Trouble in the Sixties: How a Man's Experience Scultped His Writing

Ken Kesey

      One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was written in 1962 by Ken Kesey. Before writing the novel he had volunteered to be in a program that tested the effects of hallucinogenic drugs (specifically peyote and LSD) and also worked the graveyard shift at a mental institution (lonestar.edu). It has also been speculated that some parts of the novel were written while Kesey was under the influence of LSD. During the 1960's, there was a major event erupting from minds of the baby boomers: challenging conformity (which would create "Hippies" who are political protesters).

 Ken Kesey's Bus the "Further"

      With all of these different influences on Kesey's writing, his finally product would illuminate his regular thoughts about patients not being crazy but not fitting societies mold of normal, his belief that the country was being abused by it's government during the Vietnam War (symbolized by the patients and Ms. Ratched ), and human rights. The novel's significance is that it was Kesey's way of preaching his political beliefs to those who read the book. His use of characters who were to weak to fight against Ms. Ratched represented  the America that didn't want change; the character of McMurphy represented the people of the hippie movement who would do anything to change the abusive ways of the government at any cost. Kesey wrote this novel at this time because the novel is suppose to mirror both his experiences in the mental hospital along with mirroring how the government was abusing it's power and how that was wrong and needed to be changed.

*Starting Today I Will Post Music To Ponder: this music will have a connection to the topic in the post or the novel itself. These songs are meant to provoke further thought on the subject. I will discuss my take on the next entry along with a new song to ponder*

An Interesting Look into the Perplexing Narrator

Novels are the gateway into creative worlds where the possibilities are endless. These worlds enclose the very essence of ones thoughts and ideas and allow mere mortals to become gods of their own concept. In the newest novel of my obsession, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author starts the novel with the most interesting first impression of the narrator Chief Bromden. The author's method of dividing the narrator and the protagonist can make someone awe at his literary genius; however, even though Chief Bromden is not the narrator he is presented as an essential character nonetheless. Kesey begins introducing the Chief as a weak minded but rather sharp mental institution patient who analyzes everything from the sounds in the ward to the chief nurse's appearance. Even though he seems to have a stable mind that watches over the ward dutifully, signs of his mental illness leak from his thoughts about the ward being a machine and his obvious paranoia from such ideas like the "faces...trapped screaming behind the mirrors" (Kesey 12). Kesey portrays the character as either being stable with some insecurities wrought from years of abuse from the staff of the institution, or completely insane; this is seen when he admits that even if the events in the hospital didn't happen that they were still true. Even though Kesey gave a complex look into Chief Bromden, throughout the novel more and more details arise to give this narrator a never ending depth that could feed one's mind for eternity.