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One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The conflict between the Puritan Tradition and the Romantic/Transcendentalist Tradition.
Nurse Ratched/The Big Nurse
In this book the Big Nurse is a feminist with a Puritan view. Like the Puritans she thinks she is send
with the “Sense of Divine mission”. She is send to make the patients better, for example, by shock
therapy and lobotomy, and she sees no harm in that. The patients need to behave, they need to
conform, or else they can end up alone. This need to conform leads to fear. Fear with the patients. If
they do something wrong they will be send to shock therapy or undergo a lobotomy and then they
will go to hell. In the Puritan Tradition this is called a notion for an “Elect”. If you are a “visible saint”
and you behave, you are saved. Otherwise you will go to hell.
The Big Nurse uses the big book. Patients are encouraged to spy on each other and write in the big
book. P44 “According to the notes listed by various patients in the log…..”. You could say the Big
Nurse is a fundamentalist and she has that big book as her guidebook and blueprint. In the Puritan
Tradition the Bible is used as a blueprint and guidebook. Moral vigilanteism by taking the law in your
own hands is sinful. Tolerance is sinful.
Furthermore the Big Nurse has everybody working in the hospital. This is what the Puritan Tradition
calls the “Doctrine of Good Works”. Everyone has to roll up their sleeves and work very hard. You
work for the Glory of God and for the good of the community. In this case for the good of the
Combine. The Combine runs the mental hospital. In a way the Big Nurse is a “moral tyrant”.
Everybody has to obey her rules. In the Puritan Tradition “moral tyrants” are the elected magistrates
and leaders who have to make sure that everyone obeys God’s rules as said in the Bible.
Randle Patrick McMurphy
Randle Patrick McMurphy is the transcendental hero in this book. He is a down to earth, swaggering
cowboy who does not want to obey the rules of the Big Nurse. He wants to make his time in the
mental hospital as pleasant as he can. He is not restricted by any form of belief or norms and values.
This is also a part of the Transcendentalist Tradition.
McMurphy makes a bet with the other patients that he can break down the defenses of the Big
Nurse. He wants him and the other patients to be free individuals and not held back by the rules of
the Big Nurse. He represents movement and creates a revolution. Just like in the Transcendentalist
Tradition. For example, McMurphy convinces other patients to vote to change the TV viewing time so
they can watch the World Series. At first the patients are too frightened to go along with it, but he
drags them along. When the Big Nurse refuses to accept the vote, he and the rest of the patients sit
and watch the television anyway, even if it is just a blank screen. P145 “If somebody……thought the
whole bunch was crazy as loons”.
This “fight” between the Big Nurse (Puritan Tradition) and McMurphy (Transcendentalist Tradition)
continues in the whole book and in the end it is McMurphy who has to pay the price. Although the
Big Nurse is attacked by McMurphy, he tries to rip open her shirt and strangle her, he is the one who
loses his life in the end. After the attack McMurphy is send away and when he returns, he has been
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lobotomized. P321 “We stood at the foot of the Gurney…….bruises around the eyes”. He no longer
speaks or moves but just lies in bed. In the end McMurphy is suffocated with a pillow by a fellow
patient, a friend of his, who breaks out of the ward, free at last to return to his life. P325 “I been
away a long time”.
The irony in this story is that the Transcendentalist hero dies, the Big Nurse loses her voice, but the
Native American / the Indian lives and gets his voice back. The Indian can return to his life after thirty
years of silence. The Transcendentalist stories and movies never have a happy end. The hero in this
book, McMurphy, has a choice between living by the rules of the mental hospital or fighting for his
freedom and that of the patients. In the end he has to pay for his freedom with his life.
The author Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey has written a very carefully crafted piece of work. He wants to be rebellious and is
interested in the technical piece of writing, but he is conscious of what he is doing. It is a balanced
and solid book. Because he is constantly aware of what he is doing you cannot call him an authentic
writer of the Beat Generation. The Beats were opposed to conformity in literature and they wrote
about “dangerous” topics like homosexuality, drugs and madness.
Besides the Puritan and Transcendentalist Tradition Ken Kesey has mentioned several other topics in
his book. For example, other cultures are mentioned and described, such as the Japanese nurse, the
African American aides and the Native American Chief Bromden. Ken Kesey also has the tendency to
create a kind of picture to generalize women in a certain way in his book. He has used stereotypes
and this topic, feminism, is also one of his themes in the book. And finally he used religion in his book
by making McMurphy a kind of Christ with his twelve disciples. The religious symbolism is used with
the shock therapy when the patients get a crown of thorns on their head. They are crucified to the
table and this has to represent the crucifixion of Christ.
All in all a very interesting book with a wide variety of themes. You can interpret the book in different
ways, but I tried to give my own views on the book in this essay. I hope I have succeeded in getting
my message across.
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