One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Literary Analysis

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Moments in Literature: Challenging Oppression Man’s ultimate goal is to figure out how to live in chaos. Society is conformity, society is persecution, society is chaos. The inner power struggle between man and society to figure out how to live in chaos has forced out individualism for the sake of conformity and order. If one refuses, it results in being viewed as an outsider. Ken Kesey’s, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest among many other works illustrate this very issue. The pieces of work, “Take Me To Church”, “Nothing Girl”, “Much Madness is the Divinest Sense”, and “Margins” each explore the trials society sets on individuals in order to perfect perfection. Each and every work is able to connect through one small but powerful message;…show more content…
“I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, I’ll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife” (Hozier). This illustrates going against the grain and risking everything for what one wants in life. Out of fear, many choose to repress their wants and needs in life to avoid the disapprovement of others. The patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest are faced with similar repressed feelings. The men who are considered “insane” are committed and receive treatment for their illnesses. However, the ones who aren't committed are those who are on the ward voluntarily. McMurphy, a criminal who was sent to the ward, could not fathom why anyone would ever spend their life rotting away in such a place. What he did not realize is that for them, it serves as a refuge from the outside. It made it easier not to deal with the pent up anxiety and terror they felt the real world would cause with its rules and way of living. "Yes. This is what I know. The ward is a factory for the Combine. It's for fixing up mistakes made in the neighborhoods and in the schools and in the churches, the hospital is. When a completed product goes back out into society, all fixed up good as new, better than new sometimes” (Kesey

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