Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about crazy people.
But maybe they're not as crazy as they seem.
Kesey's 1960s novel surrounds a psychiatric ward in Oregon, inhabited by a host of supposedly insane men and the cruel, cold Nurse Ratched. The patients live in constant fear of the Big Nurse, who exercises completely control over her ward through deliberate manipulation of guilt, shame, and embarrassment. The arrival of the boisterous Randle McMurphy changes everything.
It is evident that, in this novel, the hospital and Nurse Ratched represent a kind of oppression. The patients of the ward, prior to McMurphy's arrival, seemed lifeless. They couldn't even laugh properly. Nurse Ratched was in control, and no one could challenge that. Her intimidation and power seemed to suppress the individuality of her patients--every man shrunk deeper into himself. Every man becomes crazier than he was initially.
Kesey is perhaps offering a commentary on the general dynamic of society today. Societal pressures can be quite oppressive, especially with pressures to conform. Conformity is the ultimate suppressor of individuality. Kesey is takes a more critical stance on the subject, revealing much about his own views. In fact, many parallels can be drawn between the novel and Kesey's life. Kesey himself is an ardent preserver of his own identity and individuality, refusing to conform to social norms. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest argues that the preservation of individuality can be equated with the preservation of sanity. The patients of Ratched's ward are not necessarily insane to begin with. Oppression drove them to madness.
So, Kesey is saying that conforming is detrimental to us because it takes away our individuality, and thus, sanity? I don't know if I agree with that idea. I understand that conformity deprives us of individuality, but does it really take away our sanity? I am a conformist, but I think I am still sane... at least I hope am. Funny how Catch-22, the book I read, and your novel both discussed sanity. I guess it was just a common topic of discussion then.
ReplyDeletel'm starting to see a trend in the importance of the mental health of main characters of our reading list. My two independent reading books were both driven by an insane main character.
ReplyDeleteI have read this book too, though it was a year and a half ago. I think that Kesey is probably making a point about society as a whole, but this book also sparked investigations and reforms into mental hospitals in the United States. At least one aspect of this book is dealing with the cruelty of asylums and how supposedly crazy people are dealt with in America.
ReplyDeleteMr. Rohin, I see your point, but YOU'RE WRONG!. I *respectfully* disagree. Taking away individuality does also lead to insanity. For an extreme example, if you had zero freedom and do whatever the ruling figure told you to do, it would eventually essentially deprive you of your conscious thought, because you are doing zero thinking on your part. <-- ( conscious is probably not spelled right.) What makes people "sane" is that ability to have conscious thought, is it not?
ReplyDelete