground America in the 1960s. But my main interest here is in the particular artistic uses of those experiences in his single major fiction to date, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. More exactly, I wish to consider the novel as one of the few successful literary treatments of the alteration or expansion of human consciousness.
Francis 6th
The title of the essay that I chose to study was “The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's” by, Robert P. Waxler. In this informative essay Waxler talks a lot about how Chief is fighting to become like his father. His father was taken down by a woman, a white woman at that. Chief is also taken down by a white woman. Waxler goes on to explain that the struggle for Chief is where he should start his fight against these women who keep suppressing him. Chief as to first search for that spark of his father inside of him that will lead him to manhood. In the beginning Chief has nowhere to go so he has no hope of finding a spark to his manhood. But then along comes McMurphy who is a rough and tough guy who is looking to be the bull goose loony in the place. “McMurphy also uses the power of touch to help effect this transformation. And McMurphy's laugh, too, becomes part of an expansive expression of bodily plenitude: ‘… free and loud and it comes out of his wide grinning mouth and spreads in rings bigger and bigger till it's lapping against the walls all over the ward’(Kesey 16).” Shorty after this McMurphy falls victim to Nurse Ratched. She gives McMurphy a lobotomy that tears him down to the level of everyone else. The Nurse though did not do the lobotomy soon enough because McMurphy had already brought that spark of manhood into Chief. Chief became bigger than even McMurphy and through the control panel through the window after McMurphy could not even move it a little bit. Chief has found the spark but now he doesn’t know what to do with himself and this reflexes how Kesey feels about himself. Kesey doesn’t know how to find that spark in himself and even if he found it he wouldn’t know what to do with it, says Waxler.
Mitzel Pd. 6
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as a Narrator and Executioner. By: Fred Madden. 1986.
Many people debate on whether McMurphy is a hero in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. One side says for sure he is the hero, he shows "racism, sexism, and paternalism," making him a vital person for the stories hero. The other side disagrees, they attack Kesey for even thinking of making a character with these qualities as the hero. McMurphy is so sexist that many argue with his attitudes. It is obscured that Ken Kesey made all women in the book either pleasure providers or castrating figures. The pleasure providers are shown as good in the book. "Readings that emphasis racism and sexist attitudes blame Kesey for creating stereotypical characters who are used to convey a white, macho-paternalism that degrades women and blacks." Why? So which side is right? Yes, McMurphy is controlling, uses bad language, breaks the rules, and lives by his Id but is that not what the ward needs? Many of the patients are there voluntary, they can leave whenever they want but they are too scared. McMurphy's actions changed the way the patients felt and acted. They began rebellious acts and sticking up for themselves. I believe McMurphy is the hero in the novel. Without McMurphy, there would be no change in Big Nurse Ratched's ward. He makes the change happen. He is the change in the ward. After McMurphy makes Chief open up, Chief becomes McMurphy's sidekick. They go hand and hand together through the whole book. McMurphy teaches Chief how to become strong mentally and break out of the ward. "By the end of the novel all the characters, except Big Chief, either conform to society or become "mule stubborn" and rebel against it." Big Chief does McMurphy a favor by not letting him live "conformed" from his lobotomy. Both Chief and McMurphy do not want Nurse Ratched to win so he kills "McMurphy" and escapes from the advice given by McMurphy. Without him, Chief would still be stuck in Nurse Ratched's ward. McMurphy IS a hero. He made the changed, helped with the progress and learned who he really was.
"Kesey stressed that "it's the Indian's story—not McMurphy's or Jack Nicholson's" (Grunwald 4). Kesey's insistence was not simply the result of his disagreement with Forman. While working on Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey wrote that he wanted to create a narrator "who leaves the ground and breathes in print" (Tanner 23)."
"At first McMurphy seems to be "big" from the Chief's point of view, but by the end of the novel, his cap is "too small" for the Chief to wear."
Haase pd. 2
The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Robert P. Waxler
"Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest challenges us with the issue of mixed heritage through Chief Bromden's half-breed status."
This essay is written to expose the views on people with mixed heritage. It talks of chief bromden the narrator as a giant man with the feeling of still being a child. A child that was born into a interracial family. Chief bromdens mother was a white American married to a native American man. The time period in which this novel was written there was still much controversy over the freedom of Native Americans. In this decade there were still some Native boarding schools throughout the Midwest regions. So as chief bromden was growing up his mother the white American women was allowed much more freedoms than the racial dislikes of others towards his father. Many of these things is what caused the chief to view his father as a small man always put down by his stronger mother. It wasn’t that she was literally stronger it is just that she had more political power in the outside world. This put much controversy over the nationalities of chief bromden. Not only this but the essay examined that the chief needed to work his way into manhood. It is not that a six foot tall man was not already considered a man. It was that he felt and acted still of a child. He did not speak he pretended to be deaf and dumb growing up thinking he was a child and that what he had to say did not matter. Though through the help of McMurphy who came into the story a loud stronger man chief was able to break free from these childish feelings of oppression. McMurphy is seen by the chief as a father like figure. Chief viewed the government as a combine that tore down his father by forcing him into signing away their native land. When McMurphy stands up to nurse Ratched Chief sees him as his father finally standing up to this powerful combine that forced people into oppression. Both of these major factors his parents heritage and the combine effecting his father made a big impact on a younger chief as he was growing up. Thanks to McMurphy standing up to a strong white women who works for and runs the combine chief could finally break free from his childish bonds and grow as a man and a person.
In the Gears franchise there are 2 main opposing forces, the C.O.G.s (Coalition of Ordered Governments) and the Locust Horde. The game takes place on the planet Sera, which is Earth-like, where the Locust Horde is the dominate species. The entire conflict of the story is based off greed. Both the C.O.G.s and the Horde are fighting over a radioactive liquid called Imulsion which only got its value after a scientist figured out how to use it as a power source. The two main forces are both literally and figuratively fighting for power. Eventually the C.O.G.s start to move up the social ladder by taking the edge in the war but after the scientist is lost the Horde begins to take over and the human race begins fighting for its survival. This starts to happen around the time that soldiers start to disobey orders and begin to rebel, thus being disloyal to the system causing a massive power shift. The Horde has an ordered system. On top of the Horde ladder is the Queen, who has the most power and respect. Beneath her there are her two sergeants, Scourge and Raam. Then there are the Kantus, which are the priests of the Horde and have the ability to heal any and all Locust. Below the Kantus are the Beast riders, Theron Guards and Sentinels, and finally the regular grenadiers and drones. The drones and grenadiers have no power in the system and are used as cannon fodder. Each of the other classes has their own specific roles to the Horde and follows them justly, which is why they hold the most power. In the entire Horde is happy because they are effectively eliminating the human race and keeping the Imulsion (power) whereas the C.O.G. is not happy because they are losing the battle for power and survival. In the C.O.G. there is a completely helpless group known as the stranded, or civilians. They are treated like dirt and are forced to fend for themselves as the Locust Horde tries to wipe them out. The Government does nothing for them because the stranded do nothing for the government.
Feminist:
In the Gears franchise you only ever see 2 women that play a major role in the story. Anya is the coordinator for Delta Squad (the main group of characters that you play as). You never see Anya in the flesh, because she is at the Headquarters for the C.O.G. She is always behind a desk because she is considered to “valuable” to risk on the battlefield. Naturally the men are off fighting the Horde and the women are behind the desk. The only other woman that plays a major role in the story is Maria, Dom’s wife. Dom’s main drive in the second game is to find his wife who he believes was captured by the Horde. Once he finds her she is totally helpless and was beaten and whipped. Therefore since she is not as strong as the others Dom put her “out of her misery”. However, the producers have realized how sexist the first two games were and during the development of the third game, have decided to make two new fully playable female characters. Men are most valued for their ability to fight and women are valued for their ability to maintain order and stability.
Freudian:
Eventually the ID is the most important aspect of the game. When something unexpected happens you are forced to act off of pure reaction, not thought. You are forced to believe that you must act to survive yourself, not just let your character survive. The entire locust Horde represents the ID, so much so that they aren’t even human. The superego is represented by the character Baird. Baird is always suggesting alternatives to the classic “gun and run tactic” which usually work out. The ego is represented best by the character “Cole Train”. Cole is an old pro sports star but after Emergence Day (the day the locust attacked the humans) he joined the war effort. Most of the time the only thing driving the C.O.G. soldiers is the sheer will to survive.
In the Gears franchise there are 2 main opposing forces, the C.O.G.s (Coalition of Ordered Governments) and the Locust Horde. The game takes place on the planet Sera, which is Earth-like, where the Locust Horde is the dominate species. The entire conflict of the story is based off greed. Both the C.O.G.s and the Horde are fighting over a radioactive liquid called Imulsion which only got its value after a scientist figured out how to use it as a power source. The two main forces are both literally and figuratively fighting for power. Eventually the C.O.G.s start to move up the social ladder by taking the edge in the war but after the scientist is lost the Horde begins to take over and the human race begins fighting for its survival. This starts to happen around the time that soldiers start to disobey orders and begin to rebel, thus being disloyal to the system causing a massive power shift. The Horde has an ordered system. On top of the Horde ladder is the Queen, who has the most power and respect. Beneath her there are her two sergeants, Scourge and Raam. Then there are the Kantus, which are the priests of the Horde and have the ability to heal any and all Locust. Below the Kantus are the Beast riders, Theron Guards and Sentinels, and finally the regular grenadiers and drones. The drones and grenadiers have no power in the system and are used as cannon fodder. Each of the other classes has their own specific roles to the Horde and follows them justly, which is why they hold the most power. In the entire Horde is happy because they are effectively eliminating the human race and keeping the Imulsion (power) whereas the C.O.G. is not happy because they are losing the battle for power and survival. In the C.O.G. there is a completely helpless group known as the stranded, or civilians. They are treated like dirt and are forced to fend for themselves as the Locust Horde tries to wipe them out. The Government does nothing for them because the stranded do nothing for the government.
Feminist:
In the Gears franchise you only ever see 2 women that play a major role in the story. Anya is the coordinator for Delta Squad (the main group of characters that you play as). You never see Anya in the flesh, because she is at the Headquarters for the C.O.G. She is always behind a desk because she is considered to “valuable” to risk on the battlefield. Naturally the men are off fighting the Horde and the women are behind the desk. The only other woman that plays a major role in the story is Maria, Dom’s wife. Dom’s main drive in the second game is to find his wife who he believes was captured by the Horde. Once he finds her she is totally helpless and was beaten and whipped. Therefore since she is not as strong as the others Dom put her “out of her misery”. However, the producers have realized how sexist the first two games were and during the development of the third game, have decided to make two new fully playable female characters. Men are most valued for their ability to fight and women are valued for their ability to maintain order and stability.
Freudian:
Eventually the ID is the most important aspect of the game. When something unexpected happens you are forced to act off of pure reaction, not thought. You are forced to believe that you must act to survive yourself, not just let your character survive. The entire locust Horde represents the ID, so much so that they aren’t even human. The superego is represented by the character Baird. Baird is always suggesting alternatives to the classic “gun and run tactic” which usually work out. The ego is represented best by the character “Cole Train”. Cole is an old pro sports star but after Emergence Day (the day the locust attacked the humans) he joined the war effort. Most of the time the only thing driving the C.O.G. soldiers is the sheer will to survive.
Schwarz pd 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living. Author: Terence Martin
In summary of Martin's essay, he is summing up every main part of the novel. Whether it be from the symbols like McMurphy's Moby Dick shorts to the main or minor characters like Dr. Spivey, Nurse Ratched, and of course the narrator Chief Bromden. Martin describes the novel with bold, to the point phrases that if you didn't already understand before in some parts, well now you do. Before reading this essay, I didn't know that Billy Bibbit's mother was also a receptionist in a hospital, along being close friends with Nurse Ratched. By having Bibbit's mother also being staff in a hospital, Nurse Ratched believes that she would understand more of what is going on in a hospital setting, having Mrs. Bibbit more on Ratched's "side. Martin does a good job on showing all sides of the novel. From the female characters to male, and the strong members in the ward to the weaker ones. He portrays all kinds. The harshest adjectives Martin uses are: "ball-cutter", "manufacturer of docility", and "the representative of the house- where chance has no meaning", all describing Ratched. McMurphy is the brawler and the gambler, adjectives that aren't as severe as the ones used to describe Nurse.
In a different way Billy Bibbit's mother denies him the chance to become a man. A receptionist in the hospital, she is a neighbor and "dear personal friend" of the Big Nurse's; her hair "revolv[es] from blond to blue to black and back to blond again every few months" (p. 281). Billy, on a comfortable day, talks about looking for a wife and going to college. His mother tickles his ear with dandelion fluff and tells him he has "scads of time" left for such things."
Wilson Trent
Period 7
Thomas J. Slater's essay, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades, tells of the contrast between the time when the novel was written and when the movie was made. It came as a problem to Milos Forman, the director of the film, that "the novel's narrator is a paranoid-schizophrenic who sees things that nobody else can." It is an issure that was solved, but not without great effort. Slater writes, "Although the Chief's vision is comic and absurd, it also reveals the reality of the world and the events that take place. As he accurately notes, 'It's the truth, even if it didn't happen' (Kesey 1962, p. 13)." Finally, the solution was to make Chief sort of a minor character, and definitely not the Narrator. "Forman also faced the problem of making Kesey's liberal early-sixties' theme of fighting conformity relevant to the mid-seventies." This was truly a challenge. The film was made in the seventies, where the psychadelic essence of the novel did not necessarily fit. There were other issues as well: "In contrast to the book, the movie establishes the Chief as the only character that McMurphy sets free because he is the only one who has gained the courage to act on his own." In my opinion, movies do not even amount to the books from which they are made. The movie loses the length, the depth and the meaning. That is why the novel was so much better. I had a favorite scene from Cuckoo's Nest. Chief experienced an extremely psychadelic hallucination involving himself in a loaded die that was influencing McMurphy's fate. This scene did not appear in the film, therefore I lost a bit of interest. I am not saying that Forman made a bad movie; he did far from that. I am simply saying that Cuckoo's Nest is not quite the best novel to be made into a film.
Selken Pd. 6
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
By Ken Kesey
In this book Kesey talks about how parents of students in schools want One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest banned from the curriculum and from the libraries. It says the parents wanted it banned for profane language, racial slurs and immoralities. The novel was banned in a couple of different areas such as New York, Oklahoma, Washington and Massachusetts. I’m not sure why anyone would ever want to ban a book, because I think every book no matter how coarse or crude it is has some educational value or room to grow. I think that maybe the reason all those parents started to ban the book in the early seventies instead of when it came out in the sixties is because of the Vietnam War. This was the first time that people at home got to see direct footage of actual battles and killings in their living room. The fact that this was happening probably worried a lot of parents, and they may have felt they were losing control of their children and what they were seeing. So because of that I think once they saw something they could object to they jumped at the chance. They were losing control and that was the only way they seemed to know how to regain it. As I was reading the essay though, I also noticed that there were bannings on the book in the early eighties. I was surprised by that because I really don’t see how this book could be any worse than a lot of books out there. Parents I think sometimes just need to feel like they are in control, and not the schools or government. So they saw that their children were reading a book that had some obscenities in it and got extremely mad. When you ban a book I think that what you’re really banning is someone’s right to learn and grow as a person. “The novel has been frequently censored and challenged as being racist, obscene, and immoral because of its raw language and for its emphasis upon the defiance of authority. The white inmates repeatedly refer to the black orderlies with such racial slurs as "coons," "boys," and "niggers," while the Japanese nurse from the Disturbed ward is spoken of as the Jap.” I think that these reasons are ridiculous to ever ban a book. Kids in the hallways say worse things every day. Parents need to realize that a school would never give a book to children to read if they didn’t think that it had some educational value to it.
Tayler Elster pd. 3
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Rhetoric and Vision
Michael M. Boardman
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Rhetoric and Vision, Michael Boardman gives many explanations as to why it is so difficult for authors to write, and complete, their works. He says all readers have the option of believing or disbelieving, but by far the majority find it difficult to believe. The amount of internal struggles that authors have is like a fish in the sea; there are so many yet people do not find a cat fish nearly as interesting as a dolphin. Authors can have truly wonderful ideas and stories, however the reader could fervently disagree and say that the cat fish holds more purpose and value in the ecosystem than a dolphin ever could. Boardman asks the question of how anybody could see the Cuckoo’s Nest as a tragedy rather than an entertaining comedy. Half of the novel contains amusement such as when McMurphy accompanies the men on a fishing trip, or when they pretend to watch the baseball World Series on the T.V. while Nurse Ratched screams at them. But just because McMurphy dies at the end most readers see the story has a depressing, tragic story. I, however, agree with Boardman and believe that there is more entertainment to make up for the deaths that occur throughout the novel. I’m not saying that is not upsetting, just that you cannot label a book based on only a few events that take place throughout five hundred pages worth. But another struggle most authors tend to have is being too sexist or biased which causes their readers to judge whether or not the written work is being fair or not. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey is seen as being too sexist towards women. He has the men constantly hassling the nurses which are seen has being to controlling, but then he has the other women in the novel take the sleazy personalities that make them seen as degrading to all women. Wayne Booth’s terms are of the “’rhetoric’ of the ‘implied author’ rather than the reasoned philosophy of the novelist, a distinction virtually identical to Henry James' calling some things of the ‘essence’ and some of the ‘treatment.’” Meaning that what Boardman says is indeed true that readers can be far too judgmental when it comes to the work that authors put into their finished products and take their own opinions into higher account than the opinion of the writer.
Hanson, Pd. 3 (continued)
Should McMurphy be the central character, or should Chief? This is the continued debate about Cuckoo's Nest. I believe that Kesey got it right by having McMurphy be the central character. He comes into the ward and right away decides to go against Ratched. None of the other patients had ever tried to do that. This showed them that it is possible to over power her. This gave the patients hope, and they needed that. When McMuphy decided that he didn't want to conform anymore, Cheswick lost all the hope that he had in him. Cheswick saw this as McMurphy giving into Ratched and giving up. Due to this, Cheswick committed suicide. I think this lit a fire in McMurphy's head. He saw one of his friends kill himself just because McMurphy wasn't trying to take Ratched's control away anymore. This was a powerful moment in the novel. McMurphy went back to his old ways and started rebelling again. He is the reason why the patients gained the hope that they did. McMurphy was the reason for the patients finally deciding to stand up for what they believe in. These are all good traits about McMurphy, but you can't ignore his racist and sexist ones. All in all though I feel that these are just two traits that shouldn't affect whether he should be the hero or not. Nobody is perfect and everybody is racist and sexist in some way. McMurphy sacrificed himself for the patients. How could he not be named the hero? He made Chief “big” enough to lift the control panel and throw it through the window. He gave Chief hope. McMurphy is the hero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
“The 'individual sanity' expressed here is a position closer to Big Chief's at the end of the novel than to McMurphy's during it. Of course it still may be argued that without McMurphy's sacrifice, Big Chief never would have achieved the sanity he does. As valid as such an idea may first appear, it is qualified throughout the novel by Kesey's treatment of McMurphy.”
Bruggeman
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades by Thomas J. Slater
This essay was mainly about trying to find middle ground between the extremes of freedom and conformity. He tells us how neither Nurse Ratched nor McMurphy recognize the danger they present when they do what they do. Slater also provides an extremely insightful analysis to various parts of the novel.
Slater questions whether McMurphy is really all that Chief makes him up to be, and Slater claims that McMurphy isn't what Chief thinks him to be. Chief admires McMurphy because he disregards the ward's rules and laughs instead of cowering. McMurphy instills confidence in the patients, and that is what makes Chief view McMurphy so highly. He goes on to explain how Kesey undercuts McMurphy throughout the novel. I can see Slater's point, and it is an interesting perspective to view from, although I believe McMurphy and Chief are equally important, if not McMurphy more important of the two. McMurphy needed to come to the ward to get the ball rolling, and Chief would never have grown if McMurphy had not arrived. Slater tell us that both McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are larger than life figures, but they are both cut down by a normal patient who goes by the name of Harding. Harding claims that McMurphy is not a Christ figure, and he tells Nurse Ratched what he thinks of her, and tells her that she is not being straight with them. I agree with this view because it shows how a normal person can deal with the biggest of people. Slater provides a new thought about Chief that makes a lot of sense to me. He claims that Chief leaves the ward ready to deal with whatever oppression society may throw at him, and that he will not follow McMurphy's reckless behavior or Nurse Ratched's extreme conformity, but represent the middle of the extremes. Slater says that Kesey's message is that everyone has an individual responsibility. I agree with this because McMurphy believed that what he was doing was right, as well as Nurse Ratched, although both of them had unintended consequences because of their actions. Chief can learn from their mistakes and make an educated judgment based on what he thinks is right. Slater makes the interesting assumption that the boat going in circles during their fishing trip represents how McMurphy is leading the men in circles. McMurphy uses his power to make the men free, but as soon as Nurse Ratched makes a move the patients become timid again. I found this insight to be extremely enlightening because it makes so much sense. The patients cannot be expected to exercise their freedoms within the ward, Nurse Ratched would never allow that, so ultimately McMurphy is only giving them a glimpse of what freedom really is. Slater gives much praise to the film maker for incorporating the sense of distrust of the authority during the 70s. One extremely interesting part of the article I read was: "The shot is from the viewpoint of a patient who could have been watching the car coming and then turned to look back across the room. Scattered patches of red light coming from the window break the darkness of the ward, like sunlight seen from under water. Forman maintains the association of the red light with freedom and the idea of the men being kept like fish in an aquarium throughout the entire film" I think this is a very clever way of using light and recording styles to show a point that I would have very likely never noticed.
Logan p.6
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living
By: Terence Martin
When RP McMurphy first enters the ward, he walks in being cocky making sure all eyes were on him. RP McMurphy notices the patients on the ward and their weaknesses when it comes to believing in themselves. He notices that each of the men on the ward are back to being boys; afraid of failure and caring what other people think. But by the end of the book McMurphy clearly makes a heroic difference in each one of them and helps them become strong individuals. Randle Patrick McMurphy came into the ward being a true individual with freedom and not a care in the world. He had no wife or relatives holding him back. RPM struggled to help the frightened, powerless patients, but in his eyes it was necessary. That kind of commitment is what Ken Kesey produces in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, focusing on sanative and cleansing. In the book McMurphy is very masculine and does not like the thought of women being in charge. Furious and agitated describe Randle’s feelings when he sees how much power Big Nurse has over the whole ward floor. In the novel female power becomes rigid and firmly emasculating. One powerful woman that appears in the novel is Harding’s wife. You realize through her bitchy self why Harding came to the ward and more importantly, why he has a hard time leaving. In another case, Billy Bibbit’s mom took away Billy’s manhood by treating him like a child and did not give him the chance to grow up. Chief’s mother is too another powerful woman in the novel. Chief’s father married her, a white woman, and ended up taking her name. In time his mother took away her husband’s masculinity and her being white took away his Indian culture. The prostitutes in the book highlight his manhood and help the patients regain theirs. The orderlies use their thermometer and injustice and make the men feel like helpless boys allowing the orderlies to rule them. Big nurse constantly wants to show her power and in doing so keeps the patients from having a say in any part of their lives. This creates the fog as Chief describes it. The fog describes his fear and hiding. Big nurse has much control, particularly over the time as well. She slows down the clock on the worst days and speeds it up on days the men would like to enjoy remembering. The day of the fishing trip was the day of growth within and also growth with each other. McMurphy helped the madhouse and made it a caring community. Before, the “boys” would tattle on each other, now they respected one another and had a sense of friendship. This novel makes us realize society and how we have given up a sense of self and possibility. Kesey writes about how McMurphy brings the men a sense of freedom and strength, helping them find their inter-dependence.
"During McMurphy's final stage things on the ward begin to change radically. Kesey, in masterful control of the fully activated materials in his novel, takes his madhouse men one last inevitable step, to an achieved sense of community."
Nick Larsen pd.6
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner
By: Fred Madden
Summary and Response:
In this essay Fred is debating the idea of Randall Patrick McMurphy being the novels “hero” or not. Some scholars would argue that McMurphy is the novels hero because he rejects the ideas of racism, sexism, and paternalism, which in turn make his a positive character granting him the title of hero. Also they would defend this statement by showing how McMurphy fights the dehumanization in society, along with the mechanism that is present too. He believes in individualism and fights conformity, such as the “combine”, with passion. Some readers do not consider him to be the hero of the novel. Their argument is that Kesey glorified a despicable individual that is not worthy of being a hero. Critics use his unsociably acceptable language, saying “coon” for a slang term towards a black human to deter him from being the novel hero. Also another flaw holds him back from this title; they think he takes sadistic pleasure by inflicting pain onto others (the basket ball game with Washington); which in my eyes is just retaliation for all the wrongful stuff Washington has done to the men on the ward. There are also critics that believe that McMurphy is sexist when he refers to Big Nurse, Billy’s Mother, and Harding wife as “bad women” who are bitches, and the good women are prostitutes. I believe that they interpret it the wrong way possibly, just because he likes prostitutes does not mean he damns all other women. I strongly believe that in the novel that McMurphy is indeed the hero; his positive actions out-weigh his negative actions. He breaks the line of conformity and re-humanizes people who were rapped of their individuality.
Excerpt:
Most readings render the plot of the novel in approximately the following form. McMurphy arrives on a static ward where all the ward members have been cowed into conformity. He immediately wants to challenge the power of Big Nurse—first as a means of winning a bet but later in behalf of the ward members.
Sam Rall
Pd. 6
Re: Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
By Dawn B. Sova.
In this article, the author describes some of the cases of rebellion against the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In one case in Greeley, Colorado during the year 1971 parents from a public school district demanded that the book be removed from the nonrequired American Culture reading list because of the profanity it contained. In 1974, five people in Ohio sued the education board to remove OFOCN from the classroom. They labeled it as pornographic materials and argued that it glorified criminal activity. Another case is described in the excerpt.
'In 1975, the book was removed from public school libraries in Randolph, New York, and Alton, Oklahoma, and school officials in Westport, Massachusetts, removed the novel from the required reading list in 1977.'
I feel that these people trying to remove the novel from any sort of reading list is absolutely absurd. Surely it is controversial, especially for the time it was printed, but from what could you learn more. There is an infinite amount of significance in this book that had never been uncovered before. I am a changed person after reading this book and I am very glad I have changed in this way. I can see where they would disagree with the profanity and revealing content but there is so much of a greater meaning to it that it easily outweighs the downside. I feel that there is no way that it should be taken out of classrooms and I also feel it should be taught more throughout the country in the future than it is today. It changed history and it still has an effect on our lives today.
Olson Pd. 6
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner By: Fred Madden.
In this essay, we are looking into McMurphy and determining if we feel that he is an over glorified deplorable individual or if he is a true blood hero. Later it also talks about how the novel is depicted through Chief’s eyes. Chief tells us what to see because it is how he sees it. I agree with this essay in a very large part. I still wonder if McMurphy is to be determined as an individual who should be looked down on or put up like a hero? On one hand he did fight to the death for what he thought was right. McMurphy thought the men should build up their self-confidence and by rebelling he made it possible for the other men to do so too. So now I think he is the hero. Yet, on the other hand he is a horrible individual. He is an extreme racist and sexist. Are we supposed to look up to him as Chief does even though he treats women as mere possessions and feels they must be pleasers or castrators? And the same man we are looking up to has extreme racial tendencies. He calls men derogatory names only because they are of a different race. The next thing this essay makes me question is our narrator. We are forced to see things through him which could be construed through his eyes. Chief could have slowly changed the story to fulfill his mental needs. McMurphy was such a disturbance but it was just what our narrator needed to be on his own and become ‘big.’ “Of course it still may be argued that without McMurphy's sacrifice, Big Chief never would have achieved the sanity he does.” I don’t think Chief thought of it as a sacrifice from McMurphy. Chief says he has to do it, which makes me feel like he is now done using McMurphy to gain his confidence and thought he should end McMurphy’s reign. I agree with this essay in many ways because we share views on most of the included excerpts. McMurphy can be viewed as either a hero or a delinquent, and the novel must be told by Chief because "it's the Indian's story—not McMurphy's or Jack Nicholson's.”
Pacheco Pd. 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
by Thomas J. Slater
This novel was created in the sixties to send the readers the symbolism hidden within the novel. What I mostly receive from it is the Marxist criticism. There are three main individuals striving for power in the ward: McMurphy, Nurse Ratched, and Dale Harding. McMurphy and Ratched are the main individuals with the most success. McMurphy was said to be the hero of the ward but later, near the end, was said that the real hero was the narrator himself, Chief Bromden. “Kesey makes it clear that the novel's true hero is the Chief himself. Throughout the novel, the Chief undergoes a complete spiritual transformation and is ready at the end to continue struggling against society's oppressiveness, but not by adopting McMurphy's recklessness”. During the seventies, Milos Forman decides to demonstrate McMurphy’s and Ratched’s power in the ward for the film. He accomplishes in trying to relate the ward with our world, our government. I can understand why the film had such a popular audience because of trying to maintain the essence of the novel. One of the characters in the film, that was responsible for bringing the novel to life was, Jack Nickolson. I enjoy how he tries to make the audience think hardly about this individual and the mystery he possesses. I also enjoy how quickly he convinces everyone with his natural power, that he can convince everyone to follow him like a Christ figure. The patients need him, need his power to overtake Ratched with the power she possesses. During this process, Harding feels a little jealous because of all the power McMurphy contains and gains at the same time. He wants that power, however, is not fit for it because of his homosexuality holding him back, as well as agreeing and disagreeing with McMurphy in some situations. What can I say; everyone wants power in the novel, the film, even in our world today. Kesey and Forman do a wonderful job at relating these situations together. Everyone will always be seeking some kind of power around us, including ourselves, but we have to be cautious on how to use it wisely.
Neuberger -- Pd. 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
Author: Thomas J. Slater
Thomas Slater’s essay acts as a guide into the mind of Milos Forman, the film maker. Slater compares the filming of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to the narrator’s point of view. Chief is a paranoid schizophrenic, one of the most unreliable narrators ever. It is hard to depict his metaphorical fog that is one of the main themes in the novel. Randle Patrick McMurphy is the apparent hero of the story. He is believed to have faked his “insanity” to get him off of the work farm he was at. He was then moved to Nurse Ratched’s ward. “Once there, he leads the patients in a fight against the hospital staff's attempt to impose mind control. The narrator, Chief Bromden, sees McMurphy as a hero because he merely laughs at the whole situation on the mental ward instead of living in fear. Through his swaggering, boastful nature and his defiance of conventions despite the consequences, McMurphy eventually helps instill the other men on the ward with the confidence to face life again.” Forman keeps the spirit of the novel; he depicts the same message while still making the movie intriguing to the people of mid seventies. Ken Kesey writes his novel having Chief Bromden being the only one who really escapes the conformity on the ward. Forman really shows the viewer the power struggles between Nurse Ratched, Dale Harding, and McMurphy. In the opening scene, you see a car coming down the long highway, out of a forest. This is the first time McMurphy looks as a mythical creature. The novel depicts McMurphy as a Christ figure quite blatantly. In the movie it is much more subtle. Forman did a great job putting Bromden and Kesey’s vision on screen.
Derek Bakken 2
The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Robert P. Waxler
In this particular essay about Cuckoo’s Nest the author, Robert P. Waxler, goes into detail and depth about Chiefs largest problem in the novel, that he has a white mother and an American Indian father. His main point in this essay is that Chief does not look to his mother for comfort and care in his childhood like most children do. Instead he looks to his father for comfort and to get away from his problems in the ward and in his life. Waxler says that because Chiefs mother was white and his father was an Indian that his mother took away most of the fathers power over the family if not all of the power that a traditional father has in a family. Waxler also makes a good point saying that Kesey has set up a sort of reversed Oedipal story. He explains that Chief would rather be with his father instead of his mother because his mother has taken over power from his father, who is a member of an ethnic minority, and his mother is a member of the dominant culture being that she is white. His mother has basicly become a repressive symbol of the majority culture. Another point that Waxler makes in his essay is that son’s with minority fathers and mothers of the dominant culture must travel a difficult and racially divided path of achieve manhood.
I personally never looked at Cuckoo’s Nest in the light. But it makes perfect sense. Everything that Waxler points out has a true meaning to it and makes perfect sense. This issue of Chief having a white mother and an Indian father may be one of the central reasons for Chiefs mental illness.
“In a sense, Kesey has given us an Oedipal story with a twist rarely explored by white American novelists, especially before the early 1960s when Cuckoo's Nest was written. In the simplest Freudian version of the Oedipal story, if the son is to achieve manhood, he must symbolically kill the father and marry the mother. But what if the father, a member of an ethnic minority, has been marginalized by the mother, a member of the dominant culture? How then does the son recover the authority and power of the father? And how does the son rejuvenate desire for the mother, especially when that mother, in the mind of the son, has become an abstraction, a repressive symbol of the majority culture? These are questions that critics rarely discuss when talking about Cuckoo's Nest, yet they are questions central to a full understanding of the novel. They raise issues that help to illuminate the relationship between the racial and sexual identity of the Chief and his narrative perceptions. They help the reader to understand the Chief as an embattled self and as a Vanishing American male.”
Crowe, pd 6.
The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Author: Jack Hicks
This essay opens with a comparison of Ken Kesey to other "unsettling artists" Norman Miller and Allen Ginsberg. All three broke through the walls of their relaxed world and demanded attention with their controversial works. Hicks goes on to share details about Kesey's childhood and school years. A graduate of Standford University, he completed a fair amount of writing consisting of short stories, one-act plays, poetry, and an unpublished novel called End of Autumn. Though his relations with Wallace Stegner, Frank O'Connor, and Malcolm Cowley surely impacted his writing style, Kesey's voluntary medial experimentation with hard drugs such as LSD, peyote, mescaline, etc also affected his way of thinking. Although doing this provided him with sufficient income, he also took a job as a night attendant on a psychiatric ward. Disgusted and fascinated by the ward, Kesey's mind began to snowball into what later would become his most famous work of all, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
After introducing information about the novel, Hicks begins to go in depth about the narrator, Chief Bromden. He shares ideas and opinions about the novel. Hicks talks about how Bromden is only capable of perceiving the ward world in fragments that happen to him. Though Bromden battles with paranoid schizophrenia, his hallucinations and nightmares always seem to hold some fraction of truth. Hicks then introduces McMurphy and talks about his effect on Bromden. At one point in the essay, he refers to the relation of McMurphy to the patiens on the ward and states "His men are physically cannibalizing him." That sentencfe really stood out to me; I'd never through of it in that light, but it couldn't be more true. Each of the patients gets their turn to feed off of McMurphy's energy and ego, and in the end, he is the one who suffers the biggest blow.
Excerpt: They repeatedly request McMurphy's aid in handling the boat and landing fish, but he laughingly refuses them. Imperiled by hostile men, seas, weather, and fish, they survive and flourish as a community. By the end of the trip, Bromden notices that the men have been energized by the trip, but the robust McMurphy looks "beat and worn out" (243). His men are psychically cannibalizing him.
The Western American Context of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Date: 1973
On One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Author: Stephen L. Tanner
From: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, New Edition, Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations.
This report has a very intellectual insight into the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Stephen starts out his report speaking about Kesey’s input on the novel and how it became famous. Kesey states “‘when the reviews came out and as time went by, I realized that I had written a great book. But that didn't occur to me when I was writing it. I had no idea it would be taken like it was.’” Stephen continues to say how most pieces of literature has different ways to speak to its audience, but it was unusual about how readers were attracted to this book. “The novel preceded the counterculture movement of the succeeding decade, with its disruption of universities, opposition to the war in Vietnam, back-to-nature revolt against established authority and revered technology, and often indecorous rejection of what it viewed as the affluent complacency of the fifties” says Tanner, “Yet the book prophetically contained the essence of this social-cultural turmoil.” The report also speaks about his family life and how it vividly varied throughout the novel. Kesey also speaks about when he did drugs voluntarily for a test and recorded what happen during the three hour period. While speaking about his family, Kesey speaks about the experiences in which writing Cuckoo’s Nest has created for him. He also speaks about the various opportunities he had and the different people he had look at the novel. One in particular stated that he combine was difficult to understand. He said it was only and emotion and you couldn’t classify it as a thing. I find this repulsive… I can see how one would see it as an emotion. But without the refrence to the combine, we would have nothing to relate our lives to. The combine can be anything for anyone, it is something that makes us conform and we have the option to choose its outcome.
Overall I felt that this report was very interesting and a great outlook on other perspectives on the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Randolph Period: 3
The particular essay I read through was titled “Bloom on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” written by Harold Bloom. In this essay Bloom is not necessarily disagreeing with the layout and perspective of the book, but he is definitely not saying that it is the number one book of all time. He starts off by talking about how when assigned some are angered about writing on such a popular book. Bloom mentions that the book is not worthy of the period peace pantheon. He then compares it to books that are, in his opinion, much more worthy of the pantheon such as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Catcher in the Rye”. The essay then goes from contrasting “Cuckoo’s Nest” and other books of its particular layout of plot, setting, and characters to talking about what it is like to reread the novel and viewing it as if the Big Nurse is the narrator. I find it interesting the way he analyzes the Nurse’s position in the ward. He says that the big nurse is the nightmare projection of the male fear of female authority. He then says that the big thing about this novel is the time era and how it reflects on the conformity of society. The book simply points out that the states and the world are slowly changing and conforming or being left in the hippy era. In order to advance on must conform. Also he points out that there is culture reflected on every page of “Cuckoo’s Nest” which I would have to agree with because the time Kesey is writing about and during happens to be filled with cultural indifferences. Chief Bromden is Native American and often times throughout the novel mentions something or another about his homeland and describes his struggle with his family. I completely agree that “Cuckoo’s Nest” is really in a different category than most books and should be read differently.
Bloom: “Nurse Ratched should be compared, in her function, to Vergil’s Juno, not a comparison that writers far stronger than Kesey could sustain. I entertain myself with the wild nation of rewriting the Aeneid from Juno’s perspective, but the prospect becomes phantasmagoric, and so I cease.”
The essay i responded to was entitled...
‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades’
The essay is a detailed comparison between the film and movie, going into metaphors symbolism and character portrayal.
“Seen through the eyes of the six-foot-eight American Indian named Chief Bromden, Cuckoo's Nest's main setting of mental ward at the Oregon State Hospital becomes a surrealistic world controlled by hidden wires and fog machines that help the head nurse and her staff to work their will on the patients. Although the Chief's vision is comic and absurd, it also reveals the reality of the world and the events that take place. As he accurately notes, ‘It's the truth, even if it didn't happen’" (Bloom)
Bloom beautifully describes Chief Bromden’s Cryptic line, “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” Chief implies that these visions that incapacitate him throughout the novel aren’t to be dismissed as mere mirages dreamed up by a psychopath. It’s the truth because he lived through it the visions aren’t just visions to him. Ken Kesey uses literary devices to put the reader in the shoes of an oppressed Native American with schizophrenia living in a mental ward. I believe this is a precedent in literature.
Having such a unique narrator, “OFOCN” is full of information not to be taken at face value. As Bloom points out in paragraph 5, the fog that consumes Chief causes him to give a biased opinion of McMurphy. McMurphy isn’t the knight in shining armor that Chief sees, he has lapses of character such as, following Big Nurses orders when he finds out that she holds the key to his release. Kesey uses Bromdens absurd visions to generate an air of hellishness around the ward. At one point he recalls Santa Clause stumbling upon the ward in a snow storm, being committed to the ward and not leaving for 9 months. Santa is shaved and much slimmer, he is dehumanized and rewired into a robot slave to join the evil combines army of conspirators. Chiefs visions allow the reader to feel the enormity of what Kesey is trying to say. The novel is about more than McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, its about freedom and independent thought versus an entire underground network of drones workings for the combine.
Bloom brings to light some discrepancies between the film and the novel. For one, the film portrays Chief as the only character to be set free by McMurphy’s sacrifice, while the book tells of several other patients leaving of their own accord. A much bigger victory for the crusaders of free thought, it helps show the importance of having a little chaos in life. Kesey wrote an amazing novel and Arthur Bloom did a phenomenal job breaking it down, I was enlightened by every word.
Winterringer 2
For my blog task I chose to read the essay The Grail Knight Arrives by Raymond Olderman. I found this essay to be extremely well written and insightful. For the most part, this essay is about Comparing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with T.S. Elliot’s poem The Waste Land. Raymond Olderman draws many similarities between the two works, especially when he compares the asylum from Cuckoo’s Nest with the world in The Wasteland. One thing that Olderman said that really resonated with me was, "The waste land of the asylum is characterized not only by mechanization and efficiency but by sterility, hopelessness, fear, and guilt. The inmates are aimless, alienated and bored; they long for escape; they 'can connect / Nothing with Nothing,' not even picture puzzles; they are enervated and emasculated; their dignity is reduced to something less than human." That is a perfect explanation of the ward from Cuckoo’s nest. Raymond Olderman draws a similarity to Randall Patrick McMurphy in Cuckoo’s Nest with the season of April from The Wilderness. Olderman says that McMurphy sweeps over the ward much like April does unto the world in The Wasteland because McMurphy literally drags the patients on the ward out of the fog that was protecting them. I really love that throughout the essay, Olderman uses the words “asylum” and “wasteland” interchangeably, and for the point that he is trying to make, it makes sense. Olderman goes on to say that if one is to consider the world around Chief Brombden, it becomes much easier to understand his thought process. Chief saw the persecution of his family and his tribe by the U.S. Department of the Interior, so Olderman says that it is not too hard to see how he could believe that there is an organization out there with the sole purpose to crush anything that is different. Lastly, what I really found interesting about this essay was the part where he examined the role that women play in the novel. As Olderman put it, “…behind almost every ruined man is a grasping, castrating female whose big bosom belies her sterility but reveals a smothering momism. So, McMurphy perceives almost immediately that Big Nurse Ratched is pecking at their "everlovin' balls." But the same has been true of Harding's wife, and Chief Bromden's mother, and Billy Bibbit's mother…”
Niklason 6
The Truth Even If It Didn’t Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
By: Jack Hicks
Jack Hicks begins the essay by comparing Ken Kesey to Allen Ginsberg and Allen Ginsberg. Hicks does this because each of these writers represent the unsettling artistic type. The essay then starts to talk about Kesey’s years through college until he graduated in 1958. After college, Kesey had married and had a child; needing money to pay off debts Kesey took a job paying $75 a day for government medical experiments. Kesey took numerous different types of psychedelic drugs during these experiments. To earn even more money, Kesey took a night attendant job on a psychiatric ward which would be a huge influence on his novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey later would write other pieces of literature but nothing as successful as Cuckoo’s Nest. Drugs and the drug culture would lead to Kesey taking a bus coast—to—coast in 1964 and numerous drug related arrest. Later Kesey would retire to a family dairy farm in Oregon and he continued to write seriously for a number of years while there. Hicks will also talk about Chief Bromden and his paranoid schizophrenia. Chief suffers from hallucinations and a “fog” that will descend upon him when whatever is going on around him “is too intense for his consciousness to transfigure by distortion” (Hicks). I think the essay Jack Hicks wrote is a great source for information behind Kesey and why the novel is the way it is. Kesey writing some of the book on peyote fascinates me because it gives the book imagery that he might not have imagined without it. I also find it interesting that Kesey found so much inspiration from the patients on the psychiatric ward he worked on. Most people would not think anything of it, but Kesey found their behavior fascinating.
The fog is a paranoid metaphor, a concrete figure of fear and secrecy, of the threat that "they" are systematically deceiving you. But the fog is also a grotesque comfort representing unconsciousness for Bromden.
Ethan Olson Pd. 7 ^
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Hatle period 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living
Author: Terence Martin
When first seeing this essay I thought it would be about the cost of living in these times and how it lead to certain types going to different places for confinement or help, if you want to say that, in hard economic times. When starting to read this I soon found out that it has nothing to do with money but with power and status, both of these relating directly to the book in so many more ways than one. In the essay he puts everything he says into direct relation to the book using beautifully the perspective of the Marxist lens. Although every other lens he also incorporated into his essay the main one that sticks out and has the most meaning to back it up would be the Marxist lens. Within every paragraph Terence shows how the battle is between the characters and within themselves, also revealing many of the main binary oppositions in the novel. He shows not only the battle between Ratched and all of the patients but conflicts that arise between the patients themselves and how some are “recovering” and some are still stuck in the madness of Ratched pressures. This essay is mainly about how the men are being controlled and what happens in the book to influence how well they are doing and how they are improving themselves. Although some bad things happen in every one of the men on the ward you can clearly see that some good progress had been made in their self esteem and outlook on life. I also think it is very neat that not only does he reference quotes from the book but also straight from the bible in a way that wouldn’t offend others if they were off taken by something like that, he put it in a very subtle manner but it could be clearly be seen if you were reading clearly.
Dam can signify mother-and the Indians worked on "the gravel crusher for the dam" (p. 36), suggesting, at least to McMurphy-like minds, an activity as emasculating as "ball-cutting" and perhaps even more painful. (A man who "hath his stones broken." the Book of Leviticus stipulated long ago [21:20], is disqualified from entering the priesthood.) The sound of Ratched is virtually indistinguishable from that of rachet, with its associations of machinery and distaff: And combine, as Raymond M. Olderman points out, carries with it the idea of "a mechanism, a machine that threshes and levels."
- This passage from the essay and also from the bible can be used on every man on the ward and how this relates to them and how they feel separated from the world because they think they are “broken”.
Amanda Batzler pd. 7th
Gender, race, and age are all aspects of life that hold us back. In this novel the ties of normal society are somewhat switch because of the status of the employees and the patients. In Civil War days blacks were owned as slaves by whites, but in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Keesy tells that society is able to break the mold. He reveals this by relationship between blacks and whites and men and women. Nurse Rathed controls the men, all of them, setting strict schedules and always knowing what they are doing. Under nurse Ratchet are the black boys who are still doing dirty work for white men, like in Civil War days, but they are able to control what they do.
Race is an extremely difficult issue to discuss, because everyone has a different idea or belief. For Bromden he wants to recover his Native American roots by taking on his fathers’ last name but that had been denied forcing him to take on the name of his white mother. We should all be able to chose our destiny but instead there are people always telling us how our life should be. By taking on his mothers last name he it is likely that he would lead a better life than the one he would have as a Native American, because all we associate them with is drinking and crime.
Although taking on the white name might have guaranteed Bromden a better life because whites are given more opportunities and advantages he should have made the chose that he felt was best for him. If he would have gone with his fathers’ name then maybe he would have never joined the war and came home to the abuse which led him to suffer from Schizophrenia. His disease caused by his traumatic past landed him in the ward where he silenced himself because of all the hate that he had endured. But his life without the war and ward he would his life have been any better or worse? He could have lived on a reservation with nothing to do but drink all day, and never do anything meaningful with his life.
“As a substitute father for the Chief, McMurphy helps him re-write the story of his father by opposing the rigidity of Big Nurse's rules with his own sense of bodily energy.” Everyone deserves a father figure in their life, whether you share DNA, he adopted you, he is a mentor, or so on. Since Bromden lived without his father he was unable to realize how to be a man like standing up for himself and his friends and also causing a little trouble. McMurphy arrived at the ward and found a fasincation with Bromden and took him under his wing by getting him to talk for the first time in over a decade, playing basketball, going on the fishing trip, and getting him out of his comfort bubble. Fathers do so much for us and everyone should be grateful.
Batzler Continued.....
The Mixed Heritage of the Chief: Revisiting the Problem of Manhood in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
By: Robert P. Waxler
BRI MATTHIES .6
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest shocked the world with its raw view. It was littered with racial slurs and filled to the brim with sexual references that would normally be offending. The novel was so controvercial that it was even brought up in court cases to be removed from schools. In Colorado they wanted the book removed along with a few others from an optional reading list and in Ohio the parents sued saying that the book had pornographinc materials. It also said that it glorifed criminal activity, had a tendency to corrupt juveniles, and contained descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence, and torture, dismemberment, death, and human elimination. The schools around the United States continued to ban this book because of parents complaints about the language and the sexual references. I think that this is sad. People are so sheltered especially parents. They think that there high school kids don't swear or know what sex or hookers are? Really? Be smart. We are getting the candy coated version of reality in this book. Yes it is contravercial in the words it uses and maybe parents don't like that the school is encouraging students to accept this in a positive way but its not going to do any good to ban it from school. This was an amazing book and i loved it. I learned so much and it would have had nothing compared to tht impact it had on me if it would have be a cookie cutter, kid friendly, book that I have read forever. I also think that people are trying to shelter kids to much these days. Its not like i would want to show my kid hey here do these drugs but i do want them to be aware of what is going on in there lives and what tempations are out there. This book gave us insight into what life was like in a situation most of us would never be put in.
"The teacher claimed to have sent home a list of books to be read with the condition that alternative titles would be provided for students who chose not to read a specific assigned book, and no one had objected. The teacher worked with the American Civil Liberties Union to file a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, claiming that his rights and the rights of his students under the First and Fourteenth Amendments had been violated."
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: By O'Neil, Robert M.
Thelen/ 3-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades- Thomas J. Slater
I chose this essay because I loved the novel that Jack Nickolsen and Louise Fletcher brought to life on screen and this essay does a great job or tying the two together. Comparisons and differences between the movies characters were made but also between the two creators, Ken Kesey and Milos Forman. I found this essay to be so enlightening because it discussed how a certain angle that Forman used reflected the same technique that Kesey’s words did. “The camera angle is significant because it emphasizes that McMurphy is not conscious of others seeing him as a Christ-figure. In the film, he never shows any intention of playing the hero. He makes all of his challenges to Nurse Ratched when he has no knowledge of her power to keep him institutionalized indefinitely. He acts openly only because he does not understand the risk he is taking.” Slater couldn’t have said it better in his passage. Throughout his essay he makes references to scenes Forman creates for the audience and how he reflects certain emotions and symbols that Kesey would be pleased the camera caught. A difference that Slater mentions and that is obvious to readers and spectators is that Chief Bromden is not that narrator of the movie unlike the book, that McMurphy is the main focus. Captivating an audience attention under a schizophrenic Native American was a task that I personally think was a good one for Forman to stay away from. I think an audience would find Jack Nickolsen’s character much more intriguing to follow the film, and I believe his Oscar would be solid proof. In the essay it mentions how Nickolsen does a portraying that McMurphy’s power will be his downfall. Slater puts it perfectly, “All the patients think he is crazy for acting as boldly as he does, but follow him as if he were sane. All the doctors, and Nurse Ratched, believe he is sane, but treat him as it he were crazy. Meanwhile, the audience must question who is really mentally ill, the patients or the staff”. Seeing into the actors side was beneficial from this essay.
Sickler Pd. 6 (continued)
‘The conflict between individual choice and social pressure is crucial to the novel. For Kesey, any kind of social pressure can "condition" the individual and destroy his freedom of choice, as McMurphy begins to see in the ward member's behavior:
"Hell's bells, listen to you," McMurphy says. "All I hear is gripe, gripe, gripe. About the nurse or the staff or the hospital. Scanlon wants to bomb the whole outfit. Sefelt blames the drugs. Fredrickson blames his family trouble. Well, you're all just passing the buck." (181)’
I loved this part of his essay because it described one of the main elements of the novel. Like Mr. C said today, if we do not pull apart and actually take something out of this book (or any book), it’s just a book, nothing else. The excerpt Fred placed told of truth, even of people today. We tend to “pass the buck” with our problems, especially when they are deeply rooted problems. No one in the ward wanted to deal with their problems, that is why, I think, they were there. They do not want to come face to face with their fears, anxieties, depressions, addictions, worries, or inadequacies.
Hamrick pd. 6
The Grail Knight Arrives
Raymond Olderman
In the essay I read, Raymond Olderman begins to describe the novel in comparison to a poem by T.S. Eliot entitled, “Wasteland”. His excellent representation of the novel is very visual, and his wording is amazing. “The tale takes place in the ward of an insane asylum where an iron-minded, frost-hearted nurse rules by means of one twentieth-century version of brutality—mental and spiritual debilitation.” When he says that, it is a perfect representation of Nurse Ratchad, and of her behaviors throughout the novel. She is completely iron-minded and frost-hearted, and one cannot deny that once they have read the novel. He goes on to describe the main events of the book. He talks about how McMurphy was a savior to the patients, and as they grew stronger, they grew weaker. He also mentions how McMurphy’s victory over Ratchad was somewhat of a bittersweet thing. He got the best of her, but he had to die to get it done. Olderman then talks about the combine, what it entails, and what Chief thinks of it. “If you do not fit, you are a malfunctioning machine—‘machines with flaws inside that can't be repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in over so many years of the guy running head-on into solid things that by the time the hospital found him he was bleeding rust in some vacant lot’ (p. 4). That is what is called a ‘Chronic.’” Olderman then talks about how the “the Combine's inmates may truly be everywhere,” when he mentions the man hassling the patients on the boat.
In his compelling essay, Olderman also adds to the mechanical aspect of the novel, and mentions all of the other issues brought up in Kesey’s novel; “The wasteland of the asylum is characterized not only by mechanization and efficiency but by sterility, hopelessness, fear, and guilt.” He talks about how the men in the asylum are over run by women, and they are being “enervated and emasculated.” He goes on to say that not only are the hospital staff treating the men badly, it’s also Chief’s mother, Billy’s mother, and Harding’s wife. I love how he refers to the system of the asylum as “deadly order” because it really depicts what it truly is. To the staff, what is normal is crazy, and everything is backwards. He then begins to talk about the essay as a whole, and what it does for the readers. I loved reading his essay, because he had very valid points, and the things he said, were things that I had never thought about before. It was enlightening and fascinating.
Greenhoff Pd. 3
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the High Cost of Living
“When Randle Patrick McMurphy swaggers into the cuckoo's nest, brash, boisterous, with heels ringing off the floor "like horseshoes,"1 he commands the full attention of a world held crazily together in the name of adjustment by weakness, fear, and emasculating authority. As Chief Bromden says, "he sounds big" (p. 10). When, six weeks later, he hitches up his Moby Dick shorts for the final assault on the Big Nurse and walks across the floor so that "you could hear the iron in his bare heels ring sparks out of the tile" (p. 305), he dominates a world coming apart at the seams because of strength, courage, and emerging manhood. As Chief Bromden says (repeatedly)—he has made others big,” Terence Martin.
Randle Patrick McMurphy has a certain quality that can’t help but demand attention. As Terence Martin would say he has a ‘swagger’ that commands attention and demands reaction. When he walks into the ward that very first day his personality is in a way magnetic. Martin says, “The early McMurphy has a primitive energy, the natural expression of his individualism. And in the manner of the solitary hero his freedom and expansiveness come from being unencumbered. He has no wife wanting new linoleum. No relatives pulling at him with watery old eyes. No one to care about, which is what makes him free enough to be a good con man.” Unlike other mental patients in the ward, McMurphy has nothing to lose and really nothing to gain except for satisfaction. He isn’t like Billy Bibbit who is held there by his mother. He is not like Harding who has a beautiful wife tied to his conscious. He honestly has nothing to worry about, other than being sent back to the work farm or later realizing that his dismissal from the ward relies on the decision of Ratched. He’s a free man. Imagine having no obligations or responsibilities. What fun we could all have if we could spend our days as we pleased. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. “We are victims of matriarchy here,” says Harding to McMurphy. The ward is a social system. We have our leaders in charge and those who follow with no choice. Nurse Ratched is the authority. She cannot be fired by anyone but the supervisor of the hospital whom she has connections with and worked with in previous years, a friend and a connection that makes her impenetrable to anyone wanting her gone. It doesn’t matter how much you hate her, you follow her orders or you’re a fried vegetable. Live with it and learn how to deal with it. Ironically she is the one woman in charge of a madhouse full of men and she never ceases to insistently emasculate them. She lets them float in her dominance and it fulfills her power-hungry thrill.
Spencer Hallstrom Pd. 6
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A Tale of Two Decades by Thomas J. Slater
This essay does a great job of comparing the difference between the book and the movie. The book is described completly in the eyes of a six foot eight American Indian named Chief Bromden.
"Cuckoo's Nest's main setting of mental ward at the Oregon State Hospital becomes a surrealistic world controlled by hidden wires and fog machines that help the head nurse and her staff to work their will on the patients" (quote from the essay).
The main plot of both the book and the movie is that the nurse and all others in charge of the ward try and control the patients in the ward. This is a type of conformity. The book by Ken Kesey is one of the best books I have ever read. I really enjoyed it. This essay argues how a lying rapist named Randle Patrick McMurphy, who is portrayed as jesus greater than anyone else in the book. But how could a lying rapist be jesus? This makes no sense the essay goes into it a little further about how McMurphy is the only one who laughs at the whole mental ward instead of conforming to the ways of the ward like all of the patients in the ward. McMurphy is also known as jesus because he leads all of the men into thinking that they can take control of the ward which in a general state of mind is true because they all eventually turned against the ward and rebelled just like what McMurphy wanted as well as everyone else.//Towards the end of the book as well as the movie Chief Bromden thinks that instead of McMurphy controlling when he leaves, he begins to feel that the only person that has control over when he leaves the ward is Nurse Ratched and no one else. So he in a way mystifies McMurphy more than is needed in the book. That is what the essay said which in a way is true because McMurphy only tricked the patients into thinking that they had some type of control over the nurses in the ward as well as Nurse Ratched. But it is also false because McMurphy was the only one that had the guts to do what he did and rally up all of the patients into rebellion.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Rhetoric and Vision
By Micheal M. Boardman
In this essay, Micheal explains how it takes someone with great adversity and knowledge to write a novel showing the difficulties of writing a successful "tragic action" in the world we see today. When writing this book, Kesey was forced into the challenge of writing a tragic action because he knew many would disagree with what was said in the novel. Micheal says, "In large part, the problem stems from what David Daiches long ago termed 'the breakdown of the implicit agreement between author and the readers about what was significant in human experience,'"
Micheal says that all writing will dissagree with someone, and cannot possess a perfect answer to everyone's beliefs. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it's obvious that there are many christian refrences in the book that allow us to think "out of the box", but some many disagree and say that the christian refrences are a fluke and don't mean anything. Micheal said "Many believe that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest contains far too much humor to be beaten with the stick of tragedy." He's saying that many people do not look at Cuckoo's Nest as a tragedy, but as a comedy. Upon reading the novel, one may say Cheif is the main character, and at the end of the novel, doesn't die! And he is even enlightened! But when this novel is looked at as a tragedy rather than a comedy, one can see that tragedy appears here with many disguises and takes a ‘form’ rather than comedy being a special vision or philosophy. Mcmurphy destroying himself to preserve others, the way the ‘weak’ are preyed upon by the ‘strong’, and the misconception of fate, all of which represent a tragic presence in Cuckoo’s Nest, prove that Kesey was writing a tragedy, not a comedy. Tragedy is a form of art that many will reject due to its inhumane nature, but if we accept it, we open ourselves to greater knowledge.
McKenzie Pd. 7
The Heresy of Common Sense: The Prohibition of Decency in Nineteen Eighty-Four
By Anthony Stewart
Summary:
In his essay, Stewart talks about how Smith is both a champion of decency and shows a complete lack of it at the same time. He makes lots of comparisons between the characters of Animal Farm and 1984. He notices that Smith is someone we’re supposed to admire throughout the novel in spite of his human flaws. He studies doublethink and how it allows the party to impose it’s will upon the people but creates doubts within the minds of the people at the same time by its very nature. He examines how Winston both hates big brother and yet loves him at the same time because of his job. He loves his job yet he is doing the very thing he hates the most. He examines other characters and their roles in the novel too. Syme is one such character. He examines how even in 1984 people that are too smart are often outcasts and end up becoming unpeople (how true this is even by today’s standards). He also examines how in the end of the novel Orwell is still optimistic. He examines how the appendix is written in the past tense and in oldspeak. How Winston’s physical condition at the end is mocking what the party thinks of itself and how Winston still has his doubts even after all that he went through in the ministry of love.
Hauge p2
The Hipster, the Hero, and the Psychic Frontier in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
By Thomas H. Fick
The essay begins by explaining a novel previously read by the author "The White Negro" by Norman Mailer, which is about a philosophical psychopath living life with similar problems encountered in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." One of the similar conflicts is civilization vs. wilderness which is vastly explored in both novels, along with sanity and madness. The essay then moves on to talk about how McMurphy teaches the people of the ward to behold their own truths and identities and how it begins to drag on himself. Another aspect touched by the essay is Nurse Ratched. Comparing how the fish contrasted to Nurse Ratched are miniscule and how Ratched is the real head honcho.
Hauge p2 (continued)
Harding is portrayed as teaching those to show confidence in the identity on chooses to invent. I liked the point of view Thomas Fick chose to write from and his beliefs on people and personalities. He showed a big emphasis on personal identities and how you choose who you are. He compared the patients in the ward to people that have lost their personality and identity and that is the reason for them being as troubled as they are. Billy Bibbit's big problem to him is the he didnt show enough confidence in the person he knew he was "The Acutes learn, as Harding puts it, that "mental illness [can] have the aspect of power, power" (226), or, more generally, that one should have confidence in the self one chooses to invent. McMurphy's lies reveal hypocrisy even as they assert independence. He is the antithesis of those passive victims—suburbanite or institutional drudge—who are no more than blank screens for the receipt of others' projected desires and expectations. This crucial difference is made clear when McMurphy refuses to let Nurse Ratched thwart his plan to watch the World Series." This essay also reinforced many points shown to us during class, for example how McMurphy helping everybody else was draining on him, how everything he did played such a drastic roll on all the patients. In many ways i feel Thomas Fick "hit the nail on the head" with his essay in response to Ken Kesey's novel.
Austin Hanson
Period 7
The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
By Jack Hicks
In the essay about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Hicks explains the exuberant nature at which many people enjoy this book. He also does a nice job at summarizing the main points about Chief Bromden. In this essay he starts out by introducing Ken Kesey and giving a brief background. He tells the reader about how he was a Stanford student with a wife and a child and “found his debts exceeding his income” so he volunteered to be a guinea pig for a "psychomimetic" drug test. In this test he was given a wide variety of psychedelic drugs: LSD-25, psilocybin, mescaline, peyote, morning glory seeds, IT-290 (a meta-amphetamine). It was because of this that Kesey wrote one of the most profound novels of American history. Kesey also took up a job as night attendant on a psychiatric ward at Menlo Park Hospital to help pay for his debt. This led to his disgust for the ward and got to dig into the minds of the “insane” people. This led to his greatest novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Austin Hanson cont....
Period 7
When Jack Hicks begins to analyze Kesey’s book Cuckoo’s Nest he reveals many truths about Chief Bromden and the meanings behind all of his madness. Hicks tells the reader that Chief has Paranoid Schizophrenia and “can perceive the world only in fragments that happen to him, fragments that assume menacing cartoon shapes from which unconsciousness is the only refuge.” He also explains how chief has constant nightmares and hallucinations to make sense of all of the wrong that goes on. He explains that chief is right about Blastic being killed in the middle of the night and has a vivid nightmare about him being hung from his heels and cut open with rust and metal falling out. This all starts to change when Randle Patrick McMurphy “(Revolutions Per Minute)” arrives at the ward. Hicks explains how McMurphy is “Like the best American con men” because he scams all of the patients on the ward of their money but also is the saving grace on the ward and saves all of the men from the death grip of Nurse Ratched. Hicks goes through the story and describes Bromden’s path to becoming conscious to the world around him. Hicks ends his essay by describing how “Bromden escapes northward, now a con man and storyteller himself, but we recognize at the novel's conclusion that the only certitude is Bromden's new consciousness.”
The essay I read it was basically a summary of Cuckoo’s Nest. I read the essay One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Monty Kozbial Ernst. The essay starts off by talking about the novel in a Marxist lens by talking about the power struggle that goes on. It talks about how McMurphy and Ratched are the ones who fight and lead. I agree with this because McMurphy leads the patients and Ratched leads the other nurses and the black boys. It then talks about symbols and tells how Christian symbols are very big in this novel. Ernst then goes on to talk about how much western influence there is in the book and how it relates to other novels or uses themes from them in a more powerful way. He talks about the fight against conformity of the 1950’s and about the way the novel shows that in this time women were viewed as ether “castrating harpies such as Ratched and Harding’s wife or sexualized pleasers such as Candy and Sandy.” Ernest then goes into talking about binary oppositions in the novel. From studying this novel in class, on my own, and now after reading this essay I have come to the realization of how important binary oppositions truly are. They can provide so much insight and open whole new ways of thinking or whole new perspectives and points of view. I believe that without recognizing and studying binary oppositions in a novel you will lose much of the intent of the author and that you might has well not even read it if you will not put in the time and effort. This essay also talks about how many of the inmates over come their problems such as “Harding, one of the other inmates, eventually checks himself out of the hospital once he reconciles himself to both the masculine and feminine aspects of his personality.” He then goes on to compare Melville’s Moby-Dick to Cuckoo’s Nest. He says, and I agree with it, that in both they “may imply that rigid adherence to any extreme is destructive.” This is a very great essay and I think that by reading and studying it, it has made me think harder and made me smarter. Menefee pd.7
Marso Pd. 3
I am reading the essay, Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner, written by Fred Madden. In the first paragraph of his essay, he talks about whether or not McMurphy is truly a hero. It shows how degrading some of the things McMurphy really says about people in the novel, like calling black people “coons” and the women who are “bad” are bitches. Madden also talks about McMurphy’s actions, as well, with him being a bully. The essay goes on to say show us that McMurphy is infact a hero, and Chief is his sidekick. McMurphy conforms after he realizes Big Nurse has control over him, but later on he can’t take it anymore and doesn’t want to follow what everyone else is doing. So, he rebels, and sets a lot of, I guess you could say, new standards for the guys on the ward. If McMurphy wouldn’t have rebelled, then maybe Chief wouldn’t have been able to find his individual sanity that this essay talks about. Kesey thinks that this country needs individual sanity for everything to be alright. Later in the essay, it says that as a reader you are supposed to judge McMurphy’s sanity, and look at it that the guys in the ward are truly showing McMurphy the direction he should be going, not McMurphy showing the guys in the ward where to go. Is McMurphy really a hero then? He starts losing his self control, and individual thinking. Can a hero lose control of something he or she should have control over? He could be a hero though because, he opened up a new path for everyone else to follow, that maybe you really can be yourself and you don’t have to conform to be sane. Truly, McMurphy conforming and becoming “sane” only made him insane.
Excerpt: Readers condemning McMurphy have pointed both to his language (he calls blacks "coons" four or five times and Washington "a nigger") and to his actions (he seems to take sadistic pleasure in bloodying Washington's nose in a basketball game and in hitting the orderly in the shower room).
Alec Hauck pd. 6
The Truth Even If It Didn’t Happen: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Jack Hicks
In this essay, author Jack Hicks explains the hard side of life of the great widely known novelist Ken Kesey. Kesey is compared to two other publicly known figures Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg whose actions speak louder than words. I believe this comparison better shows how some of Kesey’s actions in life have brought a small amount of shame to his famous work. Jack goes on to explain how, over the last decade, Kesey’s work has become very widely known and has taught a very good moral lesson with his book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. From Kesey’s early years at the University of Oregon, we see that this is where he formed a good reputation for his name, being that he was a minor campus celebrity. He was an athlete and a successful actor on campus, but in his later years of attending Stanford, he learned from some very reputable literary teachers. I think that these learning experiences he had here started him off with a soon to be successful and brilliant writing career. Hicks goes on to tell how soon out of college, Kesey realized the immense debt he was put it from the expensive learning and knowingly needed another source of income to help him along. He tells how Kesey admitted himself to government experiments that paid a good rate of $75 each visit. Kesey ingested a wide variety of psychedelic drugs over the next year of his life, hoping to lower his huge amount of debt. From a personal standpoint, I think that these experiments, although not socially accepted soon afterward, formed the intense ideas and thought for Kesey to begin his very famous novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Jack continues to almost drill Kesey for this drug use by telling about his usage of the drugs outside of the clinic visits. Kesey then took a job at a nearby psychiatric clinic, where he worked and more importantly learned from the job. To me, Kesey’s disgrace and pity on how this mental ward was run, along with his other huge influential experiences with the governmental drug experiments, he was able to vividly shape and form his first published and greatest novel of his career, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Jack later tells that although Kesey’s first novel would not soon be forgot by the American people, his following work over the next several years was nothing to match with his early work.
Alec Hauck pd. 6
The Truth Even If It Didn’t Happen: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Jack Hicks
In this essay, author Jack Hicks explains the hard side of life of the great widely known novelist Ken Kesey. Kesey is compared to two other publicly known figures Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg whose actions speak louder than words. I believe this comparison better shows how some of Kesey’s actions in life have brought a small amount of shame to his famous work. Jack goes on to explain how, over the last decade, Kesey’s work has become very widely known and has taught a very good moral lesson with his book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. From Kesey’s early years at the University of Oregon, we see that this is where he formed a good reputation for his name, being that he was a minor campus celebrity. He was an athlete and a successful actor on campus, but in his later years of attending Stanford, he learned from some very reputable literary teachers. I think that these learning experiences he had here started him off with a soon to be successful and brilliant writing career. Hicks goes on to tell how soon out of college, Kesey realized the immense debt he was put it from the expensive learning and knowingly needed another source of income to help him along. He tells how Kesey admitted himself to government experiments that paid a good rate of $75 each visit. Kesey ingested a wide variety of psychedelic drugs over the next year of his life, hoping to lower his huge amount of debt. From a personal standpoint, I think that these experiments, although not socially accepted soon afterward, formed the intense ideas and thought for Kesey to begin his very famous novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Jack continues to almost drill Kesey for this drug use by telling about his usage of the drugs outside of the clinic visits. Kesey then took a job at a nearby psychiatric clinic, where he worked and more importantly learned from the job. To me, Kesey’s disgrace and pity on how this mental ward was run, along with his other huge influential experiences with the governmental drug experiments, he was able to vividly shape and form his first published and greatest novel of his career, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Jack later tells that although Kesey’s first novel would not soon be forgot by the American people, his following work over the next several years was nothing to match with his early work.
Alec Hauck pd. 6 (continued)
He soon came to work with other things such as theater, almost putting writing to the side. Kesey continued his heavy drug use; traveling and experimenting like many others did during the time period. I think Kesey became very caught up with what he considered right and forgot some of the more important things, just forgetting and going on to live his life the way he wanted it to be. Kesey’s trips had almost led to the downfall or shame of his name, being arrested several times and fleeing the country at one point. I believe in the end that the reason for Kesey’s continued use of drugs and experimenting was for personal experiences and motivation to continue writing novels from the mindset not widely known to society. This mindset not only twists the mind of the reader, teaching valuable lessons that can be compared to life in general, but also catches them by surprise with his unheard of viewpoint of the uglier side of society. The author Hicks ends his essay giving a small look into this mindset in Kesey’s book, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, by introducing some the schizophrenic experiences the narrator, Chief Bromden, has. After reading the incredible novel Kesey has created, I think it should be experienced by all to further expand thought, the tactic Kesey has used to become so widely known.
“but an unlikely extracurricular experience as a medical volunteer was of far greater import to Kesey’s life and writing. By this time Kesey had married and fathered a child and, like the classic graduate student, found his debts exceeding his income. Heeding a friend’s tip that a government medical experiment paid human guinea pigs at the rate of seventy-five dollars a day, Kesey presented himself at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, volunteering for experiments with “psychomimetic” drugs. Between spring of 1960 and spring of 1961, fully two years prior to psychologists Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert and their infamous experiments at Harvard, Kesey ingested a wide variety of psychedelic (mind-altering) drugs”
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living by Terence Martin
This essay demonstrates the price of living because no matter what you do Nurse will try and make it where it is not so good. Nurse and McMurphy get into it a lot in the novel and McMurphy essentially wins the battle because eventually in the novel he leaves the ward and never comes back. It also talks about Chief getting the guts to grab the control panel, yank it out, break the glass, and finally get out of the ward. It also talks about how Doctor Spivey can’t fire Nurse because Nurse has complete authority as the supervisor and overseer of the ward. I find it interesting about how McMurphy is this energy at the beginning when he comes into the ward and thinks he is the top dog and when the lifeguard lets him know the difference between sentenced and committed, that the only way he is getting out of the ward is to do what Nurse says because she is the one who controls who gets out and who doesn’t get out, he tones down, but when Charlie started up and killed himself, he became his own self again and was the pill he was at the beginning of the novel. Nurse also is the “time control” on the ward. If she thinks the patients are having a bad day, she will turn the time down and make the time go slower. Likewise, if they are having a good day she will speed up the time like there is no tomorrow.
McMurphy is the non conformist of the whole entire ward and he preaches that concept to the ward itself when he gets to know a little bit about Nurse. Once he found out though about that she controls the releases, things became a little bit different and he changed.
(continued)
The reason no one got released from there is because Nurse made life miserable for the patients. She thinks if they aren’t having a good day that is good because she thinks it is therapeutic and good for them because if they are good, that means she has to let them leave and she has no choice and therefore she would not have anybody to care for and so she controls the patients by essentially brainwashing them. My favorite excerpt from the essay is this:” McMurphy goes through two other stages in the course of the novel, both the result of increasing awareness. From the lifeguard at the swimming pool he learns the difference between being sentenced and being committed. He realized for the first time that he will be released only when the Big Nurse approves a release for him. The information has an immediate effect. As they are leaving the pool a hydrocephalic patient from another ward lies helplessly on his side in the footbath, his head bobbing around in the disinfectant.”
Skich P.7
When I first read the rough draft in The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I could see the remarkable similarities between the first chapter of the book and this first rough draft. As I read on I find the paragraph in which “...all the Acutes except Scanlon, Martini, and Big Chief discharge themselves from the ward before the lobotomized McMurphy returns.” This paragraph says something that I should have realized when I read the book. They were waiting for a victory with something in their life, and when McMurphy finally attacked Ratched that sent her off to a hospital, they all felt like they finally won something in their life. With that satisfaction they decided to return to their lives. Now that I look back at this, “Group pressure forces McMurphy to play the role of hero, but the result is the draining of his individuality. “ rings true for me. Later in the essay the author goes on and talks about how chief is the priest and executioner of McMurphy. I like the way that the author compares the Huckleburry Finn to One flew over the cuckoo's nest, in that they both “...are storytellers who recount their pasts and, in so doing, reveal their inability to escape“ .
Now that I look at this I realize that it the essay is based on a different version of the book. But, in any case it has opened my eyes to some more of the internal workings of the book.
Halter pd. 2
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner
Date: 1986. By Fred Madden.
In this article Fred Madden has many great points on the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One point was that McMurphy was a so called hero or a positive figure in the book even though he had a sailor’s mouth, racist, sexist biases, and violent acts. Witch concerned some people in the article it says “Other readers have accused McMurphy, and Kesey himself, of sexist attitudes: the "bad" women (Big Nurse, Billy's mother, and Harding's wife) are bitches, and the "good" women are prostitutes with hearts of gold. Readings that emphasize racist and sexist attitudes blame Kesey for creating stereotypical characters that are used to convey a white macho-paternalism that degrades women and blacks.” The article continues on details of the major parts. Lastly one of the best points is that you conform in some kind of way no matter what. The article quotes from so father figures like Ken Kesey’s dad and Chief’s dad “His Papa says, "if you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite" (198). The Chief's father implies that a person is controlled either in conformity to the wishes of others or in rebellion against them.” I do believe that McMurphy was a hero in the novel but I think that any kind of person with a strong will and mind can and could have been a hero to the men on the ward. All they need was a push and convincing that they can survive in the world. I am not saying to just tell them they are ok and kick them out but to work with them with the right communication skills to help build them to survive, because they have survived before they just lost their way. Everyone loses their way at least once, some just know how to handle it better and bounce back and some don’t and the men on the ward don’t know how. Now with the saying “’bad’ women (Big Nurse, Billy’s mother, and Harding’s wife) are bitches, and the ‘good’ women are prostitutes with hearts of gold”, I believe that not all bad women are “female dogs” and I do believe that some prostitutes do have hearts of gold. It is ridiculous how others feel that they have a right to stenotype people and who they are from a stupid label they got. Some readers are upset with why Kesey made the book seem stereotypical of characters and looking like degrading the women and African Americans but they (I believe) are not looking with their eyes wide enough. Its shows what the world already does at that time and in some points it makes the women (nurses) look like in control instead of men all the time. Also with the African Americans they have a job and power over the men on the ward even though they have to follow directions form Big Nurse, but in every job you have to follow higher powers directions/instructions. It is true in life that you can get swayed by others to do what they think is the best and that can make you stubborn and leads to rebelling but either way you are conforming. See if you listen to the ones that are swaying you, you conform to them. Chief’s Father says this perfectly, “The Chief's father implies that a person is controlled either in conformity to the wishes of others or in rebellion against them.” This is what I think; no matter what you do you are comforting to something in this world.
Schlotman_6
Sanity and Responsibility: Big Chief as Narrator and Executioner
Author: Fred Madden
To summarize Fred Madden’s article, he debated whether McMurphy was the main character or if Chief was. Fred states that the reader sees McMurphy as the main character because he acts like the hero and instantly changes the mood of the ward when he arrives. But, how can we adore someone who is obviously racist and sexist? The only non-white ward member he shows respect to is Chief. But, he does valiantly confront the forces of dehumanize and mechanism in our society—forces represented by what Big Chief calls the "combine." So, Fred is basically arguing for both sides here or just trying to find an answer by weighing the “pros” and “cons” of McMurphy’s personality. It does not just talk about whether McMurphy is a hero or not, it also looks into the complicated jigsaw puzzle that is Kesey’s mind. The accusations against Kesey are that he is sexist towards women in general. He portrays the “bad” women (Nurse Ratchet, Billy’s mom, Harding’s wife) are (sorry for the language) “Female Dogs”, and the “good” women (Candy) are prostitutes who make a living pleasing men and taking orders from them. All in all, it seems that Kesey created a White Male-Dominated place where women and other races are degraded.
Response to Madden’s article, I definitely see the novel in a different perspective now after reading and soaking up the views that have been presented to me. I still think that Chief is the main character because when you read the novel, it is all in his view and it is Chief who sees McMurphy as a hero. I think the reader is not suppose to see him as the hero, but the instigator of the fight against the “combine”. We cheer for Chief when he leaves and when he helps McMurphy in the fight against the black boys. I also think that Kesey is not being sexist or racist in this novel because it is based in a time where all of this was happening and he was using McMurphy to show to the public on how these people are being treated differently and subconsciously we feel sorry for them because we know what they are going through in reality. Really? I can’t believe people actually thought this of Kesey. He is a pioneer to the equalization of our country. I seriously doubt that he views people differently just because of the hue of their skin or if they have a double x chromosome or if there is a y and x chromosome together.
Sperlich_6
Bloom on Nineteen Eighty-Four
Harold Bloom
In this article about Nineteen Eighty-Four, Harold Bloom shows us how George Orwell may have predicted the future, to some extent of course. Meaning that Orwell was right that some people now believe “War is Peace”. Bloom stated in his article that, “…the United Nations, in Liberia and elsewhere, practices "peacekeeping" and creates "safe areas," whose burden might as well be "War is Peace."” In stating that, Bloom is saying other countries in the world are starting to make Orwell’s novel correct. Even Hollywood is saying that “Ignorance is Strength”, such as the MTV hit series, Jersey Shore. The viewers see Snooki, one of the main people in the series, as dumb bimbo. Snooki does nothing but get drunk, smoke cigarettes and have sex with strangers. People love to see stupidity on TV. Also, “many of our African-American intellectuals rightly judge Gingrich to be telling them that "Freedom is Slavery," particularly when he has urged restoring to the poor their freedom to starve” states Bloom. Yes, Big Brother or our government is not watching us. YET. And yes, we may not have Saddam Hussein up on the TV for the Two Minutes Hate. Nineteen Eighty-Four will never loose its relevance to society. “The book continues to have moral force as a political early warning and truly is what I once called it, the Uncle Tom's Cabin of our time,” says Bloom. He also explains how the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, knew how to tell a story better then Orwell. Uncle Tom compared to Winston Smith, is far more interesting. Bloom is not meaning to beat down the novel, but to point out that we do not read Nineteen Eighty-Four because Orwell was an amazing writer. We read it because, “he was a moral and political essayist who had the instincts of a pamphleteer”. Orwell does not even compete with whom Bloom says, Jonathan Swift, a master of irony and satire, possess. This novel will be continued to be read, even if Orwell was not the greatest writer in the world.
Mariah Nachreiner pd. 2
The Truth Even If It Didn't Happen: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Jack Hicks
In this essay, the author, Jack Hicks begins by comparing Ken Kesey to Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg because all of these authors represent the unsettling artistic type. Kesey has become a powerful cultural figure recently because of his characteristics of living a countercultural life-style, and this helps all types of readers relate to his novels. Kesey started his famous writing career while attending college at the University of Oregon. Kesey also came under the influence of the first of a series of prominent writer-teachers, James B. Hall. By 1958, when Kesey entered Stanford University as a writing student; he had completed a decent body of writing: short stories, one-act plays, poetry, and an unpublished novel about college athletics, End of Autumn. He also wrote another unpublished novel, Zoo (1960). He later found out about a drug experiment where people were being paid huge amounts of money if they would test the drug. This is when he became addicted to many drugs and worked in a psychiatric ward. Here is where he began observing the patients and writing notes about them inspiring him to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Deeply into the drug culture by 1964, Kesey invested much of his royalties in a remarkable coast-to-coast bus trip, documented in lurid detail by Wolfe. Kesey was arrested for drug use and faked his own suicide in order to escape the FBI and fled to Mexico. The essay goes on explaining how Kesey becomes an extraordinary writer. He floods his novels with passion. He also explains how each character is resembled and basically “characterized” throughout the novel. This essay explains how Bromden feels as though the anything that he thinks happens really did happen. Even though Chief is “crazy” and exaggerates everything. “It is the truth even if it didn’t happen”.
“He goes to the bed and with one hand grabs the old Vegetable Blastic by the heel and lifts him straight up like Blastic don't weigh more'n a few pounds; with the other hand the worker drives the hook through the tendon back of the heel, and the old guy's hanging there upside down, his moldy face blown up big, scared, the eyes scummed with mute fear. He keeps flapping both arms and the free leg till his pajama top falls around his head…. The worker takes the scalpel and slices up the front of Old Blastic with a clean swing and the old man stops thrashing around. I expect to be sick, but there's no blood or innards falling out like I was looking to see—just a shower of rust and ashes, and now and again a piece of wire or glass.” [85]
Aaron Engebretson, Period 3
For my blog task I chose to summarize the essay One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest: Rhetoric and Vision by Michael M. Boardman. In this essay Michael describes One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as a book that, “illustrates well the difficulties of writing a successful tragic action in the modern world. He breaks down almost everything about R.P. McMurphy and does not leave any stone unturned. He starts off by saying that writers depend heavily on creating through rhetoric, or the way he tells the story. He goes on to say that Ken Kesey could have seen the book as a comic allegory or a melodramatic fable instead of a tragic action. He states that Bromden is seen as the main character and not only does he not die but he has almost a kind of liberation throughout the book and that the book has to much humor to be a tragic action novel. Michael then goes into the magnitude of Kesey’s task by sketching out what kind of story it was intended to be by Ken. He points out that Kesey brings out characters and “elevates” them in the classic sense. He subjects them to a situation of coercion in which he acts, sacrificially, to help others at the risk of his own destruction, and tries to represent the pattern as moving and significant. In the novel, Ken “elevates” R.P. McMurphy. He first comes into the ward as a person with a more than special personality. Then throughout the book he changes into a person that would give anything to see the other patients act normal and laugh again. He even takes it a step further by having McMurphy sacrifice himself for the patients. Michael writes that Kesey and other authors seem so aware of the difficulty that they have eschewed attempting to portray tragic declines and turned instead to delineating static states of futile existence. He even puts Kesey in the list of modern authors whom have sought ways to build into their
Aaron Engebretson, Period 3 cont.
tragic actions sufficiently strong systems of positive belief so that the “fall” approaches, at least, tragic proportions. He also throws out the fact that people charge Kesey as a sexist, a stating that makes the book a bit dangerous as Ken shows hints of concealed sexist bias throughout the novel. He also points out that Keseys shows McMurphy acting, in a manner entirely out of character, to insure his own destruction. He then relates Keseys actions to those of Hardy and other writers. Kesey risks creating a mere comic book hero in Mac. Although we do not see the process that turns Mac from sinner to saint, it is portrayed through signs. Many other elements of the novel function as rhetoric to establish importance of McMurphy’s fall. Michael also goes through saying that McMurphy’s hate for Nurse Ratched is pointed out early in the beginning of the book and that Chief Bromden’s parents show that Kesey is a weary ideology. He also points that the sexual problems of the men become symptoms of weakness rather than causes. “Tragedy, in whatever medium, is neither bland nor timid. The spectacle of a human being experiencing his or her doom can be one of the most moving and powerful in art. But it cannot occur without the prior existence, or creation, of values shared between author and reader.” -Michael M. Boardman
Danielle Granberg
Pd. 2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
By: Thomas J. Slater
Thomas J. Slater’s essay on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest compares the novel written by Ken Kesey to the movie directed by Milos Forman. Slater is portraying how director Milos Forman is using the angles narrator Chief Bromden sets for him in the novel. Forman incorporates angles in the movie portraying the Christ references made to Randall P. McMurphy, “Forman shoots him from behind as McMurphy stands briefly with his arms stretched out in the crucifix position. The camera angle is significant because it emphasizes that McMurphy is not conscious of others seeing him as a Christ-figure.” It is interesting how Forman makes Nurse Ratched more evil then she is in the book. “In the film, there is no Combine,” but Forman makes sure she comes across as the sole barrier between the patients and the outside world, especially when she comes back to the ward in the morning after Mcmurphy’s party. Forman surprises Slater and I, by making Harding a more negative character. He does this because he sees Harding’s character challenging McMurphy for power and agreeing with Nurse Ratched’s act to make all the patients in the ward conform. It is hard to believe that Forman felt the need to go along with showing Harding’s femininity when he already tells us how Harding fights for power in the ward. Slater says, “In the end, he [Harding] is still trapped inside his personal weaknesses by his desire for power”, which I agree with one hundred percent, because he is unable to stand up for himself throughout the entire novel and film. Slater also compares how the novel and film take place in the 1960’s and how these characters represent Americans during these times. In Slater’s essay he states, “His presentation of three characters who each fail in their struggle for power because of personal weaknesses matches the public’s dominant beliefs about the fall of Richard Nixon.” Slater wants readers to know, “Each of them, like each viewer, must take the first steps towards freedom on his own and prepare to keep fighting and preserve it.” I understand how the plots of novels must be changed to fit movies better, but in doing so they change how characters can be analyzed, for example Chief doesn’t make McMurphy such a mythic figure in the novel, but I would say in the movie Forman does this.
Danielle Granberg
Pd. 2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A Tale of Two Decades
By: Thomas J. Slater
Thomas J. Slater’s essay on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest compares the novel written by Ken Kesey to the movie directed by Milos Forman. Slater is portraying how director Milos Forman is using the angles narrator Chief Bromden sets for him in the novel. Forman incorporates angles in the movie portraying the Christ references made to Randall P. McMurphy, “Forman shoots him from behind as McMurphy stands briefly with his arms stretched out in the crucifix position. The camera angle is significant because it emphasizes that McMurphy is not conscious of others seeing him as a Christ-figure.” It is interesting how Forman makes Nurse Ratched more evil then she is in the book. “In the film, there is no Combine,” but Forman makes sure she comes across as the sole barrier between the patients and the outside world, especially when she comes back to the ward in the morning after Mcmurphy’s party. Forman surprises Slater and I, by making Harding a more negative character. He does this because he sees Harding’s character challenging McMurphy for power and agreeing with Nurse Ratched’s act to make all the patients in the ward conform. It is hard to believe that Forman felt the need to go along with showing Harding’s femininity when he already tells us how Harding fights for power in the ward. Slater says, “In the end, he [Harding] is still trapped inside his personal weaknesses by his desire for power”, which I agree with one hundred percent, because he is unable to stand up for himself throughout the entire novel and film.
Granberg....cont.
Slater also compares how the novel and film take place in the 1960’s and how these characters represent Americans during these times. In Slater’s essay he states, “His presentation of three characters who each fail in their struggle for power because of personal weaknesses matches the public’s dominant beliefs about the fall of Richard Nixon.” Slater wants readers to know, “Each of them, like each viewer, must take the first steps towards freedom on his own and prepare to keep fighting and preserve it.” I understand how the plots of novels must be changed to fit movies better, but in doing so they change how characters can be analyzed, for example Chief doesn’t make McMurphy such a mythic figure in the novel, but I would say in the movie Forman does this.
Boy Pd. 3
My review and essay summary is over Terence Martin's essay entitled, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the High Cost of Living." I was first attracted to it because the title mentions the "cost of living", which I found to be an interesting concept. Actually, it is a very factual phrase because one does pay with their life in the end. Martin focuses on the standout character of the novel, which is McMurphy. Martin seems to emphasize McMurhpy's struggle for empowerment over the common enemy known as Nurse Ratched. In fact, Terence Martin's whole essay surrounds the idea of a man versus woman power struggle. He mentions numerous times that Ken Kesey portrayed Randall Patrick McMurphy as the manliest human possibly imaginable. Seeing McMurphy's name for what it is, Martin also infers that McMurphy symbolizes his name perfectly. The name McMurphy is easily recognizable as an Irish-based name, and Irishmen are well known for their brute, tough, and manly characteristics. I personally felt like the essay was well thought out, well written, and well researched. Martin knew exactly what he was talking about and shared meaningful information throughout his work.
In essence, a summary of this essay would follow the story of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest quite well because of the method of writing that Martin used. Martin begins describing McMurphy and his manly powers at the very start of when he walks into the ward. Terence Martin continues by describing R.P.M's energy and how he instantaneously affects the others on the ward. After describing McMurphy's persona in more depth, Martin explains how McMurphy is being a man and trying to fight the all powerful Nurse Ratched while showing the other patients how to be brave. The whole concept of Martin's essay is how McMurphy is the man who rebels against a feministic demon. His ideology can be easily identified from this excerpt of Martin's essay.
The authority to hire and fire belongs to the supervisor of the hospital, a woman and an old friend of Miss Ratched's from Army days (the supervisor is anonymous, a virtual extension of the Big Nurse). It is McMurphy's first lesson in the ways of the madhouse. Women in the novel, one comes to see quickly, are powerful forces of control.
Murtha period 6
The Hipster, the Hero, and the Psychic Frontier in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Thomas H. Fick
In Thomas H. Fick's essay, he compares One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to the novel The White Negro.
Randall P. McMurphy is a hipster, a philosophical psychopath living on the fringes of society, with his classic western air and his influential tongue. He pushes the limits of the system that Nurse Ratched, the antagonist, has set up and controlled with silent efficiency. McMurphy is a down-home hipster who vitalizes the sterile ward with the energy of his language. "Some thief in the night boosted my clothes" (93), he explains to Nurse Ratched when he appears the first morning wrapped in a towel (with his white whale undershorts beneath). The Nurse's confusion inspires McMurphy to more elaborate jive, a burst of verbal energy that cuts through the inert institutional vocabulary: "'Pinched. Jobbed. Swiped. Stole,' he says happily. 'You know, man, like somebody boosted my threads.' Saying this tickles him so he goes into a little barefooted dance before her" (94). Ken Kesey, the author, also goes on to make McMurphy help the other patients, mostly voluntarily committed, to break out of the shells that they have surrounded themselves to protect themselves from the outside world. By breaking down the walls that they have set up they can more easily find themselves and learn more about themselves. The patients learn, as Harding (a effeminate and powerful character) puts it, that "mental illness [can] have the aspect of power, power" (226), that they should be confident with who they are and that they are different is not as horrible as they thought. As the inmates drive home from the fishing trip, Chief Bromden remarks that McMurphy's "relaxed, good-natured voice doled out his life for us to live, a rollicking past full of kid fun and drinking buddies and loving women and barroom battles over meager honors—for all of us to dream ourselves into" (245). One does not, however, dole out one's life—and especially one's fictional public life—with impunity. Unlike the others, Bromden notices that the relaxed voice comes from a man who is "dreadfully tired and strained" (245). This constitutes that McMurphy is not always the ‘hard’ hipster he usually portrays, that sometime the lies that he uses to protect himself are also what causes him the most pain. When McMurphy realizes that the only way to ‘save’ himself from the ward and the mixture of patients is to escape he decides to stay because he wants to save his soul even if it meets sacrificing his life.
Mr. C, I do not know why this did not paste to this site the first time I tried but I did have it completed on tuesday. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Maassen Pd. 3
Censorship History of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
This essay is about how the parents have tried to get rid of the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest because they felt it was racist, obscene, and immoral because of its raw language and for its emphasis upon the defiance of authority. Now I believe that the parents who tried to get rid of this book where not fully understanding of all the educational opportunities in this book. The parents felt that it was making a bad influence on the students reading the book. This book had no influence on me at all and I do not see why it would have and influence on anyone else either. I believe that you can really dig down deep into things and really think on a subject and still not believe in what you’re digging into. The book makes you dig down deep into the minds of the insane. It makes you analyze the world at a whole different perspective. It helps you see the evil of the world, how everyone wants conformity. I think if these parents want to ban this book I think they just as well ban the internet or the TV. This book shows the educational sides of racism, obscenity, and immoral, as to TV only used for entertainment when showing these things. Like what was said at the beginning of the year. Rated R means showing Reality. If these parents think they need to get rid of the books they must think that their kids are going to live in the basement for the rest of their lives because nothing can protect you from the reality of the world. If the parents think that their high school children will never hear a cuss word, they are sadly mistaken. A book should not be banned for the use of cuss words. If it was not for this book I don’t know if I would be able to analyze the way I do.
The novel has been frequently censored and challenged as being racist, obscene, and immoral because of its raw language and for its emphasis upon the defiance of authority. The white inmates repeatedly refer to the black orderlies with such racial slurs as "coons," "boys," and "niggers,"
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