One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Controversy

Avery Powell

Mr. Irby

English 3

15 May 2024

Keeping Kesey’s Cuckoo's Nest.

Eugene O'Neill once said, “There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again – now". If Eugene is right and history is an endless cycle, then schools requiring students to read books with valuable messages and historical knowledge is unnecessary. On the other hand, say Eugene is incorrect, then what would teaching future generations important history through books do? This answer is undeniable, high school students must read these novels. Notably, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Because these students will soon be the next generation of adults. Although One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and other books are often banned by high …show more content…
On multiple occasions in the book, McMurphy and the other patients on the ward refer to Nurse Ratchet as the Big Nurse and joke about her size. Hauge. The snares are a snare. This may seem offensive to some, but Nurse Ratchet wants them to perceive her as bigger because size is often associated with power. She wears specific clothes as an intimidation tactic to mess with the minds of the men and convince them she has more power than she does. This adds value to the story by building a strong antagonist to battle the protagonist, which leads to an amusing story. Another example of offensive language is stereotypes, Chief Bromden, who is of Indigenous descent, assumes the workers on the ward think his internal organs are different because of previous ways he has been treated as a Native American (Kesey 81). One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is narrated by Chief Bromden from the first-person point of view. This shows his perception of the ward and the racially motivated hate and assault he receives. Kaiser is a. With the narration in this novel showing discrimination, some will argue the novel is audacious for exposing readers to such language, but the inequity many cultures experience is crucial to teach …show more content…
An example is how throughout the book in its entirety, Chief tells readers about the combine. The combine is a system the Nurse uses to control the men in the ward as well as the outside world. This is a symbol of what is happening in the real world to control humans (Kesey). Chief Bromden theorizes through his visions that there is a mass machine that changes people into what the government wants. He thinks the ward is a facility controlled by the combine because the mentally ill are easily susceptible to the combine (Kunz). The combine is such a massive symbol when it comes to displaying real world problems in fictional material. The next major symbol is McMurphy himself. McMurphy is used as a symbol of Christ throughout the book. In the beginning of the book McMurphy enters the ward laughing, this is unusual to the men on the ward because they never hear laughter, it has seemed through this that McMurphy is a humorous man, much like Christ. Not only are the two similar comedians, but they both die for their message (Pearson 93). This said, high schoolers must understand that writers such as Kesey make certain characters like McMurphy to prepare them for the world. There will always be bad people in this world, but the hardest thing a person can do is see past the bad to the good. This is what Kesey is showing through McMurphy's symbolic

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