One Flew Over The Cuckoo

We’re all a little Cuckoo
"Tingle, ting-le, tang-le toes, she's a good fisherman, catches hens, puts 'em inna pens...wire blier, limber lock, three geese in a 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." (Kesey 283) A book based off of a nursery rhyme must be peaceful and happy right? Not according to Ken Kesey. In his psychedelic novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey introduces the reader to a plethora of kooky, loony, and downright insane characters, all the while being set in a mental hospital in 1960’s. Kesey is able to breathe life into these characters by using a plethora of tones that, to the ordinary author, would be insane. Kesey is able
Kesey previously volunteered at a mental hospital years before he wrote One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was his inspiration to write the novel. He was able to see firsthand the way the doctors and staff were treating the patients in the hospital. Kesey wanted to show through the characters in the novel that patients in these hospitals were being mistreated by both the doctors and the staff. Kesey uses McMurphy to show that, despite the mistreatment by the hospital, with the right care and motivation these patients could be
Every aspect of the story is impeccably crafted. If this review could request something more out of this novel he would request that there was a little more written on the mental development of the patients. Though McMurphy’s battles with Nurse Ratched and his trips, many of the patients grow mentally and are confident enough to check out of the hospital. Their growth was shown subtly by Kasey to keep focus on the final Chief and McMurphy dynamic. This made the final climax incredibly powerful. A little bit more of a focus on the dynamics of the patients with McMurphy could have possibly added to the final