Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

Ken Kesey’s

One Flew Over The

Cuckoo’s Nest

Key Facts:• Allegorical novel

• Written in late 1950s

• Published 1962

• First person– Narrator—Chief Bromden

• Told as a flashback after his escape

• Setting—mental hospital, Oregon

• Protagonist—Randle P. McMurphy

—the central idea or ideas explored by a literary work.

Theme:

Themes:

• Struggle for power/control

• Women as Castrators

• The Power of Laughter

Themes (contd.):

• Imagination vs. Reality

• Violence

• Altruism vs. Selfishness

• Fear of experience vs. Experience

• Euthanasia

—recurring elements that develop and inform the major themes.

Motifs:

• Invisibility• Bromden’s deaf and dumb act

• Fog

• Hallucinations

• Power of Laughter

• Reality vs. imaginary

Motifs:

—use of objects to represent things such as ideas and emotions

—something that represents itself and something else

Symbolism:

Symbols:

• The fog machine

• The white whales on McMurphy’s boxer shorts

• The electroshock therapy table

Symbolism (contd.):

•McMurphy as Jesus Christ

•Other men on the ward as Christ’s disciples

Foreshadowing:• The story of Maxwell Taber

• Electroshock therapy table shaped like a cross

• The deaths of Rawler, Cheswick, and Billy

• Bromden’s dreams and hallucinations

Types of Characters:• Flat or Static Characters—

• Minor characters who do NOT undergo substantial change.

• Round 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

Billy Bibbit:

• 31 years old• Stutters• Paranoid• Immature• Deathly afraid of his mother• Shy and impressionable• Looks up to McMurphy

Charles Cheswick:

• The first patient to support McMurphy’s rebellion against Nurse Ratched’s power

• Talks a lot… does little

• Drowns in the pool as a possible suicide

George Sorenson:• Big Swede• Former seaman; recruited to

captain the fishing excursion

• Nicknamed “Rub-a-Dub” because of his cleanliness fetish

Dale Harding:• A college-educated patient

who voluntarily entered the institution

• A homosexual

• He checks himself out of the ward

Maxwell Taber:• A former patient before

McMurphy arrived• Like McMurphy, Taber

questioned the nurse’s authority

• Made docile by the electroshock therapy

• Permitted to leave

Sefelt and Fredrickson:

• Two epileptic patients

• They don’t receive the care they require

Rawler:

• A patient on the Disturbed ward

• Commits suicide by cutting off his testicles

Doctor Spivey:

• Mild-mannered doctor

• Addicted to opiates

• Easily cowed; dominated by patients

• Often supports McMurphy’s unusual plans for the ward

Warren, Washington, Williams, and Geever:

• Hospital aids

• Hired because they are filled with hatred

• Completely submissive to Nurse Ratched

• PROTAGONIST—• The main character and one the

author wants you to cheer on.

• ANTAGONIST—• Villain or character that causes

trouble for the character the author wants you to support.

Anti-hero:• ANTI-HERO—Character whose

actions or morality may be flawed, yet he/she is not a villain. The Anti-hero accomplishes a useful deed or even does good deeds, so the audience supports him/her even though there are no traditional heroic qualities.

Randle P. McMurphy:

• Thirty-five years old, built, with red hair, a scar on his face and tattoos on his body

• Transferred from a work farm

• Diagnosed as a psychopath, but he is not really insane

• Loud, confident, laughter

• Outgoing and uninhibited

Anti-hero Qualities:• Accused of Statutory Rape

• Five fights

• Vulgar/sexual comments

• Racist behavior

• Insults Dr. Harding

• Uses the men

• Self-serving

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

Antagonist Qualities:• No World Series.

• No changes.

• Belittles the patients.

• Makes patients worried.

• Offers no solutions to the problems.

• Uses threats.

• Causes trouble for the main character.

Lobotomy:

• 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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCUmINGae44