"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest": A Dissection of Ken Kesey's Masterwork
The year was 1952, and a young man named Ken Kesey was attending the Oregon State University School of Journalism. He was only an aspiring essayist at that point in time, but within the next decade he would release a marvel of storytelling that has a place in time forever. Kesey documented many of his day to day happenings through diaries and short stories which he kept for years without publishing. His compilation of books is practically a 'soft works' set of his entire youth and middle age. Ken spent the majority of his college years in the 'MK Ultra' program after a suggestion from his roommate to join at the time; 'MK...' was a program designed by the US military to test the mind's capabilities under the duress of psycho-actives and the penetration of various stimuli. Kesey was an avid and routine user of LSD and DMT (along with other stimulants), so 'MK Ultra' was nothing more than another phase of existentialism for this young man. When under the influence of these hallucinogens, Kesey would spend his time at various Veteran's hospitals to speak to the patients and learn about the struggles of these abandoned people. He felt an immense weight on his shoulders as an outsider looking in; these people were not ill, they simply could not conform to society's rules and standards. Ken knew that being unconventional is not an illness...coloring outside the lines can be a choice one can makes.
1962 was an astounding year for literature and cinema: Kesey not only published "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" but Hollywood released their own silver screen masterpiece "To Kill A Mockingbird". The juxtaposition of these two works was what the racially divided world of the 60s needed. Both Harper Lee and Ken Kesey were fighting for people who had no voice, we can sadly see the same struggles plaguing the world today.
'OFOtCN' was written within the time span of 5 years, circa 1957 until before it's release in 1962. Kesey was doing more than volunteer stints at the Veteran's hospitals during his author-ship, he was in fact working full time night shifts and getting to know all the patients inside and out. These were the years that Ken really developed the ideas and backdrop for "...Cuckoo's Nest", and felt confident enough to publish what would soon become his greatest achievement.
With Kesey everything is allegory, and from the start this story feels like an upside down fairy tale. From the Bible to "The Matrix" stories have personified heroes, and people need heroes. Randall Patrick McMurphy is the savior of our tale, and the king of our asylum.
"My name is McMurphy, buddies, R.P.McMurphy, and I'm a gambling fool." 'RPM' finds himself in police custody after a drawn out night of gambling, boozing, fighting, and chasing prostitutes. Randall pleads insanity to the charges: he would rather report to a nurse than a warden. The law of that day obliges and here Kesey lays his groundwork to make a statement on the justice and mental health system as a whole. Although the brilliant 1975 film adaptation of the same name conjures Randall as the protagonist and star, the true point of view in the novel comes from a man named Chief Bromden. Chief was thought to be deaf and mute since his teens, but Randall discovers that the man would speak if someone would just listen.
"Thank you", Chief said when Randall handed him a piece of gum, and with that utterance of words bled to paper, Kesey tilted our world into a more positive light. Randall is the "id" unleashed, the ego of Ken Kesey sprawled across novella to show the world what real human compassion means. "...Cuckoo's Nest" shows how lost one can become in the narrow pathways of the lonely mind. Bromden takes comfort in Randall and explains his own trauma of being an outsider; born to an Indian Chief and a white woman he was outcast his whole life from different angles. Bromden is our first person view into the world as an outsider, we contrast our sight with his own and see nothing different. His love of juicy fruit and women shows that Kesey has a sense of humor through his story, and that people are people at the end of the day.
Nurse Ratched is a defiler of all things fair, and the one woman dictatorship whom personified a nation. Ratched is the embodiment of 'justice' in the 1960s. Her merciless outlook and rule enforcement with fledglings to do her bidding, made her a character closely resembling the Devil. There was an eager tone to her volatile lashings out, and her loud overbearing nature is crucial to how Kesey ends this tale.
Ratched took souls daily with a clicker counter and three words: "Take your pills". The televisions silently blaring at night with the random scream from a patient would echo, and Randall would go even more crazy as the night's went on. Ken was a master at conveying his thoughts through Randall, the emotions of a caged man who knows of the outside world are not only bitter but maddening. Randall was Ken's ego breaking back into that Veteran's hospital he knew as a young man, and freeing all those he had met!
The night Randall truly made a difference was the night Randall truly made an error... In good faith he helped his new found friends break out of the clinic and roam the free world for a night. With a stolen boat and the prostitutes he longed for, he helped his mates find love of life even if only for one night. Billy Bibbit was the young stuttering man who had never had a woman's touch until he met Randall. He was a shell of a man who succumbed to the orders and demands of his mother and Nurse Ratched. But Billy was a changed man with his friend RPM behind him, and finally having a woman was all he needed to be able to speak without a stutter. Nurse Ratched faced a fired up Billy and squad of so called 'lunatics' when she caught them returning from their endeavor. The nurse had her "...black boys dressed in white..." as the patients called it, and she had them grab Billy and Randall and the rest of the fugitive pack.
The description of Nurse Ratched threatening Billy with telling his mother he broke the rules is disheartening and one of the saddest moments in all of literature. Billy regains his stutter (even with Randall next to him) as he begs the nurse not to call his mother, but Ratched engages the reader with her heartless version of martial law and in turn shrivels a man back to his room as she heads for the phone.
Billy Bibbit had tried to end to his life before. He experienced a life of abuse with his mother, and only embarrassment among every woman he had ever known. He was not only a hermit to the world, but worthless to himself....he could not even take his own life correctly. The scars on his wrists, the pills everyday, the electroshock therapy...none of it mattered when he met Randall. The short time with his best friend made for the best moments of his life, and when he did take his life, Kesey made sure we felt it as sure as a knife in the heart.
Guided by the head nurses' shriek, Randall found Billy, bleeding from the self inflicted gash on his throat.... and fitting to his moniker of RPM, he accelerated forward without a thought or care. Randall always wanted to expose the beast Ratched was, he always mocked her garbs knowing they hid a foul creature underneath. He would say, "So Ms. Ratched, how did you get such firm, plump breasts? We all see them, you can't hide em'!" These concealed thoughts flashed and he just grabbed and ripped at her. They were alone for an instance and all he could do was grab the Wretched by her neck and choked her until his arms gave out. He thought of Cheswick, and Billy, and Chief, and squeezed her throat until she gasp for air no longer. The 'black boys in white' were on guard for their queen, and they pulled Randall off her before he could finish the task.
I leave you on a note of overwhelming grief to play with your conscious mind, find out for yourself how you receive this magical story...and if you don't have the time to read the novel, see the film. Jack Nicholson portrays the beauty and the madness of RPM so perfectly, it is almost hard to imagine the character as anyone else.
In Shakespearean literature a comedy is classified as any piece of writing with a happy ending, and vice versa for tragedy. The ending and whereabouts of both Randal Patrick McMurphy and Chief Bromden are for you to discover on your as a reader or viewer, just be aware that there is more than black and white, and there are things beyond good and evil. The metaphors to 1960s society found in this novel can still be used for the 21st century we exist in today. This is a sad yet prevalent truth that we must realize. Ken Kesey provided us a piece of literature that will never die, because the issues addressed may never cease.
Anyone suffering from bipolar, depression and many other common ailing conditions of the mind..just know you are not alone. Share your experiences with words, photos and anything that lets you live and show off life the way you want. Steemit is a platform that has helped me in finding an outlet for my words and thoughts, and my own depression ceases with every word I type. I am grateful I now have an outlet to call home; grateful to the friend who brought me to this platform, and humbled the people of steem who give any time at all to read what I write...thank you truly.
