Final writing test: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a book by the American author Ken Kesey (1935-2001). Kesey was inspired to write this novel from his experiences working as a night attendant in the psychiatric ward of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo Park, New Jersey. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest became one of the most acclaimed novels in 20th century America. All through the book, there is an on-going theme which is the influence and power of authority. Kesey, in my opinion is trying to illustrate, through the characters in his novel, the power that our society has upon us. Nurse Ratched is a very good example of the effects authority can have over others and so is McMurphy, who is in an on-going power struggle with nurse Ratched.

Firstly, nurse Ratched is presented as the most uptight, strict and harsh nurse in the hospital. The moment McMurphy sets foot in the ward; she judges him and labels him as a trouble-maker. Straight away, nurse Ratched lets McMurphy know who is in charge and she lays the rules down for him. Naturally, McMurphy being of the rebellious sort, chooses not to obey the rules but to march to his own drum beat and to take the patients along with him. McMurphy starts by teaching the patients all sorts of card games and he then gets them to gamble away their money or belongings. He also takes them on an unauthorized fishing trip which gets them all in serious trouble. Nurse Ratched has a very hard time trying to tame McMurphy but never succeeds in getting control, so she resorts to sending him to shock-therapy to mess with his brain a bit and to try to calm him down. Basically, nurse Ratched could be interpreted as being society’s “big brother” who watches over everyone and controls everything, and when people are different, they are excluded from society because they do not conform to the set rules and norms.

Another point that I believe is important to analyze, is the authority that McMurphy has over the other patients. At first, McMurphy has a hard time adjusting to life in the ward, but after while, he develops great friendships with the patients and sees that they are not all that different from him, they are simply different form other people in society. Once McMurphy realizes this, he decides to try and get the patients to stand up for themselves and for what they believe in. He wants them to defy authority and to not let themselves be bullied around by nurse Ratched. Near the end of the novel, McMurphy turns the whole ward upside down one night, by letting two prostitutes in and by getting all the patients drunk or high on drugs. He intends to escape before nurse Ratched finds out about all this, but forgets and falls asleep instead. The next morning, when the nurse finds the ward completely destroyed, she is infuriated with McMurphy. She asks one of the patients, Billy Bibbit, if he is proud of what he has done by sleeping with a prostitute. For once, Billy stands up for himself and says that he is proud of his actions and that he does not regret it one bit. Nurse Ratched, however, knows Billy’s weaknesses and threatens to tell his mother what has happened. This puts Billy over the edge, so he commits suicide by cutting his throat. In the end, McMurphy did have somewhat of a good influence over the other patients because they learned to stand up for themselves in certain situations, but at other times, authority had a greater power over them and it lead some of them to a tragic end.

All through his novel, Kesey illustrates the effects that authority can have over us. He illustrates the greater authority as being bad (nurse Ratched) and the underdogs (McMurphy and the patients) as being good. He shows that during the period of time in which the novel is set (late 1950’s), being different meant that you were mentally challenged and you were sent away to a hospital to be cured. In our day and age, we know that being different can have extraordinary effects, I mean, where would we be without Shakespeare’s poems, Picasso’s paintings or even Einstein’s revolutionary theory’s? So even though authority may have some power over us, we must continue to be ourselves no matter what others may say or think.