Theme Of Laughter In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Will McDonald
Ms.Cotter
English 5-6, Period 6
May 2, 2016

The Power of Laughter

Laughter occurs frequently throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Not only are jokes and laughter and jokes used to give the book a much lighter tone and feel, but it is used to develop many of the characters in the novel. Mainly through using diction, Keasy alludes to laughter being the ultimate cure for the patients “illnesses”.
Through diction, Kesey is able to demonstrate the healing power laughter has. As the patients go out on the boat, they’re all running wildly around the ship, but McMurphy is sitting there “just laughing” (Kesey 248). The use of “just” helps add significance to McMurphy’s laughter, amplifying its importance. By “just” laughing, McMurphy is letting go of his other troubles, whether it be back at the ward or whatever troubles him about his life. He isn't focused on what anyone but himself wants him to, he is being himself and

When McMurphy laughs, “it’s so genuine that he spread[s] his laugh out across the water” (Keasy 250). While his laughter is not literally spreading across the water, it is so genuine and infectious, that its joy and power burst out of him and can be heard for a very long distance. By laughing so genuinely, McMurphy also gives that power to each of the patients that are with him. His laughter quickly becomes their laughter, and soon they are all laughing together. The spread of laughter takes over all the patients, and they “swing a laughter that rang out on the water in ever-widening circles, in wave after wave after wave” (Keasy 250).The powerful laughter helps them to grow together and begin to find their identities.The regaining power and identity spreads across the ship, just like the laughter spreads across the ocean, starting to cure the patients of their “illness” or entrapment in the ward and in