One+Flew+Over+the+Cuckoo's+Nest

 __ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest __
 * A novel By: Ken Kesey**

__About the Author__

Ken Kesey was born Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey. He was born on September 17, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado. He attended The University of Oregon and Stanford University. During 1959, while attending Stanford, Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA- financed program that experimented with drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and DMT. At this time Ken was working at the Menlo Park Veteran's Hospital. He came up with the inspiration for //One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest// while working a night shift at the Hospital tripping out on hallucinogens. He thought that the patiens weren't "insane," but that they just didn't fit into the role society thought they should. He went on to publish this novel in 1962, and it was an immediate success.

His later works include: //Genesis West: Volume Five (1963) Sometimes A Great Notion (1964) Kesey's Garage Sale (1973) Demon Box (1986) Caverns (1989) The Further Inquiry (1990) Sailor Song (1992) Last Go Round (1994) Twister (1994) Kesey's Jail Journal (2003)//

Ken Kesey was a very influential author and person throughout his life. After the publication of his 2nd book //Sometimes A Great Notion// in 1964, him and a group of his friends took a trip across the country in a psychedelic refurbished school bus, known as The Furthur Bus, as an attempt to create art out of everyday life. He went on to publish many other works, and settled down in Pleasant Hill, Oregon where he spent the rest of his life. He died on November 10, 2001 after never recovering from an operation to remove a tumor on his lung.

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__Synopsis__ The book is narrated and told from the point of view of a docile, deaf Indian, named Chief Bromden. The book starts out as Randle Patrick McMurphy is committed to the institution where the book takes place. As the book goes on, it focuses on the rebelliousness of McMurphy, and how he tries to get the other patients to rebel against the head nurse. McMurphy started out serving time on a work farm for his conviction of assualt and battery, but pleads insanity to get a transfer to a mental institution with less punishment and more freedoms. He starts out as a happy-go-lucky person who rebels against the tyrannical head nurse, Nurse Ratched. McMurphy's goal is to upset Nurse Ratched as much as possible and to wreak as much havoc on her as he can. He tries to get the other patients to stand up for themselves because they have been so intimidated by the head nurse that they no longer function as normal human beings. They do whatever they are told even know they know that it is wrong, hateful, and inhuman. As time goes on, McMurphy realizes that what he has been told by the other patients is true, that he can try to fight her for as long as he can, but she will always win in the end. After a fishing trip gone terribly wrong, McMurphy and Chief Bromden are sent for electroshock-therapy. Eventually, McMurphy's influence on the other patients leads to an innocent loss of life, an assault on Nurse Ratched, and an escape by the book's most rebellious character. ==

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__Oustanding Novel List__ I think this book was put on the outstanding novel list because it was so ground breaking and at the time that it was written. During the 60's "polite" people didn't talk about things like mental illness because it was a very taboo subject. So, in 1962 when this book was written it was extremely contriversial especially because he is basically saying that the "condemmed" or "mentally insane" weren't really crazy, but that they just didn't live the way everybody else did. During this time the "good guy" was usually thought of as taking care of the sick and doing good in society. In this book we have Nurse Ratched, who is taking care of the "mentally ill" but she abuses her power and does evil things to the patients to make herself feel like she has control. Also, the nurse wearing white symbolises good, but yet she is a sadistic dictator. In the end, McMurphy emerges as the hero, because he is the one who is actually doing the good and standing up for the other patients who have no "backbone." So this story pretty much switches the steroetypical ideas of good and bad, McMurphy is a criminal and becomes the hero, while Nurse Rached "helps" the sick but is actually a hateful tyrant.

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__Why I Would Recommend This Book__ I would definitely recomend this book, but i would suggest that if you are going to read it you should understand the dramatic societal differences between now and the time it was written. It gives you a very different perspective of how society was back then, and how attitudes have changed about mental illness, authority, and the ability to question what is really right and wrong. This is also an underdog story, where the little guy has impossible challenges but yet he triumphs. = =

== __ Why I Think This Book is Outstanding __ The underdog theme represents the universal struggle against oppressive forces, and although McMurphy suffers his friends benefit. This book tells the classic story of good versus evil in a nontraditional setting. It was written in a time of great societal upheaval, where the percived antihero ends up the winner. In the end McMurphy becomes a martyr, as his friends have a chance at normality. These themes are simple yet powerful, and they resonate in the hearts of all humans. = = = =

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