1. Welcome!

3. Reflecting on Cults What patterns in rhetoric do you see?
Why do you think cults have the kind of power that they do?
Why would ‘normal’ people be attracted to cults?
What can the presence of cults teach us about our society?
What we fear:
Inability of normal, structured society to protect and keep us safe
Fear that governments or institutions are actually causing us harm rather than protecting us

4. Guiding Question
Do institutions (designed to protect societies) ultimately save us from monsters, or create them?

5. Introducing: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
By Ken Kesey

6. Define: Sanity
Defined as: reasonable or rational behavior If our narrator is in an insane asylum, and we believe him to be insane, how can we trust him? How does this affect the narration?

7. Literary Analysis Paper
4-6 pages
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
No prompt 
Motifs & Themes
Humor (laughter)
Society vs. the Individual
Conformity
Sanity vs. Insanity

8. “I was too old to be a beatnik and not young enough to be a hippie”
Ken Kesey ( )
“I was too old to be a beatnik and not young enough to be a hippie”
American author
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962)
Sometimes A Great Notion (1964)
Considered a link between the Beat generation of the 1950s and the Hippie generation of the 1960s
Born in Colorado, moved to Oregon
Attended University of Oregon
Wrestler, great athlete
Degree from the School of Journalism in speech and communication in 1957, followed by non-degree Creative Writing program at Stanford
Experimented heavily with psychoactive drugs
Took part in government funded study around LSD, mescaline, cocaine, DMT
Inspired Cuckoo’s Nest
Kesey did not believe that patients were insane, but rather that they had been pushed out by society because they did not conform

9. Began hosting “Acid Test” parties
Involved his favorite band The Warlocks (later known as The Grateful Dead) black lights, strobes, florescent paint, and LSD

10. The Merry Pranksters
Cross-country road trip that involved a number of famous Beats
A bus named “Further”
The trip was the group’s attempt to create art out of everyday life and to experience roadway America while high on LSD
“If people could just understand it is possible to be different without being a threat”

11. Legacy of the Further trip
Rooted in ideals of American freedom
“more haphazard than planned”
Kesey directed the action like a ringmaster
Kesey had intended this to be a summer trip, but people started to adopt it as a lifestyle
Up to the end of his life Kesey praised the psychedelic 60s – he said he would “accept all the bad again, so long as he got the good too”
Popularized the tie-dye effect that would become associated with San Francisco’s hippie scene

13. Over the weekend, please read through page 14
Homework
Over the weekend, please read through page 14

14. Introducing Cuckoo’s Nest
Welcome to the asylum!
Introducing Cuckoo’s Nest

15. Part 1 Initial reactions? What do we know about our narrator?
Chief Bromden
Half-Native American
“Half-breed Indian” (5)
“They think I’m deaf and dumb” (3)
How is Nurse Ratched characterized?
“she’s got that 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…” (4)
“She nods to each one. Precise, automatic gesture” (5)
“Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll…” (5)