One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Post-War War Two in America was a period of psychiatric experiments with hallucinogenic drugs by the masses. As part of his participation in these experiments, as well as time spent at a California mental health facility as an observer, Ken Kesey formed the basis for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, published in 1962. The book was enormously popular, especially after the award-winning movie released in 1975. Even in the face of all this success, many school districts have voted to ban this book from their curriculum. The reasons for removal have been numerous, but can be summed up from one Ohio school. They said that the book, “glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles, and contains descriptions of bestiality,…show more content…
Michael Meloy, English professor at Loyola College, describes the ward as “a sexual desert, full of decaying men with increased sexual problems and who are consistently characterized by the narrator as feminine (Meloy).” In one of the group therapy meetings, Nurse Ratched is discussing with the men the problem Harding has with his wife. She is a very beautiful woman but this, “made him uneasy because she drew stares from men on the street (Kesey 43).” Ratched states that, “He may give her reason to reason to seek further sexual attention (Kesey 43).” These comments indicate that Harding could be homosexual, which although not a mental illness, definitely fell outside of the norm during the 1950s. As indicated by the previous insanity examples, Harding must have voluntarily admitted to the ward himself out of fear of ridicule from his wife and the public. During the first McMurphy-Harding discussion, Harding states that all the patients are rabbits and the nurse is their strong wolf. He tells McMurphy that the nurse has effectively castrated all the patients and McMurphy is the only strong man among them. “…you are a healthy, functioning and adequate rabbit, whereas most of us in here even lack the sexual ability to make the grade as adequate rabbits. Failures we are—feeble, stunted, weak little creatures in a weak little race…show more content…
Granted, McMurphy is a very perverse man who constantly swears and makes lewd jokes, often about women. Also, Nurse Ratched’s assistance is three black men who are reminiscent of slave help. They are called a number of racial slurs by the inmates, most notably McMurphy. However despite this language, the book should not be taken away. According to Janet Sutherland, “Certainly teaching the book compels a discussion of obscenity, for it is impossible to understand it fully without realizing that what people do to each other in cruelty is the true obscenity, not shadow words. The book does not teach profanity; it teaches that the world of the insane is full of profanity
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