Cuckoos Nest

A detailed Summary of Cuckoos Nest

In what ways does the author of a novel you have studied make the reader aware of an important theme or themes?

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, by Ken Kesey, is a novel which explores many themes relating to human society, spirit and structure. It written in a unique style, that, in combination with strong symbolism and characterisation, successfully conveys these themes to the reader. The book is also backed up by a strong realism which Kesey managed to acquire from years serving on a mental ward and from his own explorations into mind-altering drugs. But probably the most important way in which Kesey communicates his themes with the reader is through the use of third person narration.

Kesey chooses one of the patients, Chief Bromden, as the narrator of the novel. The world which Bromden describes is a hazy, transparent realm, where the borders between insanity and sanity are unclear. "There's long spells -three days, years- when you can't see a thing, know where you are only by the speaker sounding overhead like a bell clanging in the fog (94)" Bromden's view is omniscient. Although he poses to the ward staff as a deaf-mute, he actually hears and comprehends all that happens within the hospital. The Chief was able play the

bag full of a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties today - wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard glitter, tiny pills, needles, forceps, watchmakers' pliers, rolls of copper wire ...' (10). Kesey uses the Chiefs distorted subconscious ramblings and

runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants." The Big Nurse symbolises all that is sterile, mechanical, conformed and unnatural - a mechanical matriarchy.

Although Bromden does not always see everything as it literally happens. He hallucinates often, seeing things in terms of machinery, 'She's carrying a woven wicker bag ... I can see inside it; there's no compact or lipstick or woman stuff, she's got that

the Nurse stands for and at the same time 'shatters her increasingly fragile composure'.

McMurphy is seen as a saviour to the patients. Kesey uses other such religious imagery sparingly throughout the novel to present his themes. First seen in Ellis who stands against the wall with arms outstretched - 'crucified'. The EST table is in the shape of a cross which the patient is strapped to, and a 'crown of thorns' fastened to their head to deliver the treatment. The whole preparation of EST has parallels to crucifixion of Christ. "[McMurphy] climbs on the table without any help and spreads his arms out to fit the shadow. A snitch snaps the clasps on his wrists, ankles, clamping him into the shadow." (218). The fishing trip also has religious connotations. As McMurphy leads the twelve patients/disciples towards the ocean, Ellis tells Billy Bibbit to 'be a fisher of men'. Which was a phrase Christ used to tell his disciples in winning converts to his cause. McMurphy carried the other patients hopes, dreams and aspirations upon himself. He carried their 'cross': "We couldn't stop him because we were the ones making him do it. It wasn't the nurse that was forcing him, it was our need that was making him push himself slowly up ... obeying orders beamed at him from forty masters." McMurphy also, like Christ, both 'gave their lives that others might live', when he was undertook a lobotomy at the end of the novel.

Women, such as the Nurse Ratched, feature in Kesey's novel in either of two lights. Either as a "ball-cutter" like the Big Nurse, who are intent on dominating men and depriving them of their freedom and masculinity. Or as Candy, the whore, who is intent on givi

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Approximate Word count = 1608
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English