One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Book Report
Ken Kesey and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Leading an adventurous, exciting life is something that many aspire to do before their time is up. Living in the 1960s was either a grueling, harsh time with the Cold War which was a state of military and political tension after the World War II, staring at protesters and activist’s faces, or a particular time for love, drugs, and carefree happiness. The creator and author of many works accomplished the task of living a wild life, even to his last few years. He believed that psychoactive drugs were a substance that had “great positive potential” and saw the drugs as a tool for learning about a person’s personality with others and seeing the world in a different perspective (“Further Down the Road”).
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The novel is told by Chief Bromden’s point of view which is an exceptionally observant method, considering the reader’s perspective of the book. His character is a 6’7, half Indian, paranoid schizophrenic that does not talk to anyone in the Oregon psychiatric hospital. The patients in the hospital are separated as acutes: the people that can be treated by medical treatment/attention, and chronics: the people who cannot be treated. When Randall McMurphy makes his appearance in the beginning of the story, he has already made a deep impression on the patients and the nurse who all have different interpretations on him. Nurse Ratched who is the antagonist, makes her authority clear to Randall, who is compelled to challenge her patients and become the new leader for the hospital. Throughout the novel, the two characters clash head to head with conflicts and a “fight” for leadership. McMurphy creates an impression by removing the patients from their normal routine and taking them to places outside of the hospital as major as the ocean or even providing them a sense of “adulthood” with actions of drinking and having sex. The Nurse’s technique of leading is with rules and conformity while McMurphy leads a simplistic life that carries through to others which exudes a different way of thinking for many. When one of the patients describes him, he states, “He Who Marches Out Of Step Hears Another Drum” (Kesey 154). The novel is filled with tragedy and ends with tragedy from McMurphy’s death, but is avenged with the escape of the narrator, Chief Bromden, to start a new life away from the
The novel is told by Chief Bromden’s point of view which is an exceptionally observant method, considering the reader’s perspective of the book. His character is a 6’7, half Indian, paranoid schizophrenic that does not talk to anyone in the Oregon psychiatric hospital. The patients in the hospital are separated as acutes: the people that can be treated by medical treatment/attention, and chronics: the people who cannot be treated. When Randall McMurphy makes his appearance in the beginning of the story, he has already made a deep impression on the patients and the nurse who all have different interpretations on him. Nurse Ratched who is the antagonist, makes her authority clear to Randall, who is compelled to challenge her patients and become the new leader for the hospital. Throughout the novel, the two characters clash head to head with conflicts and a “fight” for leadership. McMurphy creates an impression by removing the patients from their normal routine and taking them to places outside of the hospital as major as the ocean or even providing them a sense of “adulthood” with actions of drinking and having sex. The Nurse’s technique of leading is with rules and conformity while McMurphy leads a simplistic life that carries through to others which exudes a different way of thinking for many. When one of the patients describes him, he states, “He Who Marches Out Of Step Hears Another Drum” (Kesey 154). The novel is filled with tragedy and ends with tragedy from McMurphy’s death, but is avenged with the escape of the narrator, Chief Bromden, to start a new life away from the