One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (The Tone in Mind)

A detailed Summary of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (The Tone in Mind)

The imagination is the reader's most important tool on the path to enjoying a good book. One can only hinder their enjoyment of the story by disregarding the vivid images created by the mind. Nothing can compare to a landscape so exquisite that it would make a cinematographer jealous, or a prison so cold that you can see the inmates' hot breath. However, some authors offer help for those who are creatively impaired. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author, Ken Kesey builds such an effective tone, that the shifts in the attitudes of the characters can be detected.

In the first half of the novel, Kesey uses a wonderful device to show oppression that makes the reader feel as if they themselves are going insane. Bromden describes it best. "She's got the fog machine switched on...and the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in," (Kesey 101). This fog is not literally there, but instead appears when Kesey wants to create an atmosphere that is disparaging. This dark tone is also emphasized through Bromden's nightmares. In one of the dreams, the hospital turns into a hot industrial factory where the noise of cold, hard, unyielding machinery is almost deafening, (78-82).

Fortunately, this doesn't last too long, for a whole new tone is taken on when McMurphy pledges that he will stop at nothing to crush the nurse's tyranny. First, it is a tone that often accompanies a heated battle, and it is displayed at it's height when McMurphy and Miss Ratched face off at the meetings. Almost like a prizefight, the nurse and McMurphy square off while the other patients look on starry-eyed. Of course, the entire audience is rooting for McMurphy. This strained sparring comes to a head when McMurphy holds vote to change the daily schedule in order to watch the World Series. The meeting starts out in the deepest "fog" to date, but it begins to dissipate for good. Bromden describes McMurphy's triumph;

the fog. It's like...that big red hand of McMurphy's is reaching into the

When Bromden himself raises his hand, and breaks the barrier that his false deafness has put on, the tone is completely changed. He may still play deaf for awhile, but the fact that he thinks about playing deaf and acknowledges that he must keep up the facade, shows that he and the tone have changed.

"And then off down the slope I see them, other hands coming up out of

After this, Kesey puts an almost nostalgic tone on the story. The Acutes, Bromden, and the doctor go on an antic filled fishing trip that makes the group seem as if they did this every w

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Approximate Word count = 918
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English