By means of a close reading of the passage 'The big hard body...' to '...I been away a long time' consider in what ways this is an appropriate conclusion to one flew over the cuckoos nest.

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Ruth Naughton-Doe

By means of a close reading of the passage 'The big hard body…' to '…I been away a long time' consider in what ways this is an appropriate conclusion to one flew over the cuckoos nest.

 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (which shall now be referred to as Cuckoo throughout this consideration) was written by Ken Kesey and published in 1962. In the novel, a character called Randal McMurphy enters a mental institute to avoid a work farm, and comes up against the suppressive regime of Miss Ratched, who he sees to be manipulating and destroying people by removing their identity. Before the conclusion of the novel, McMurphy, in a culmination of events in which he tries to make the patients in the institute regain knowledge of who they are, is given a frontal lobotomy.

        The importance of energy, vitality and recognition of the right to be free in Cuckoo is always apparent. McMurphy is a character that breathes life into the whole novel, with his bright red hair

'This guy is redheaded…with a broad white devilish grin'

and flamboyant personality.

'…he commences to laugh…But its not the way the Public Relation laughs, its free and loud and comes out of wide grinning mouth…'

 he is always referred to as having an independent mind, and although he has faults, for example gambling, the reader is aware that McMurphy is better with his faults than without, faults are what makes a person different from the rest, and faults are what makes a person who they are. In the concluding passage the Cheif smothers McMurphy and considers a person without a mind to be already dead.

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        ‘I saw the expression hadn’t changed from the blank, dead-end look the least bit’

Kesey manages to make the reader visualise a truly cold image of a person without a mind which sharply contrasts to McMurphy's character throughout the novel. Thus he expresses the importance of using our mind and retaining our individuality, and not allowing ourselves to become virtually lobotomised without an operation. This is an adequate and memorable conclusion on the theme of not conforming to society's unwritten laws to the point we are indistinguishable from everybody else. A person without individuality is not a person.

        Cuckoo was ...

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