One flew over the cuckoos nest literary analysis speech
Laura Allen
Mr. Kunnath
English 11
Period 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Literary Analysis Speech Intro:
When righting a story an author must consider many things.
For a piece of literature to be considered good it needs to have depth and for depth to occur it needs to use literary devices.
A good literary device to use would be a symbol.
Now a symbol is an object or person which represents something abstract that can be an ideal or a concept.
A few symbols in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are: the fog, the control panel, laughter, and religious symbolism.
The Fog:
When Chief Bromden hallucinates, thanks to a mixture of drugs and schizophrenia, he imagines fog.
It’s because of his schizophrenia that we realize the fog is just a symbol of something much greater rather than literal fog.
"They start the fog machine again and it's snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk, so thick I might even be able to hide in it if they didn't have a hold on me." pg.7
The fog pollutes their ability to live naturally.
It can symbolize how the ward has kept them under control and their lack of knowledge.
Nurse Ratched has such a great influence over them with the state of mind she keeps her patients in.
McMurphy wants to make changes so he tries to get the patients away from the state of mind the fog puts them in.
The fog becomes an escape from reality and go to it for comfort
"I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. That's what McMurphy can't understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we'd be easy to get at." pg.128
Towards the end of the book the patients are facing reality because McMurphy has dragged them out and made them become aware of the world at large.
"I'd never worked at coming out of it before." pg. 288
"...or if you want to bad enough I found you can come fighting right out of it. This time I came fighting out of it in less than a day, less time than
Mr. Kunnath
English 11
Period 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Literary Analysis Speech Intro:
When righting a story an author must consider many things.
For a piece of literature to be considered good it needs to have depth and for depth to occur it needs to use literary devices.
A good literary device to use would be a symbol.
Now a symbol is an object or person which represents something abstract that can be an ideal or a concept.
A few symbols in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are: the fog, the control panel, laughter, and religious symbolism.
The Fog:
When Chief Bromden hallucinates, thanks to a mixture of drugs and schizophrenia, he imagines fog.
It’s because of his schizophrenia that we realize the fog is just a symbol of something much greater rather than literal fog.
"They start the fog machine again and it's snowing down cold and white all over me like skim milk, so thick I might even be able to hide in it if they didn't have a hold on me." pg.7
The fog pollutes their ability to live naturally.
It can symbolize how the ward has kept them under control and their lack of knowledge.
Nurse Ratched has such a great influence over them with the state of mind she keeps her patients in.
McMurphy wants to make changes so he tries to get the patients away from the state of mind the fog puts them in.
The fog becomes an escape from reality and go to it for comfort
"I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. That's what McMurphy can't understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we'd be easy to get at." pg.128
Towards the end of the book the patients are facing reality because McMurphy has dragged them out and made them become aware of the world at large.
"I'd never worked at coming out of it before." pg. 288
"...or if you want to bad enough I found you can come fighting right out of it. This time I came fighting out of it in less than a day, less time than