Ken Kesey s One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest
KEN KESEY´S ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO´S NEST An Essay by Cristina Hernández fii_cris_hg@yahoo. ... INTRODUCTION Ken Kesey is considered one of the most controversial figures of his age and a leading figure of the counterculture. ... After gaining a degree in Speech and Communications at the University of Oregon, Kesey enrolled in a prestigious creative writing program at Stanford University. As a result, he wrote his first novel, One flew over the cuckoo´s nest. ... These experiences, the LSD and his time at the hospital, would change his life both personally and professionally and would be a major source for his literaty production, in particular for The cuckoo´s nest, which he wrote during this time. ... The novel was first published in 1962 to great critical and commercial success and Kesey was considered the brightest new talent of the year. This work is the result of Kesey´s both personal experiences working at a mental institution, and the hallucinations he had due to the consumption of LSD. Moreover, the whole atmosphere surrounding the narration is influenced by the changing sociocultural scene in the late 50´s and early 60´s. ... Besides, the USA and the USSR were inmerse in the space race, they both wanted to be the first nation to go one step further and conquer the space; and the Vietnam War was about to get into its worst stage. ... In this context, Kesey will use a psychiatric ward as a metaphor for the oppressive American society. Kesey is considered one of the most notorious members of the so called Hippy Generation, which also included John Barth or Richard Bautigan. But, since he began working on his first novel in the late 50´s, he represents a bridge between The Beat Generation of Ginsberg and Kerouac and thenew born Hippy Culture, centered mainly in Northern California. ... McMurphy and Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, still remains one of the best films of all times. ... SUMMARY The apparently peaceful life in a psychiatric ward is one day altered by the arrival of a new inmate, Randle Patrick McMurphy, a lively con man whof akes insanity in order to avoid prison. ... He´s a manipulating figure who behaves in his own interest but soon becomes the leader of the other inmates. McMurphy represents the idea of freedom and rebelion against Nurse Ratched´s oppression. ... Nobody there dares to confront her authority until McMurphy´s arrival. She has quite manly features - she´s strong, manipulative and dictatorial - but her big breasts are the only femenine feature she cannot hide. ... He´s the narrator of the novel and one of the keys of it. ... This character comes from an hallucination that Kesey himself used to have due to the consumption of LSD.