. INTRODUCTION: --SCADDING MY CONSUMERLY-HELPFUL CUCKOO'S NEST
A. --OLD IRISH PROVERB: "It's A Mean Bird That Shits In Its Own (Societal) Nest:"
I decided to write my "landmark" (at least in terms of my diminutive output) 29th review on a novel
I consider one of the best literary compositions to emerge from the 20th Century, and my favorite
modern novel: Ken Kesey's 1962 classic, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." I don't believe
the importance of its poignantly-depicted humanitarian message can be over-estimated. Kesey's
latter-day "crucifixion" of protagonist R. P. McMurphy, conveys a grim, allegorical warning: By
blindly endeavoring to achieve maximum efficiency and convenience through uniformity and
mechanization, society has all but succeeded in destroying the spirit of the very beneficiary it was
established to advance; the individual. (Special translation for Ken "Sordid-1:" Trying too hard to
provide consumer-scads, causes horrorshow, young malchicks to lose their nads.)
B. The Tiresome, Maundering Caveat:
Well, ...you folks know the drill. Before I get down to the nitty-gritty, I've got to lay down the
obligatory scads-screen of consumerly-helpful cow-dung, so that all you scads-deprived
bookworms who've somehow managed to go a whole lifetime w/o ever encountering this classic
on the boob-tube or on the library shelf aren't forced to tip open the book-cover and read the
summary on the inside jacket. No-no-no... --don't try to thank me; it will only embarrass me and
make me blush, and... well, heck-- isn't THAT what the slew of advisor hats with which EP is no
doubt, going to honor me this cycle next, all about? But don't be mislead; take away the fortune in
review-generated riches, the prestige and distinction provided me by all my EP-awarded "hats,"
the EP-hyped-photo of me showcased on the EP home page, the respect and recognition of my
peers, and where would I be? Exactly. --Right t'hell where I am right now. That said, here's your
consumerly-helpfulness. Soak it up:
II. BRIEF PLOT SUMMARY & STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
A. The Book's Main Characters:
Randle Patrick McMurphy/"McMurphy:"
--A convict who fakes insanity to manipulate the system; have himself sent to the psycho ward in
an attempt to avoid doing "hard time" (i.e., working on the chain gang.) He is a free-wheeling,
easygoing, hell-raising, life-loving, unapologetically-masculine, defiant, highly-sexual, out-going
latter-day pirate, who is given to laughter, gambling, bawdy stories and uncompromising
resistance. On a symbolic level, he is a Christ-figure/western-hero used to personify ruggedindividualism, fierce independence, freedom and the indomitable, unbroken human spirit.
Nirav Ratched/"The Big Nurse"
--She is McMurphy's polar opposite; a humorless, cold, unemotional, asexual and manly
humanoid, who is more robot than human. She views her patients as broken machines; "treating"
them means eliminating their "noise," making them run quietly, efficiently and invisibly again. This
entails emasculating them; making them docile, effeminate, orderly and dependent on her, by
destroying their self esteem and manhood. She attempts to maintain order by dividing &
conquering, rather than unifying & building up, encouraging the inmates to squeal on and betray
each other rather than trust and support each other and by disparaging any signs of individualism,
initiative or self-reliance. Where RPM empowers the inmates by encouraging them and building on
their strengths, Nurse Ratched weakens them by belittling them and tearing them down. Where
RPM inspires the inmates service and loyalty by earning their "respect;" Nurse Ratched forces
them to submit to her by threatening them and making them fear her.
The Big Nurse's failure or unwillingness to recognize that to the degree she succeeds in her quest
to make the ward, and by logical inference, society, a quieter place, by breaking the spirits of the
inpatients, destroying their independence and thereby rendering them dysfunctional, she
simultaneously weakens society by replacing a potentially productive society member with a
dysfunctional, nonproductive society member. So instead of strengthening society by increasing its
limited resources, she weakens society by adding to its burden and decreasing its limited
resources.
On a symbolic level, she is used to personify the repressive, spirit-devouring, homogenizing forces
of society; Kesey's metaphoric "Combine" that systematically chops down and mulches anything
and anybody that doesn't neatly and efficiently "fit in" into Society's sterile mold of sameness,
mechanized progress and consumerly helpfulness. Victims are usually taken in by the bland
outward appearance of this ordered neatness, which they mistake for "safety" and "law and order,"
but later discover is actually life w/ its spirit surgically-removed; establishment-science used to
break down and destroy the very life it purports to "fix" and preserve.
Chief Bromden/"Chief Broom"/"The Big Chief"
--RPM's surrogate in the "schizophrenic world." Among other correlations, his schizophrenia and
delusions waxed and waned correspondingly with RPM's successes & failures against Nurse
Ratched. Kesey's decision to communicate the story as a retrospective narration told from
Bromden's intermittently schizophrenic point of view, raised the status of this novel from "merely
excellent" to "timeless masterpiece" (see discussion further ahead.) To understand the significance
of this inspired decision, one need only compare the book to the movie, which, due to the limits of
its medium, was precluded from following suite (see discussion further ahead.)
B. The Meaning Of The Title:
The title "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" refers to a shock therapy-induced recollection of a
childhood game the Chief played with his grandmother. The game centered around a quixotic
chant whose elements represent OFOTCN's 3 main characters, and their respective conflicts and
polarities. The lyrics are as follows:
"Tingle, Tingle, Tangle Toes
She's a good fisherman
Catches hens, puts'em inna pens
Wier blier, limber lock
Three geese inna flock
One flew east, One flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
O-U-T spells out
Goose swoops down and plucks you out.
Obviously, Nurse Ratched is the "good fisherman Catch(ing) hens..." and "...put(ing)'em inna
pens." With respect to the "Three geese inna flock," Kesey uses the chant to assert the opposite
polarities of the Big Nurse & RPM. The "east/west" polarity represents the opposite philosophies
and social-politics at the base of their conflict, and which represents their respective ideas re: the
individual's relationship to the state/society.
The Big Nurse is the "Socialist." She makes absolutely clear she puts the group/society over the
individual; prizes the discipline and efficiency of regimentation and order, to the chaos inherent in
personal preference and individuality, considers self-denial and humility, confession and betrayal
her "Chicken soup for the non-soul."
RPM is the "Laissez-Faire" Capitalist. He considers "the individual" the building block of the group,
without which there could BE no group. His beliefs and ideals represent the polar opposite of those
championed by Nurse Ratched. He is also the chant's symbolic "goose." The introduction of his
presence to "the Cuckoo's Nest" sets the Big Chief's healing and eventual restoration to health and
independence in motion. In this manner, he "...swoops down and plucks (the Chief) out.
Chief Bromden is caught in between the two direction polarities. When the latter two meet head
on, both symbolically and in actual conflict, he is sprung free; the sole beneficiary of the conflict.
The Nurse & RPM are casualties of "...the cuckoo's nest," but he "... flew over the cuckoo's nest"
(italics mine.)
C. The Plot:
The plot of OFOTCN (i.e., "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest") is broken down into 4 parts that
encompass 49 scenes. The parts break down as follows:
Part 1. --Though it covers only 5 days of the approximately 9 weeks over which the story takes
place, "Part 1" uses almost half of the scenes and half of the book's pages to do so. In this part,
Kesey fleshes out the sets and introduces the 3 main characters. Additionally, Kesey familiarizes
the reader with 3 key, "mystical" (in that they are "real" for the Chief,) metaphors; i.e., "the
combine," the society's "mechanical aspect," and the Chief's "protective fog" (these are discussed
further ahead.) RPM and the Big Nurse engage in a series of initial skirmishes which are used to
indicate the various areas of conflicts that polarize the characters. Part One concludes on a
positive note, with Chief Bromden's McMurphy-induced resurgence; Bromden affirmatively
chooses "harsh" reality over the safety of his delusions.
PART 2. --The glow of McMurphy's apparent victories over the Big Nurse disappears when the
former discovers that she decides when and if he gets released from the ward; that almost all of
the other inmates can leave at will. Fearing for his freedom, he temporarily abandons his rebellion
and role as the inmates' leader. With McMurphy's submission, the morale of the ward becomes
worse than it had been when RPM 1st arrived. Chief's schizophrenia & delusions return and the
inmates' healing progress reverses. Chezwick, McMurphy's most ardent, inmate supporter,
becomes so despondent, he commits suicide. The Big Nurse pushes her advantage with RPM too
far, and he reinitiates the revolt more fiercely than ever.
PART 3. --With RPM's sacrifice comes his ascendency to the height of his influence and healing
effect on his inmate-disciples. The scene climaxes with the inmates commandeering a fishing boat
to go on a fishing trip. Laughter; suggestive of self-confidence and power, is heard for the first
time. The successful completion of the inmates' defiant and unconditionally rebellious act
represents the final phase of their RPM-enabled "salvation/treatment." Unfortunately, the stress
and fatigue of his sacrifice has severely weakened RPM.
PART 4. --Sees a temporary resurgence of the Big Nurse's power, but this time, it's victim is RPM,
and not the inmates. They plead w/ him to make good his escape while he can, but he has
promised to get inmate Billy Bibbit laid, and refuses to leave until this occurs. The inmates throw
RPM an unauthorized "goodbye" party, at which RPM plans to fulfill his promise to Bibbit. They are
caught by the Big Nurse and the inmates temporarily relapse. Bibbit, severly shamed by Nurse
Ratched, commits suicide. RPM, in a fit of rage attacks her, and is lobotomized for his efforts.
Nonetheless, his final sacrifice has permanently destroyed her power, and restored the manhood
and power of the inmates, including the Chief, who thereafter, leave the ward permanently.
III. REGARDING THE BACKGROUND & LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE OF "ONE FLEW OVER
THE CUCKOO'S NEST:"
A. Kesey's Inspiration For The Novel
Kesey's inspiration for the novel came in the spring of 1960, during a series of volunteer,
government-sponsored drug tests administered by a Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo
Park, CA, (<---Altered state credit to Repulsemonkey) for which he was paid $20 a session to trip
on LSD-25 and IT-1290. The experiences awakened in him a consciousness so profound and
intense, that he felt "he could truly see into people for the first time." He thereafter took a night job
as an aide in a mental institution, hoping to use the "quiet" hours to complete another novel he had
been working on. Instead, his nightly experiences "in the ward" prompted him to spend his
midnight to 8 AM shifts writing OFOTCN in its entirety, while on the job and under the influence of
LSD-25.
B. The Masterstroke That Launched A Masterpiece:
In his attempt to convey what he believed to be "the essentially schizophrenic nature of mankind,"
Kesey, rather than telling the tale from the perspective of an uninvolved "God-Narrator," or from
that of R. P. McMurphy, who might have been too involved in the main action, opted to present the
story from the point of view of one of the psycho ward's bystanding schizophrenic inmates; "the Big
Chief."
By telling the tale through the Chief's schizophrenic eyes, Kesey was able to, not merely "tell" the
tale from an "eye witness perspective," but actually "show" the tale in a sort of "poeticsensurround;" the reader would come to understand and appreciate the healing effect provided by
McMurphy's inspiring individualism as the Chief's narration became progressively less
"schizophrenic," and more concrete and objective as the story moved forward.
Additionally, it gave Kesey a viable way to provide the story with a mystical, supernatural quality.
This, in turn, enabled him to give full force and effect, through the Chief's altered perception, to his
allegoric and metaphoric symbolism; allowed him to have the Chief see and hear impressionistic
and imaginary stimuli as though they were solid objects and real actions and occurrences, allowed
him to turn the verbal and mental sparring between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched into epic battles
waged between mythical, larger-than-life titans, between the very forces of good and evil itself. In
sum, it enabled Kesey to convey a deeper, more personal and more spiritual reality in his story, on
a variety of psychological levels, and in a manner that allows the reader to experience events 1st
hand, as a bystanding schizophrenic, rather than merely collect story-related data like a detached
observer.
C. The Mysticism Living In The Metaphors
Being of 3/4 Irish descent (a descendant of Murphys, no less) I feel a spiritual kinship with any
Irishman who seeks to use his inbred insanity to dodge the spirit-sterilization wrought on
individuals by society's uniformity-establishing combine. In like fashion, the OFOTCN skillfully
employs the literary conventions at its disposal; allegory, metaphors, symbolism, etc., to transcend
the superficial, rationally-restricted objective-appearance level limitations on the reader's
understanding and appreciation of the story's characters and events.
From the moment the reader first "enters" the ward, in scene 1, Kesey awakens the reader to the
existence of a spiritual reality just beyond the mundane objectivity of everyday reality, yet whose
secret ministry invisibly influences actions and effects event-outcomes rational people mindlessly
write off to random chance. It's from this twilight world that Kesey's "mystic-metaphors," when
funneled through the schizophrenic perception of Chief Bromden, gain a palpable, presence; take
on a supernatural life of their own, and guide the reader to a deeper, more intuitive understanding
of his story's actions and events, whose subjective appeal requires that the reader allow them to
bypass the invalidating mechanism of the mind, in favor of the superceding veracity of the truth of
the heart.
D. Examples Of Metaphors/Symbols/Allegories Crucial To OFOTCN's Effectiveness:
"Mechanical Noises" --Kesey uses Bromden's perception of "Mechanical Noises" whenever the Big
Nurse approaches, to suggest her inhumanity, lack of spirit and lack of individuality; the victory of
machines over man.
"Giant Combine" --Kesey effectively uses Chief Bromden's perception of the Big Nurse as a "giant
Combine." On a symbolic, intellectual level, it represents the risks & dangers attendant to one's
"being an individual" in society; the conformity-police, society's stigmatizing rejection of innovators,
leaders and oddballs generally.
Victims who fail to survive "being mulched by the combine," are usually alcoholics, recluses and
outcasts, who at one time had been bold leaders, rugged individualists or nonconformists of one
kind or another, but whose quirky, unusual social behavior; i.e., maintaining personal integrity,
cultivating convictions, standing up for an unpopular view or defending the actions of other
outcasts, etc., rendered them visible, easy to single out, track down and gang-up on by the everwatchful, pack-traveling conformity-jackals.
RPM reminds the Chief of his father; a big, fearless, uncompromising tribal chief who was
systematically ground down by the combine, forced to submit to the white man's unnatural laws
and society, and move onto a reservation in order to save his tribe. To accommodate the white
man's "civil" ways, his wife, who had useful, domestic skills, became the dominant, indispensable
family leader, while he turned into a withering alcoholic recluse.
On a literal, schizophrenic level, Nurse Ratched magically takes on the physical form of a combine
when she singles out individuals in the ward who don't fit in and fail to conform. In her combine
form, she systematically chops down and mulches anything and anybody that "stands out," resists
being subsumed or defies established order; doesn't "fit in" or neatly and efficiently blend into
Society's generic pattern of sterile sameness, mechanized progress and, above all, consumerly
helpfulness.
"Fog Banks" --Kesey uses Chief Bromden's perception of "fog banks" as a dual-function, "living"
metaphor. For the reader it translates as, both a symbol intended to indicate the lingering or
returning presence of Chief Bromden's schizophrenia, and/or a reversal of the healing process
and/or the Big Nurse's reasserted dominance. Kesey imbues the metaphor with a life of its own by
providing it with an "actual" physical presence as delusionally interpreted through the Chief's
schizophrenic consciousness. The fog protectively enshrouds Bromden and makes him invisible
whenever he anticipates conflict or confrontation; it allows him to block out unpleasant people and
events and screen out anxiety-causing objects from view.
Crucifixion/Christ Allegory --Kesey revisits and modernizes the "crucifixion/Christ-figure" allegory
by having RPM sacrifice his own life so that "his disciples," i.e., his fellow inmates, could be made
whole again.
"The Insane Asylum As A Microcosm Of Society" Allegory --Kesey effectively employs the "insane
asylum's inmate ward and its inmates" to assert a microcosmic correlation between it/them and
their respective counterparts in today's repressive, dysfunctional modern society. By doing so, he
asserts that the unnecessary, yet systematic & intentionally abusive methods and ideas used to
treat the inmates in the institution, are no different, except on a broader scale, than that used by
the state/society in its systematic abuse of IT'S respective "inmates."
IV. "ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST:" THE BOOK VS. THE MOVIE
Many have seen Jack Nicholson's dynamic portrayal of the novel's tragic hero; Randle P.
McMurphy, in the motion picture of the same title, yet comparatively few have exercised the
opportunity to appreciate the creative sorcery and wordplay-wizardry woven into the written
version of master-storyteller Kesey's tragic allegory. The movie, gripping though it is, and despite
its noteworthy attempt to maintain an overall fidelity to the novel's original plot, is too structurally
confined by its two-dimensional, celluloid medium to convey the pervasive subcurrent of
mysticism/spiritualism which is so integral to the novel's successful communication of its message;
a message that must be palpated on a visceral level, as well as understood on an intellectual one.
It accomplishes this feat via the (previously-discussed) use of the Chief as the tale's narrator and
the skillful manipulation of the (previously-discussed) devices common to the literary genre;
particularly one that doesn't have a counterpart in the movie genre: "the metaphor"
V. THE "FINE PRINT" & "BETWEEN THE LINES" OF THE NOVEL'S MESSAGE: (OPTIONAL)
Rather than leave you with despairing thoughts about society's dark direction, I thought I'd include
a brief, yet consumerly-helpful scad-etgy which you "buyers" and "product enthusiasts" might use
to help combat whatever "Combines," "Nirav Ratcheds" or other individuality-hostile, personalitypersecuting, creativity-stifling forces might threaten to usurp control of your "Cuckoo's Nest." The
following "Gospel According To McMurphy" was written by John Taylor Gatto:
"1. You're safe as long as you laugh. Open up & laugh; when you lose your laugh, you lose your
footing, your grasp on life.
2.True wisdom is largely innate, inherent in your biological nature. The influence of others is a
weakening force. Be yourself & what you want to be.
3. Persist in the face of opposition. Don't give up the ship- and don't let the 'givens' of your life,
physical or situational, limit your choices.
4. Life is a gamble for stakes. Play not to win, but to try the impossible, the prize is in the effort.
Remember, honest self-interest equals sanity.
5. Intense and diversified experiences makes a full life, not careers and routines. And sexual
experience is a central business of living, a fundamental good.
6. Be aware and analytical. Look the game over before you draw a hand.
7. Be adaptable, not rigid.
8. Freedom goes to the wary. Stay free of bonds, even self-imposed ones. Travel light-footed &
fast; a moving target is hard to hit.
9. A man's destiny is always in his own hands.
10. Bravado & courage are sources of power, and physical contests are necessary to preserve
one's integrity."