Should The School Board Keep ″One Flew over The Cuckoo’s Nest″ in the Book Cycle?
Introduction
“One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a groundbreaking novel published in 1962 that gives readers a view of what it is like to live in a world of the insane. The book is written by Ken Kesey, who, at the time of writing, worked inside a mental hospital. Ken Kesey bases the central theme of the novel as oppression, which he saw was part of the life of Americans in the 1950s. Reading the book, one can conclude that it promotes self-awareness and contributes to personal growth. Ken Kesey highlights a greatly disturbed world where the human condition is depicted as far from perfect. The language in the novel is obscene, immoral and obscene. However, the style is what gives readers an exposure to the novel’s themes hence understanding the overall message of the disorderliness in society and the need to obtain freedom. Over time, there have been controversies concerning the novel’s harsh language as well as the portrayal of mental issues, which has led banning of the book from the school’s curriculum. Ken Kesey chose to write his novel using harsh language to provide an accurate picture of what humans go through in mental conditions. Using a style that is more acceptable to all human beings might not have provided a clear message, Kesey wanted his readers to get. Despite the many sensitive issues portrayed, the novel should still exist in the book cycle as it allows its readers to gain a new perspective on mental hospitals witnessing horrible treatment of patients.
Summary
“One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” is a dramatic novel with the main characters, Chief Bromden, who is the narrator, Randle McMurphy, a new patient, and Nurse Ratched, a cruel nurse at the mental hospital. Other main characters in the novel are Willy Bibbit, Dale Harding, and Candy Starr. The book, which uses narration, contains dialogues that give a clear understanding of what everyone is going through. The major themes in the novel include individuality, nature versus society, and the question of sanity.
The narrator, a character by the name of Chief Bromden, is a half-Indian patient in a mental hospital. Bromden prevents drawing attention, which in a way he does by being 1.8 meters tall, through pretending he is deaf and dumb. A new patient by the name of Patrick McMurphy arrives at the tenth year of Bromden being in the hospital. McMurphy pretended to be insane after ending up in prison for him to get transferred to a mental hospital where he thought life would be better. However, McMurphy finds a whole different scenario at the hospital, as he encounters a cruel former army nurse by the name of Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched does not follow the standard practices of medicine while handling patients as she takes patients who speak against her for electro-shock therapy previously used in the past. McMurphy encourages patients to rebel against Nurse Ratched’s rule while at the same time, giving chief hope of the outside world. In the end, Bromden is freed but fails to protect Patrick against the mental institution.
Challenges about the Book
“One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was written around early in the 1960s, a time where there were debates on social norms. Setting the novel before the twentieth century, treatments at the hospital were considered normal at that time. The twentieth century came with practices that were more ethical for treating psychiatric patients. The novel brought light to many Americans who had no idea of what went on in the mental hospitals. Despite the insight that Americans got, the book has, over time, been a subject of controversy to many. Some of the reasons for discussion have been the use of intense scenes of violence and sex, vilifying doctors and other authority figures, and depiction of the electro-shock therapy. The novel certainly has extreme scenes of sex and violence, and one can argue that it promotes bestiality and bizarre disorder. For example, there is one scene where the narrator talks of patients hung upside down using chains, and it is not clear if these are just visions or hallucinations. Kesey also does not shy away from slandering the authority figures that decided it was okay to use those cruel treatments on patients. The early 1960s was a period of experiments, including for psychiatric procedures. Authorities and doctors chose to use electro-shock as a way of therapy, which was cruel and painful to patients. Kesey tried to provide insight on what was happening and is probably still happening in mental hospitals today. However, the message in the novel and the way of expressing it made it one of the most challenged books in America, eventually banning most schools from reading it (Boyle).
Many teachers and parents have criticized the novel over its influence on risky behaviors. The level of maturity and language in the book has led to schools choosing to remove it in their book cycles. One challenge of the book was in Strongsville, Ohio, around 1974 (Boyle). People claimed that the novel glorified criminal activity. A lot of children would see rebellion as an option, just like the patients in the mental hospital. People also claimed that the corruption of juveniles would occur as most of them would see their behavior as okay. Other claims about the book at that time include its descriptions of bizarre violence, torture, bestiality, and human elimination. The novel was eventually removed from schools and banned based on all those claims.
Other challenges of the book were in a public school in Greenly in 1971, a high school in Merrimack in 1982, and an Aberdeen English honors class because it promoted secular humanism (Boyle). Challenging of the book mostly led to its removal or banning from schools. Removal of the novel from the New York public school libraries happened in 1975, and the Westport required reading list in 1977. Schools like Idaho Freemont also banned the book in 1978, firing even the instructor.
In 2000, there was a report at the Los Angeles Times that showed how a local school in California challenged the keeping of the novel in the curriculum (Boyle). Parents made complaints stating the school could choose better books but kept picking the story calling it garbage. Many parents saw the novel as inappropriate for high schoolers. Parents saw the novel as a way of teaching children to smother people. Parents concentrated only on a single event of the book where the patients were rebellious. Most parents were afraid that their children would rebel after denial of something.
Many parents that have challenged the book do not make an effort to understand what the book is all about, focusing only on the disturbing images. Children of these concerned parents have, on the other side, grasped what the book is all about. Many children can understand that the people in the novel are from a mental institution and quite different from them. Hence, how they behave should not influence their behaviors. It is ironic how most parents prevent their children from reading the novel, yet what is on TV today is much worse than what is in the book.
Justification for Keeping the Book in the School’s Book Cycle
Themes
“One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” has a tremendous literary value despite the many challenges it has received. The themes in the novel are quite distasteful to many, yet in overall are more wholesome in general. One of the issues in the book is individuality. Many high schoolers, as well as other people beyond that age, have growth of the individual as one of the key themes affecting their lives. A lot of people will first learn how to drive while at high school, watch an R rated movie, and seriously think about what their future holds for them. Therefore, to develop into an adult requires one to be given freedom of growing as an individual. The mental hospital in the novel follows a strict schedule and rules. The men wake up at the same time, are shaved, and then go for a breakfast still chosen for them. The program in the hospital rarely varies both day and night every day. The pills given to the patients prevent one from having their symptoms. The tablets also make the patients easier to control. Subduing of the men and drugging them is done beyond any human recognition. The patients need to be distinguished as chronic or acute, depending on how severe their condition is. Yet, one can see that within the ward, everyone is equal with no sense of individuality. A new patient by the name of McMurphy expresses a bit of identity. For example, he does not submit to going to the shower when told as the others do. McMurphy does not allow anyone else to think for him, which proves to be a challenge to the stuff. Lacking conformity by McMurphy proves to be an aggravation for the staff, especially to nurse Ratched. McMurphy does not give in, and begins to campaign against the rules.
Individuality in the mental institution is a sign of defying the Nurse’s rules. McMurphy, therefore, challenges the norms by interrupting in meetings, overruling the Nurse’s opinions, organizing a fishing trip with prostitutes, and showing others how individualism requires one to be reliable. In one scene, McMurphy uses democracy to overrule the Nurse’s decision. In favor of the schedule, the Nurse said that the men would not watch the World Series. The men, including McMurphy, sit in front of the television, which is blank anyway. Yet the action can be seen as a way of protest by the men; it is also a sign of regaining their individuality as human beings. In the novel, McMurphy is the model of identity that provides light to those within the conformity walls. Throughout the book, the view of individuality is one major theme.
Another critical theme in the novel is nature versus society. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the book, mostly illustrates this theme. Bromden, at the beginning, notices an interaction between two black orderlies that had refused to do their hall duties and angry Nurse Ratched. Everything Bromden sees is likened to machinery, including the reaction of Nurse. “So she lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell the machinery inside the way you smell a motor pulling too big a load” (Kesey, 5). The ward, according to Bromden, runs like a well-oiled machine. Chief goes deeper and deeper to make comparisons to devices in every situation. The reason for the machine comparisons goes back to Chief’s life in the past, where he worked with a lot of machines. Therefore, to him, he finds it easy to compare things and situations with the workings of the device. Bromden’s further life in the past involves him seeing his father, a chief, selling his land and tribe to the government, eventually ending up working with machines (Kesey, 15). To Chief, devices represented everything involved in beating him down. The plot was the government, as well as the people in control of the ward. In the mind of Chief, machines were still controlling him from the natural state he was from to the controlled society he was now living. McMurphy, in Chief’s eyes, is something purely natural that forces the machines to back off even if only for a little while. The scene where Chief sees a dog outside and the moon after the fog clears is the first natural scene in the novel, which happens when the machines become quiet because of McMurphy.
McMurphy also clearly defines the nature versus society theme very well. McMurphy is s self-proclaimed sex addict, who with pride, scandalizes Nurse Ratched in his numerous exploits. He calls Nurse a ball-cutter as his sexual side becomes stunted before long. By taking away the masculinity of McMurphy as well as his sexual urges, the Nurse and the whole institution take away his manhood and his nature. The men in the mental institution are thoughtless and sexless creatures moving like machine cogs. Murphy is introducing virility and individuality, bringing life into the hospital.
The question of sanity is another significant and prominent theme in the novel. In the mental ward, the patients are either Chronics or Acutes. The Acutes are those patients almost in a semi-vegetative state while the Acutes have more psychological ailments than mental hence can function objectively well. The problems of the patients are, however, made severe by the drugs given to them. The drugs, according to the patients, are potent and wholly unnecessary. Chief hides his drugs since they take him to that fog state, which he dislikes. On top of the drugs, the patients are questioned and examined. It gets to a point where they question their sanity seeing their conditions as irreversible. McMurphy undergoes the questioning process, which clearly shows him how Nurse Ratched does more harm than good. The Nurse would convince the men they were severely ill, which was not the case as she tried to do to McMurphy.
Based on the actions of the novel, one can argue that the patients’ sanity is relatively intact while that of Nurse Ratched is questionable. Nurse Ratched, who is the overseer of the ward, shows the behavior of an insane person, yet she is supposed to be the entirely sane one. She desperately needs order, which extends further to what is required by patients. Nurse clings to a schedule that only motivates her and gets her way by using ruthless tactics. In the end, the Nurse sends McMurphy for a lobotomy, justifying her reasons with how he steps out of line. Nurse Ratched’s ruthlessness and lack of humanity indicates how much of a psychopath she is and is far from being mentally capable of handling the hospital. Nurse steals people’s minds and consciousness. The irony of the mental condition of the Nurse adds to the recurring theme of the novel that sanity lies in the beholder’s hands (Collins, 297).
The theme of gender is also another major theme in the novel. The role of women in the book has a single purpose. Women are only flat characters who act as nurses and prostitutes (Boo). The author, Kesey, spends little time developing the backstory of Nurse Ratched. Her backstory would probably explain her reasons for behaving in the way she did. Instead, Nurse Ratched is used to represent evil in the novel. No redeeming characters are given for her, which would make the reader see her differently.
The three themes of nature, individuality, and sanity are centered between Nurse Ratched and Murphy’s conflict, while gender’s center is on Nurse Ratched. An overprotective parent would consider the battle as disturbing and inappropriate. Prostitution is portrayed positively in the novel. Much violence, profanity, and drug abuse exist in the book while looking at these themes. These isolated events are, however, living in our media today, and most students in high school have seen them. Moving past those events, one extracts a valuable lesson from the themes. Individuality is, for example, an essential thing for maturity. The novel stresses uniqueness by encouraging its readers to be their person. Nature versus society emphasizes the importance of all that is natural and flexible without being controlled using a schedule. The novel shows the reader how they need to stand by what they believe is right. The role of women in the book shows how women are given lesser roles in society and if given higher tasks like Nurse Ratched, only the bad is shown to come out of it. The themes of the novel illustrate the need for the school to keep the book in the book cycle.
Kessy’s Purpose for Writing the Book
Understanding the primary purpose why Kesey wrote, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” will help provide a much better reason for keeping the book in the book cycle. In the 1960s, the iatric physic system in the used unhuman methods of treatment for patients. Not many people in America knew what patients were going through in the institutions. Kesey saw the need to provide light to people to stop these methods of treatments as they proved to be more harmful than good. Shock treatment at that time worked faster than drugs and was probably the reason why it was a preferred method of treatment. However, the technique was painful as it messed with the brain, which is quite delicate. No patient wanted the shock treatment twice. Everyone in the institution gets the procedure, which made some crazier than they were before. Kesey used harsh language and bizarre scenes to paint a real picture to the minds of the people.
Kesey was successful in his aim to provide light of the institutions as after the publication of his book, there was a backlash against the whole US psychiatric treatment system. Institutions such as the Oregon facility reduced their residents and granted patients more rights (Muncan & Carlotta, 1235). Developing ore antipsychotic drugs happened later on, which allowed more people to stay at home and have healthy lives, unlike in the institutions. The novel tarnished shock therapy’s image calling it inhuman, dangerous yet overused. The book gave light to how psychiatry was used for purposes of society rather than for those mentally ill.
How a Teenager May Benefit from Reading the Book
Teenagers are in a stage of development, most of them trying to figure out who they are. Reading “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” will significantly help during that stage of development. Understanding how individuality exists in the novel will assist a teenager aim to find out who they are as individuals. Forcing of many teenagers to follow specific rules and schedules, prevents them from knowing they are. A teenager in high school will be at a better chance of knowing what they want to do in college after reading the novel.
Through the book, a teenager will understand that society’s pressures can drive one insane.
In University, there are a lot of choices presented. They include choices of what to study, what to be after school, and what to do with one’s life. All these choices can bring so much pressure to someone pushing them to insanity. Loads to do well in school and get good jobs will also exist. Understanding the theme of madness in the novel will assist teenagers in avoiding conforming to society’s needs. Just like McMurphy, a teenager will chose to stay true to what they believe in and not what others think of them.
The novel also provides a clear picture of the overall role of women in our society. Women are given lesser characters in the book, and in case of higher functions, which is the same case in our world today. Women have not yet fit in the more top ladder. Men get higher roles as women are considered weak. Women that get lucky to get the more senior positions are called incompetent. The purpose of women is still a significant problem today, and the novel gives insight to the teenager concerning the issue.
The novel also enables a teenager to engage in meaningful debates concerning mental institutions in the United States. The events in the book are actual events that would occur in psychiatric hospitals. Patients were exposed to electro-shock and treated in inhuman ways in the hospital. Choosing to remove the novel in the curriculum denies teenagers a chance to learn about their history. Debates will always arise about mental illness, and knowing what happened puts one at a better side of having a useful discussion.
The novel is a more comprehensive representation of our governments today. Most governments today are controlling their citizens in cruel ways, where they leave their citizens with no options other than to conform. The novel educates a teenager not to follow blindly but to instead think for themselves. The narrator’s father sells all he has to the government, leaving him with nothing hence ending up working with machinery. Through that scenario, one learns that the government will take all you have and live you with nothing if one is not careful with the dealings they make.
One can also not deny the creative writing in the novel. Kesey does not shy away from exploring borders that most authors do not. The overall original style of the book is one a teenager can admire. Though the book has been a subject of controversies, the form of narration and dialogue used can significantly help a student who chooses that field. Having a strong message in your story will capture both audiences those who will love the book and those who will critic it. Kesey’s novel had both since some schools still have the book in their curriculums.
Conclusion
“One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” allows its readers to gain a new perspective on mental hospitals witnessing treatment of patients hence a reason for it to still exist in the book cycle. Chief Bromden, who is a patient at the hospital, narrates the use of horrible treatment methods such as electro-shock. A new patient known as McMurphy tries to challenge the system of the hospital but is in the end taken in by the system. Nurse Ratched is in charge of the system, and she uses a cruel way of control. Used of bizarre violence as well as harsh language has made the novel a subject of critic over the years. Challenges about the book have led to its banning in many schools across the country. However, looking past the violence and language, there are great themes such as individuality, nature, insanity, and the role of women. These themes are of great benefit to a teenager as they are a crucial way of learning through their stage of development. Kesey wrote the book to provide light to the conditions of patients in mental institutions. After the publication of the novel, many people gained awareness, which led to a change in the treatment of psychiatric ill patients. There was stopping of electro-shock therapy and the introduction of better drugs. Many people, especially parents, do not look past the violence in the novel. The bizarre violence and harsh language have blinded many from accepting the book as part of the school’s curriculum. While most teenagers do not have a problem reading the book, the parents are the ones with the problem. Parents claim their children will use that same type of violence in the book to get what they want. Violence and harsh language exist everywhere today, especially in the television. It is ironic how parents have allowed their children to watch TV yet not read the book freely. I believe that teenagers have developed minds to know what is right and wrong in the novel and the true meaning it is trying to pass. A teenager will think first before engaging in violence to get what they want instead of just jumping into it first. Parents should try and read the novel with a clear mind to get its message. Reading will allow most parents to accept it in the curriculum of most schools. The school board should choose to keep the book in the book cycle as it is of more benefit than harm to the student.
Work Cited
Boo, Paula. “A Destructive Myth of Masculinity: Ken Kesey’s one flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest from a Men’s Studies Perspective.” (2017).
Boyle, Robert P. “Banned or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century.” American Library Association. N.d. Web. March 2016. http://www.ala.org/template.cfm?Section=bbwlinks&template=/contentmanagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&contentID=136590
Collins, Aidan. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Dean Brooks.” The British Journal of Psychiatry, 210.4 (2017): 297-297.
Kesey, Ken. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1962).” (1976).
Muncan, Brandon, and Carlotta Mainescu. “Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” (2017): 1234-1237.