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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, By Ken Kesey

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Ken Kesey’s novel “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” was set during the psychedelic sixties of the post war American society, where many social changes were influenced by psychedelic drugs. During the end of the 1950s Psychiatry had reached the peak of its apparent prestige in the American Society, where psychiatric hospitals were seen as “a utopian monument to the virtues of separating the mentally ill from the community for successful treatment.” In “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest”, Ken Kesey displays an era with the widespread practice of “Therapeutic community” through the eyes of Chief Bromden; the narrator who suffers from Schizophrenia and is seen as the observer in the novel. Ultimately, through the portrayal of a post war American Psychiatric hospital setting, Ken Kesey explores how society smothers difference even though it may come as a valuable aspect to society.
Kesey displays the mental institution also known as the combine …show more content…

Kesey further suggests how individuals tend to conform to a puritanical society and suppress the difference in ourselves in order to be secure and validate the normality of our existence. This barrier of fear is overcome by Randle McMurphy, the only one to use his individuality to ultimately spark change in this mental institution forever. In this puritanical post war American society during the psychedelic sixties, difference drives revolution, a valuable feature to society.
In One flew over the cuckoo’s nest, Kesey envisions therapeutic communities as manipulations of coercion to force individuals internal souls to conform to the ideals of an external environment during the psychedelic sixties. Through the narration of Chief Bromden, Kesey portrays a post war American Psychiatric hospital setting to represent how society smothers difference even though it may come as a valuable aspect to

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