One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Symbolism

Ken Kesey was born on September 17, 1935 in La Junta California, was raised in Springfield, Oregon.. He also was seen as an important wrestler at the University of Oregon and after he graduated he received the fred lowe scholarship from the University as well. With it he received an literary education from a graduate program at Stanford . In the 1960s, Kesey had worked in a psychiatric hospital ward as a janitor and had also participated in a experiment with the army testing the effects of mind altering drugs and wrote down the effects and experiences . Both of those exposures led to the writing of the book One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and the book after Sometimes a Great Notion. He then joined a group called the Merry Pranksters . They …show more content…
One such being the “combine”. Chief mentions the “combine” at various locations in the book. The combine in his mind are the outside organization and the nurse who try to reshape the people at the mental institution to their own idea of a perfect person, even though as chief says everyone in the institution is the normal people in their own eyes and the combine are the insane ones trying to change them even though they are just making it worse. Another symbol found in the novel is the fog machine. Chief mentions the fog machine multiple times in the novel as how the nurse and staff use it to their liking. However the fog is actually the mind numbing repetitiveness found in the daily schedule that the patients undergo day after day. Chief notices it more because he is trying to record the malicious behavior of the …show more content…
One incident was when Chief had decided to raise his hand to vote in favor of McMurphy. McMurphy showed courage in multiple occasions from challenging the authority of Nurse Ratched, breaking glass window, and trying to choke Nurse Ratched. McMurphy shows courage again when he steals one of the buses and takes the some of the patients to a fishing trip. He later shows courage by hosting a party at the middle of the night. Chief showed courage when he defended McMurphy when he was being attacked and talks to McMurphy and risks his identity being revealed. Chief shows courage again when he throws the water fountain at the window and escapes. Although ironic, Nurse Ratched shows signs of courage throughout the book. She shows courage by having the ability to calm a crowd of rioting men. She also shows her courage by behaving the same even though McMurphy had attempted to choke her to