For the AP novel evaluation, I chose One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. The book was written in the 1960s, which is important because the time period heavily influenced the theme of the novel. Kesey's life and struggle with drugs and incarceration is prominent. The novel is opened with immediate politically incorrect racial references. Kesey uses varations on drugs, sex, and violence to unravel the path for the plot.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, is merely one of the millions of pieces of art and literature that have reflected the thoughts and lives of their creators. Ken Kesey, the author, knew what it was to be rejected because of a powerful man´s personal opinion, he knew what it was to be a guinea pig for drug tests, in which those who conducted them had no interest whatsoever on your wellbeing. Finally, he was also able to understand what it felt like to be cataloged as insane for simply being an outcast who did not agree with the postulates imposed by society. All of these experiences, which forged Kesey’s character, are reflected in the novel and the characters that form a part of it(especially McMurphy), and it is through this novel, that like many writers, Kesey was able to show his profound disagreement with the American Asylum Association, and with how society ostracized those who were different and consumed them in confinement by falsely tagging them as
Throughout the novel, Mark Twain satirizes the societal flaw of religious hypocrisy through irony by showing that characters in the story own slaves and claim to be religious at the same time. For example, the readers are introduced to Huckleberry Finn’s guardians, Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, and it is revealed that they own slaves, “Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it get tiresome and lonesome. By-and-by they fetched the slaves in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed” (Twain 2). The irony in this is that after making the slaves work all day, they bring them in to pray; however, one of the Bible’s teachings is to respect all human beings and “love your neighbors”. It is religiously hypocritical to own human beings and preach God’s word at the same time.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest reflects how individuals don't want to conform to certain rules that an institution wants them to follow. The novel really gets to the point when someone is pushed and pushed to follow rules that are overbearing, they crack and do the total opposite of what's expected from them. McMurphy just wants to enjoy himself and get the other patients in the ward to open their eyes and make them realize that they're being controlled by a tyrannic figure who won't let them have fun as well. The mundanity of going through the same routine is mind numbing to the point their patients' sanity turns into insanity. The mundanity may only be broken when one breaks the loop of going through the same thing every single day.
In Ken Kesey’s novel he illustrates a tale about Conformity and the struggle against it. He tells the story through the eyes of a big Native American called Chief Bromden. Kesey uses machinery to display the system of the hospital and the environment that the patients are in. The fog is the representation of conformity in the hospital. The Hospital is divided into two separate
In the modern classic novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey uses symbolism effectively in order to shape and reinforce the theme of societies corruption of innocent minds throughout the novel. The mental ward combine effectively symbolizes the isolation of the mentally ill. Throughout Ken Kesey’s novel, the mental ward is secluded and acts as a barrier to prevent the mentally ill patients from being exposed the rest of society. As stated by Chief, “McMurphy doesn’t know it, but he’s onto what I realized a long time back, that it’s not just the Big Nurse by herself, but it’s the whole Combine, the nation-wide Combine that’s the really big force, and the nurse is just a high-ranking official for them” (Kesey 165). She epitomizes the dynamic force in society which Chief Broom calls the Combine.
The feminist movement has been trying to prove to the world that women and men are created equal. During the 1960s, the civil rights movement also began, and Ken Kesey had the same opinion about both these issues as most white men. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey implies a misogynistic stance by showing women will abuse their authority if they do not live their lives to please men, and that a woman’s natural place in the world is to be used by men. There are very few women in this novel. The most prominent woman in the novel is Nurse Ratched.
Irony in Huck Finn Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain takes place in the mid 1830’s to the mid 1840’s when slavery was still prevalent in the south. Although the book was set in the 1830’s to the 1840’s, it was not published until 1884, after slavery had been abolished in 1865. Slavery is an important topic of the book to focus on because it shaped the way people thought. A way that Twain shows the truths of slavery in the book is through irony. A specific scene that he used irony in was when Huck was helping Jim escape from slavery, yet Huck judged Jim for wanting to free the rest of his family which is ironic.
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, using a pen as his weapon the author wages a war for individualism against our oppressive society. Ironically, the race and gender stereotypes he employs are oppressive themselves. The book is about the struggle between chaos and order. There’s no freedom without a little chaos, yet to maintain order, there must be oppression. McMurphy upsets the established routine of the ward, asking for schedule changes and inspiring resistance during therapy sessions.
The “hens” mentioned in the rhyme, represent the disadvantaged and abused American civilians and in the novel, asylum patients. This allusion is effective for helping readers to compare the treatment mentally ill receive from the U.S. government with the treatment of animals. In One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), Randle McMurphy, the symbol for activism toward the better understanding of mental illnesses and improved quality for the mentally ill, is metaphorically compared to Jesus Christ many times in the book and seen to be the hero of the