Symbolism in One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest free essay sample

The critically acclaimed novel â€Å"One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest†, written by Ken Kesey, takes place in an Oregon mental institution. The narrator in the story is Chief Bromden, who is of Native American Indian and white descent. He is a paranoid schizophrenic, and pretends to be a mute on the ward as to draw less attraction to himself. The other patients on the ward describe him as being â€Å"deaf and dumb†. When the new patient McMurphy arrives on the ward Chief’s world is turned upside down in more ways than he can imagine, and within this stranger he finds friendship and most of all – himself. In the novel Ken Kesey uses a lot of important religious as well as size and power imagery to show the struggles McMurphy has in helping the other patients find themselves and the lack of personal strength in Chief’s world. He also uses the image of the Combine to show how Chief realises there is a system which tries to encourages full conformity within his society. A lot of the imagery in this novel is religiously based. For example Ellis, one of the Chronic patients on the ward, stands â€Å"crucified† to the wall. His position mimics the shape of the table in the Shock Shop, where patients are given Electro-Shock Therapy to help them with their mental recovery. Both Ellis in his position on the wall, and the patients on the Shock Shop table are strapped with arms outspread, just like how Christ was nailed to the cross. When McMurphy and the Chief are taken to the Disturbed ward they meet a patient who says to them â€Å"I wash my hands of the whole deal†, which brings to mind Pontius Pilate who washed his hands of Christs crucifixion. In the novel Kesey makes illusions to McMurphy being a Christ-like figure, and the references to him holding this position increase in intensity and number as McMurphy’s martyrdom becomes imminent. A good example of this is when McMurphy takes some of the other patients on the ward on a fishing expedition. The patients attending the trip are twelve in number, the same number as Christ disciples. Just before they leave Ellis unhooks his arm, shakes Billy Bibbit’s hand and tells him to be â€Å"a fisher of men†, the same phrase used by Christ when telling his disciples to win people over as converts. The fishing trip can be seen as the ‘salvation’ of the patients, the time when they begin to learn to fend for themselves again. By sitting back on the boat and letting the others handle the storm on their own McMurphy helps them prove their worth to themselves and each other, just as Christ taught the disciples to be self-sufficient in preparation for his own death and departure. The most significant religious image us that both McMurphy and Christ die to save others and give them hope. McMurphy saves the patients from the repressive society they live in and teaches them to have hope in themselves; meanwhile Christ saves mankind from sin and teaches them to have hope in a life eternal. Another form of imagery in the novel OFOTCN is that of size, which the Chief connects with power. Chief describes people by their metaphorical size, not just their physical size. As early as his childhood he applies this theory, a good example being that he sees his father decrease in size as his power declines after the selling of their land and his alcohol addiction increases (â€Å"He didn’t suck out of the bottle, the bottle sucked out of him†) but in contrast he sees his mother grow in stature as she begins to control her husband. The Chief tells McMurphy that his mother was huge but in fact she was an average size of five feet nine inches. Every time Nurse Ratched gets angry at/ or increases her mental control over the patients the Chief sees her to be â€Å"blowing up a size bigger, blowing and puffing, rolling anything in her path†. Although McMurphy is a full head shorter than he is, Chief thinks that McMurphy is a giant for he believes he has a lot of physical and mental power. McMurphy realises that the Chief sees himself as a trapped, small, weak man and promises to restore him to his full height, which he accomplishes by the end of the book. Chief feels his full height of six feet seven inches when the Nurses’ power over him subsides, and he throws the control panel through the window so he can escape from the institution. The last form of imagery I will discuss is that of mechanistic and the existence of the Combine. Chief’s theory is that there is a system of hierarchy within society which uses repressive forces to mow down individuals, much like a combine harvester mows down and harvests wheat. The Chief has recognized the power of the Combine and the potential it has to mow down and mould a man into what it wishes him to be; so when McMurphy enters the ward he warns him about the Combines powerful forces as he realises the Combine will not let a man as big and powerful as McMurphy exist unless he is on their repressive side. Nurse Ratched is a perfect representative of the Combine as she is big, strong and repressive – she keeps the patients in fear and under control. When McMurphy fights against the Nurse he is really striking up against the entire Combine, and in retaliation to his individuality and out of fear for his powerfulness the Combine perform a lobotomy on him to keep him under repressed and under control. Everyone else on the ward (and the rest of the population outside of the institution) are described as machine like beings by Chief, such as the ward attendees with their â€Å"eyes that glitter like the hard glitter of radio tubes† and the Nurse is compared to a diesel truck that smells of burning oil and runs wildly. He believes that the Combine has installed tiny machines in everyone’s brain to make them conform, and when the machines are broken they are sent to the institutions to either get fixed (e. g. given a lobotomy or EST) so they can re enter society or they get thrown away and forgotten (i. e. kept on the ward). When outside the ward on his fishing expedition with the other patients he sees how the Combine has been at work since he had been away; everyone looks alike and lives in identical houses, much like a â€Å"hatch of identical insects†. Through this machinery imagery Kesey seems to be saying that everything we see that is mechanical and man made goes against all that is natural. McMurphy is shown as the natural, savage man, fighting against the Combine and all it’s repressive machinery. In conclusion in the novel OFOTCN written by Ken Kesey, the author uses many forms of imagery to get his messages across, such as religious – drawing comparisons between McMurphy and Christ; size and power – Chiefs struggle to see himself for his true size; and mechanistic – shows The Combine’s power over the book’s society.