One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest By Ken Kesey

Bibliographic Information Kesey was born in 1935 in La Junta, Colorado Lived on farms in Colorado and Oregon Attended University of Oregon's School of Journalism He was also a star wrestler and lead actor in college plays 1958 – Enrolled in creative writing program at Stanford University Married his high school sweetheart, Norma “Faye” Haxby, and had three children, Jed, Zane, and Shannon.

Bibliographic Information cont. Ken’s best friend told him about drug experiments the local VA hospital was conducting He was paid $75/day to come in and lie down in a bed while they gave him a series of placebos and LSD He was then hired by the same hospital and worked the night shift on the psychiatric ward. It didn’t take long before he discovered the punishing abuse of power by the system. He often went to work high on LSD in order to achieve a similar state of mind as his patients. It was during one of these acid trips that he envisioned his narrator, Chief “Broom” Bromden, a deaf-mute, paranoid.

LSD The experiments took place at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, which trialed LSD as a state-controlled mind-altering substance. At the time, LSD was thought that it could help those suffering mental disorders such as schizophrenia. It was not effective as a medical tool because it induced hallucinations. To the counter-culture of the 1960s LSD was a good thing; it helped hippies to explore their own mind and expand their horizons. Kesey and his friends were very concerned with non-conformity and expressing oneself. They did a LOT of drugs and were arrested multiple times. Kesey even faked his own suicide in order to evade police.

Immediate Success Kesey not only noticed the abuse of power taking place, but he also felt that the patients were not crazy at all… rather they didn’t “fit” in with society for one reason or another. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the first book that Ken published (in 1962). The book was immediately adapted into a successful stage production a year later, and then became and Academy Award winning film, sweeping five major Oscar categories in 1975.

Lobotomy: Treatment An estimated 50,000 lobotomies were performed in the US in the 1930s and 40s electroconvulsive therapy was introduced in the 1930s (used mainly to treat depression) psychiatric drugs became available in the 1950s. Before this, the only other treatments for the severely mentally ill were incarceration and physical restraint . By today’s standards, conditions in the mental hospitals of the past were unimaginable. Many patients were severely agitated, extremely violent, and incontinent. The hospitals were dirty, overcrowded, and understaffed. Many severely ill patients benefited from lobotomy with decreases in violence and agitation. Lobotomy often caused serious adverse effects, including disturbances of mood and personality, euphoria, poor judgment, impulsivity, loss of initiative, intellectual deficits, and seizures. Surgical procedure severing the nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus as a relief of some mental disorders.

Electroconvulsive Therapy: A medical treatment for severe mental illness in which a small amount of electricity is introduced to the brain. The purpose was to provide relief from the signs and symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression, mania, and schizophrenia. The most common risk are disturbances in heart rhythm. Broken or dislocated bones occasionally occur. (--http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/electroconvulsive+therapy)

Key Facts: Allegorical novel – an allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself Written in late 1950s Published 1962 First Person Narrator: Chief Bromden – Told as a flashback Setting: mental hospital, Oregon Protagonist: Randle P. McMurphy Antagonist: Nurse Ratched

Theme: the central idea or ideas explored by a literary work. Struggle for Power/Control Mental Illness (Perceptions) Women as Castrators/Sexuality The Power of Laughter Conformity vs. Individuality/Rebellion Imagination vs. Reality Violence as a Solution Altruism vs. Selfishness Racism Life vs. Death (What does it mean to truly be alive?)

Motifs: recurring elements that develop and inform the major themes. Invisibility Bromden’s deaf and dumb act Fog Hallucinations Laughter/Irony Man vs. “the machine” (Combine) Conflict Violence Depression/Paranoia

Symbolism: use of objects to represent things such as ideas and emotions… something that represents itself and something else The machine/combine The fog machine The electroshock therapy table McMurphy as Jesus Christ Other men on the ward as Christ’s disciples

Foreshadowing: Sooooooo… There are several very important instances of foreshadowing in this novel. However, if I tell you what they are, it will give away part of the ending! THE STORY OF MAXWELL TABER—A former patient who stayed in Nurse Ratched’s ward before McMurphy arrived. When Maxwell Taber questioned the nurse’s authority, she punished him with electroshock therapy. After the treatments made him completely docile, he was allowed to leave the hospital. He is considered a successful cure by the hospital staff. FORSHADOWS—McMurphy’s lobotomy and Bromden’s departure. ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY TABLE—foreshadows McMurphy’s “sacrifice” and resulting death. DEATHS—foreshadowed McMurphy’s demise. BROMDEN’S DREAMS—foreshadow what happens next to the patients.

Types of Characters: Flat/Static Characters— Round/Dynamic Characters— Minor characters who do NOT undergo substantial change. Round/Dynamic Characters— Major characters who encounter conflict and are changed by it.

Chief “Broom” Bromden: The narrator Six feet seven inches tall, but believes he is small and weak Son of the chief of the Columbia Indians and a white woman Faked being deaf and dumb Has paranoia and hallucinations, received multiple electroshock treatments, been in the hospital for ten years—longer than any other patient in the ward Bromden sees the hospital as a place meant to fix people who do not conform No clear reason for Bromden’s hospitalization. Rumored to have received 200 electroshock treatments. His narration is the story of the hospital, Nurse Ratched, the patients, McMurphy. It is also the story of Bromden’s journey toward sanity. (–SparkNotes.com)

“Big” Nurse Ratched: The head of the ward; middle-aged; former army nurse Very harsh and controlling Hires staff if they are submissive and easily controlled A former army nurse, Nurse Ratched represents the oppressive mechanization, dehumanization, and emasculation of modern society—in Bromden’s words, the Combine. Her nickname is “Big Nurse,” which sounds like Big Brother, the name used in George Orwell’s novel 1984 to refer to an oppressive and all-knowing authority. Bromden describes Ratched as being like a machine, and her behavior fits this description: even her name is reminiscent of a mechanical tool, sounding like both “ratchet” and “wretched.” She enters the novel, and the ward, “with a gust of cold.” Ratched has complete control over every aspect of the ward, as well as almost complete control over her own emotions. In the first few pages we see her show her “hideous self” to Bromden and the aides, only to regain her doll-like composure before any of the patients catch a glimpse. Her ability to present a false self suggests that the mechanistic and oppressive forces in society gain ascendance through the dishonesty of the powerful. Without being aware of the oppression, the quiet and docile slowly become weakened and gradually are subsumed. Nurse Ratched does possess a non-mechanical and undeniably human feature in her large bosom, which she conceals as best she can beneath a heavily starched uniform. Her large breasts both exude sexuality and emphasize her role as a twisted mother figure for the ward. She is able to act like “an angel of mercy” while at the same time shaming the patients into submission; she knows their weak spots and exactly where to peck. The patients try to please her during the Group Meetings by airing their dirtiest, darkest secrets, and then they feel deeply ashamed for how she made them act, even though they have done nothing. She maintains her power by the strategic use of shame and guilt, as well as by a determination to “divide and conquer” her patients. McMurphy manages to ruffle Ratched because he plays her game: he picks up on her weak spots right away. He uses his overt sexuality to throw her off her machinelike track, and he is not taken in by her thin facade of compassion or her falsely therapeutic tactics. When McMurphy rips her shirt open at the end of the novel, he symbolically exposes her hypocrisy and deceit, and she is never able to regain power. (--SparkNotes.com)

American Film Institute: Heroes & Villains Out of the top 50 villains and heroes in 100 years of film history . . . Atticus Finch (from To Kill A Mockingbird) was named the greatest hero of all time . . . Dr. Hannibal Lecter (from Silence of the Lambs) was named the top villain of all time . . . The remaining top five villains of all time: Norman Bates, Darth Vader, The Wicked Witch of the West, and Nurse Ratched