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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. By Ken Kesey. … one flew east, one flew west, One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. - Children’s folk rhyme. “Beat Literature”. Has a counter-culture attitude Has a distaste for any kind of social authority. Setting.

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

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  1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest By Ken Kesey

  2. … one flew east, one flew west,One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. - Children’s folk rhyme

  3. “Beat Literature” • Has a counter-culture attitude • Has a distaste for any kind of social authority

  4. Setting Primarily in the psychiatric ward of a mental institution

  5. The author Ken Kesey: • Refused to settle down • Experimented with drugs and the literary form • The blurring of the line between fiction and reality – not to call into question the narrator’s view of events – is a reaction to the methods of the mental ward that emasculates and disempowers its patients.

  6. The author (cont’d) - Kesey worked as an orderly at a mental health facility in CA. He spoke to patients and witnessed the inner workings of such a hospital. He also received electroconvulsive therapy and took psychoactive drugs like LSD.

  7. Narrator • He is a supposedly “deaf-mute” Native American (Chief Bromden) • He has a skewed consciousness (some believe schizophrenia) • He believes the ward is run by a mechanized conspiracy he calls “The Combine”

  8. Protagonist • P. Randall McMurphy: • Is a symbol of free-spiritedness and rebellion • Is the hero of the novel • Lives outside society and pierces the compliance of the patients • Impresses upon patients the value of their own lives • Becomes a victim of a world that will not allow men to be free

  9. Themes • Rebellion against authority and conformism • Importance of freedom (e.g. sexual)

  10. Metaphors • Machines • Christian symbolism

  11. Other characters • Head Nurse: Nurse Ratched (antagonist) • The patients: • “The Acutes” – patients who can be cured • “The Chronics” – patients who will never be cured The Chronics are used to intimidate The Acutes to remind them of what could happen if they don’t comply.

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