Ken Kesey’s
One Flew
Over The
Cuckoo’s Nest
Key Facts:
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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
Theme:
—the central idea
or ideas explored
by a literary
work.
Themes:
• Struggle for power/control
• Women as Castrators
• The Power of Laughter
Themes (contd.):
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Imagination vs. Reality
Violence
Altruism vs. Selfishness
Fear of experience vs.
Experience
• Euthanasia
Motifs:
—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
Symbolism:
—use of objects to
represent things such
as ideas and emotions
—something that
represents itself and
something else
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:
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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 Antihero 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:
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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