Skip to main content

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, what does freedom mean to the patients? What does it mean to Nurse Ratchett?

One important quotation from the novel is:



“If you don't watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite.”



This encapsulates the idea of freedom for the patients, namely freedom from external constraints and the ability to live their lives completely as they choose. The vision Kesey develops is Utopian and anarchic, very much part of the Beat anti-Establishment ethos. It suggests not just freedom from external authority or compulsion, but also freedom from conventional ideas that restrict the scope of individual action. At times, though, the gestures of freedom such as buying sex from prostitutes, getting drunk, indulging in recreational drugs, and engaging in pointless violence seem less admirable than Kesey intends them to be. Kesey finds the standard notion of "sanity" itself oppressive. 


Nurse Ratched appears intended as the villain of the novel, representing the forces of order and oppression within the hospital with the protagonist McMurphy constantly attempting to rebel against her and humiliate her. Her notion of freedom is more concerned with order. In other words, a free society for her is one in which people fulfill their responsibilities and respect authority, and thus one in which one is free from threats of violence.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more