McMurphy as the Metaphor for the Terrorist Suspect

books:


	• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey Signet, 1963 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 360 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Tale of emancipation (unless you are a feminist)

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is Chief Bromden's journey of self- awareness as he transforms from chronic mental illness to freedom and self-emancipation. His lessons on the psychiatric ward parallel his childhood experiences of having the white man coerce the Columbian Indians out of their land. Chief narrates while Randle McMurphy transcends the hegemony of the combine by introducing outrage, empowerment and purpose to the lives of the mental patients on the ward. McMurphy is a charismatic leader who becomes the "bull-goose looney" of the ward through his personal magnetism and moxie.

One lesson of the book is that behaviors of the oppressed contribute to their own dominance. By wanting to remain safe and anonymous, the inpatients retreat like "rabbits" into the fog (anonymity). The ward is sterile of humanity with the daily activities specifically regulated to confront the patient with the futility of life. Nurse Rachted demonstrates the power to make things worse, so why risk emancipatory efforts? However, through McMurphy, the inpatients discover that it is not society or even Nurse Ratched that makes them crazy. As Harding states "though I used to think at one time, a few years ago, my turtleneck years, that society's chastising was the sole force that drove one along the road to crazy, but you've caused me to re-appraise my theory. There's something else that drives people ... down the road...It is us."

Part 4 is largely allegorical. McMurphy is portrayed as a Christ figure, sent to the ward for the sins of others, sent as a man to be slaughtered like a lamb for the sins of all men. According to Chief, "McMurphy was a giant come out of the sky to save us from the combine..." who "...doled out his life for us to live..." When going through his shock treatments, he was given the choice (temptation) that if he rebuked himself and he would be set free. However, McMurphy chose to sacrifice himself for the others and set them free.

One aspect of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that may be an abomination to the feminist movement was the presentation of the climate on the ward as being a matriarchy of repressed sexual libido. Apparently, for Kesey, emancipation entails full expression of sexuality including socially condemned activities such as pornography, rape and prostitution. Many of the men's mental illnesses were deeply rooted in ineffective relationships with women that were exasperated by Nurse Ratched's castrating group therapy sessions. Apparently, for Kesey, the liberation of society comes at the cost of women's liberation.

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McMurphy as the Metaphor for the Terrorist Suspect

Let me first explain that I can no longer write a long review for Amazon: time after time I have spent an hour writing one only to be cut off before I can even preview it. It is no doubt the fault of my own system-- I am not blaming Amazon-- but in any case, if anyone wants I the full text of this review, they must refer to my blogspot. I shall try to put it in a nutshell, if that is possible: McMurphy seems to me to be the perfect metaphor for the terrorist suspect facing US interrogators today. The techniques used by Nurse Ratched are similar to those developed by the CIA in collusion with unscrupulous doctors. The cornerstone of this method is ECT. It is used in combination with narco-hypnosis, but the latter would not be effective without the erasure of memory which ECT causes. I must note that this book, famous for its depiction of ECT, greatly underrates the dangers inherent in the treatment. For one thing, it does not mention the long-term effects on memory. Secondly, it leaves the impression that ECT is going out of fashion, when in fact it is experiencing an upsurge. Some 100,000 people a year receive the treatment, according to Dr. Peter Breggin. But the most sinister thing about ECT is that was found very effective in creating "Manchurian candidates" by the CIA, and may now be being used to create "phony terrorists". Must finish here, if I write any more I will be cut off-- please consult my personal profile for my blogspot.

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great quality!

This book was sent to me in great condition. i'm very happy with my purchase

One Flew East, One Flew West

'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' is easily one of the greatest novels ever written. Chief Bromden is, by far, the most humanizing narrator I've ever read. Though this novel is an unyielding social criticism, it's also a very effective one in that it forces the reader to empathize with confined characters while realizing the authoritarians' actions - particularly those of Nurse Ratched - seem even more villainous due to the demoralization which is felt when one is corrected or otherwise censored without being capable of understanding what it is they've done to deserve such.

A beautifully written and timeless novel.

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Must Have

This book is a very good read. You feel as though you are truly experiencing the hospital through the eyes of the chief and it is refreshing to be in the third person from all the action. Found the book to be extremely refreshing.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

These deluxe editions are packaged with French flaps, acid-free paper, and rough front.

"A glittering parable of good and evil . . . a work of genuine literary merit."--The New York Times

Other Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century:

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
My Antonia by Willa Cather
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
White Noise by Don DeLillo

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