Research Paper for the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Comparison Of Mental Institutions In 1960's America, and The One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey, is known as one of America's finest and most popular books. This book, published in 1962, brought a huge wave of impact to Americans at the time by bringing truthful and realistic aspects and imageries of mental facilities and institutions (Swaine). The novel bases its story off a Native American patient, Chief Bromden's, point of view towards the hospital and the events that occur in it. The situations and scenes in the novel shocked countless readers with its new perspective. This novel and its content have both similarities and differences when compared to other mental facilities in the 1960's.

In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey, through his use of character - most notably Chief Bromden - vividly and thoroughly describes the environment and the events at the ward.

English: Ken Kesey, Miami Book Fair International,...

A statue of Ken Kesey in Eugene, Oregon

Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in the 1975 film.

Ken Kesey described his view and understanding of mental institutions of the time through the usage of Chief Bromden as the narrating character. In the beginning of the novel, Chief Bromden explains the way the ward functions through his explanation of Nurse Ratched: "Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff" (Kesey 29). Kesey describes the routine in the wards through Chief Bromden's words:

Lights flash on in the dorm at six-thirty: the Acutes up out of bed quick as the black boys can prod them out, get them to work buffing the floor, emptying ash trays, polishing the scratch marks off the wall… The Wheelers swing dead log legs out on the floor and wait like seated statues for somebody to roll chairs in to them. The Vegetables...