INTRODUCTION

Ken Keseys One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

by Maia Riekstins
1/15/2016

Check in to One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey and experience first hand
the bone-chilling reality that is the Combine. Travel into the everyday life and adventures in a
mental asylum. This read is like a dark, mysterious sinkhole, which is intoxicatingly easy to be
washed down into. However glum at parts, Ken Kesey wrote a fun and tender read, narrating
first-person through the character of Chief Bromden, a silent, Columbian Indian Chief. A gritty,
harsh, and yet wholesome tale of redemption, author Kesey vividly describes the ward, life
there, and the cohabitants of Chief Bromden with seamless fluidity.

This is a horror house of emotions, overseen by Nurse Ratched, the protagonist, and the
grim janitor boys, in their starched white uniforms. McMurphy is the fly in Ratcheds ointment, as
she is in his. She is a bitter and doll-like veteran of the ward. The Nurse plays by the book, and
then some, often abusing her privileges of access to brain operations on her patients.
On the other hand, R.P. McMurphy is a rowdy, unruly rebel who is sent to join the boys
at the ward. Patient McMurphy is a gambling rule-breaker. His presence rekindles the fire of
life in the other men. A brilliant leader, he is the protagonist of the story and he awakens spirit in
the dull gray patients.
Unlike the other men on the ward, McMurphy seems to find meaning, or at least
purpose, in living at the ward, while the others just trickle through the days, passive and
drugged into a fog. He becomes the Alpha male, big Chief Bromden his side-kick.
Chief Bromden is also a leader, but the ward keeps his soul in chains. McMurphy is the
key to this lock, and together the two become leaders of the ward. Together, the men share an
intimate friendship that is pain-strickenly short-lived. From McMurphys guidance, Bromden is
able to redefine himself from the blur that life was before his fiery friends admission to the ward.

When McMurphy, the powerful, energetic redhead, meets certain doom, it is up to the
Chief to help McMurphy escape or leave him behind.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is inspiring and realistic.This gloomy novel has
spiritual notes, with a message of true friendship and soul leading the way to happiness and
freedom. This lively chronicle has sweet, surprising hints of contrasts of Native Indian culture in
between the bulk-mass presence of post-WWI industrial American culture that gives this
seemingly hopeless setting and scenario a more grounded effect for the reader. This novel
helped me learn something about myself, as it will for you.