Dear all,
Go online and read extracts or entire critical essays on the novel. Post the link of your selected critical essay and a short comment here.
Thank you.
Mrs Gougeon
Go online and read extracts or entire critical essays on the novel. Post the link of your selected critical essay and a short comment here.
Thank you.
Mrs Gougeon
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/critical-essays/the-role-of-women-in-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest
ReplyDeleteI really like this essay and was very interested in it because throughout the novel reoccurring topics that appeared were femininity and emasculating men. I think these topics are very interesting ones to talk about in his novel as it was around the time when the feminist movement was occurring. I liked this essay because I agree in the way that it shows us that Ken Kesey chose to point negatively towards female characters with higher roles or power who are said to be out to emasculate men however he looks more positively on those referred to as the “whores” who are more interested in keeping the men pleasured. I like this essay as it displays the point of gender in the novel and the meaning it represents. I agree with what this essay shows, the point of gender in the way that masculinity and femininity are used to represent the repression and freedom.
http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/literary-analysis-nurse-ratched-in-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-by-ken-kesey-60407/
ReplyDeleteI chose this essay because I am extremely interested in Kesey’s choice of the portrayal of women and specifically the Big Nurse in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. This essay demonstrates how the women and Nurse Ratched are portrayed in the novel. The negative portrayal of Nurse Ratched is done through the use of the imagery of a machine and the description of her behaviour and actions. In the essay she is also said to represent “bureaucracy and authority”. The issue of castration is also addressed in the essay. It is said that Kesey believed that women have learnt that man’s weapon against women is rape and therefore they have become “ball cutters” which addresses the issue of emancipation in the novel. As for the other women in the novel, they are also seen as castrators but perhaps not in the literal sense. For example, Chief Bromden’s mother forced his father to take her last name which to Kesey is a sign of castration. I personally believe that Kesey was sexist or thought of women as horrible, power hungry and emancipators. Therefore, his personal view on women was strongly reflected throughout the novel, especially through the Big Nurse.
http://jonesclassesonline.weebly.com/uploads/2/7/3/4/2734694/understanding_the_machine.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe fourth paragraph was what really interested me in the following essay. I was suprised at the poor but immediate public response it received upon being released. Were people in denial of the truth- that mental facilities were unhelpful and that it was society's nature that was driving people insane? Perhaps this is a skewd representation of the response during the time of release but there is no doubt that the 2 large press groups(Times Magazine and New York Times) caused Kesey several potential readers. In addition to that I am also curious as to what was the turning point for the novel in terms of publicity as it gained much popularity in a year. I do believe that this works changed the meaning of 'literary merit'.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/critical-essays/the-role-of-women-in-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest
ReplyDeleteI was interested in this aspect of this text because the role of woman in One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest is in role reversal. The woman are seen as more dominant having them rule over the men to demoralise them, especially Miss Ratched.
The essay did fulfil my expectations especially including that the “whores” didn’t necessarily dominante the men as they where dedicated to pleasuring them. Billy did not exactly want to have sex with Candy but in a way McMurphy bullied him into it because that’s what they were there for. McMurphy never paid the women either which shows his dominant masculinity and the low level of respect. Even though the dominant roles are reversed in some ways the male dominance is still shown through the status of the women in society.
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16340
ReplyDeleteThis essay is about racism in Ken Kesey's novel. I chose this because as I was reading though other essays, this struck out the most to me. Not because of it's title, but because as I read it I just could not agree on what the essay had to say about it. Reading through the essay several times and trying to look back at the book, personally I could not find any thing that stuck out to me as racist. This essay mainly talks about the "black boys" and how they are uneducated, so far this is the main point that the essay makes.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/critical-essays/mcmurphy-as-comic-book-christ
ReplyDeleteThis essay is written from the perspective of religion. This interested me because it believed that McMurphy was a teacher/Messiah much like Jesus Christ and the patients that followed him were like his disciples. This is because it relates McMurphy's teachings to like that of Jesus' saying "as the Christian faith preaches that all humans are sinners capable of salvation, McMurphy instructs his disciples that life's miseries are redeemed through laughter, which is depicted as the ultimate rebellion." The essay also interestingly makes references to the bible, believing that because the events in this book were so similar to the events in the bible, they reinforce this theory of McMurphy being a 'comic book Jesus'.
http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/literary-analysis-nurse-ratched-in-one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-by-ken-kesey-60407
ReplyDeleteThis essay talks about the negative portrayal of women in the novel 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Ken Kesey gives the women in the novel all the authority and control which can especially be seen with the Big Nurse. In the novel, women are seen to be emasculating and have full control over the broken male patients. The Big Nurse, abuses her power and manipulates the men by attacking their emotions and past shameful acts. There is a rising question, questioning the value of her therapeutic rules and her overall authority. One concern about her authority, is how she has obtained it. Not having the position of being a doctor but only a nurse, yet she has the ability to authorize treatments like the EST and lobotomies. The essay mentions how Nurse Ratched not only has control over the male patients but sways the male doctors into her favor; "Nurse Ratched treats the doctors like little boys once again illustrating her dominance." Chief Bromden entitles the doctors as "boys" which immediately suggests her dominance.
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16340
ReplyDeleteI chose to take a look at this essay as I wanted to further explore on the existence of ‘Racism’ in the novel. I was interested to read on this aspect of the novel as I felt I lacked knowledge on it compared with other aspects. I generally agreed with the points made by this essay, where different characters were addressed with their differences in jobs and social expectations. However, I had to disagree with the last two paragraphs which suggested Ken Kesey’s racism on assigning the white people such as Nurse Ratched and Doctor Spivey with more respected jobs while the black people had less respected low paid jobs, and stated how this is unlikely in reality as race doesn’t determine their type of job. Considering the time period of which this novel was written in, I believe that Kesey intended to point out the existence and unfairness of racism in society as well as highlight on Nurse Ratched’s racism and her repressive control over the characters. Overall, this essay was an interesting read.
http://www.123helpme.com/insanity-is-independence-view.asp?id=220560
ReplyDeleteI chose this essay because the title struck out to me, "Insanity is independence" I disagreed with the title because I felt like different perspectives make the judgment of insanity different. When I finished reading the essay I felt my opinion unchanged. I understood what the writer was wanting to say but didn't think that Insanity being independence was correct and with his context don't believe it backed up his points. He says that each person is different and decides their own destiny which means that their different perspectives must come into account of what insanity actually is. Meaning Insanity can't mean independence. I do though, agree on the points about not really having a real good person in the story but felt like the author needed to look deeper into the context of the book. Stating that Chief Bromden is lying about being a littler man makes it seem like he doesn't actually have a clear understanding of what it is truly meant.
http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/149/149
ReplyDeleteIn the essay that I've chosen, the writer has linked the theme of disability with gender. What drew my attention to this essay was the way the writer has viewed the patients' lack of masculinity as a disability and the reason why they're at the mental hospital. The writer believes that the failure to fulfill gender stereotypes in the novel has confirmed the link between these two themes. Nurse Ratched emasculates the patients because this allows her to be more powerful and maintains her figure as the head nurse. The writer has made a point that the contradiction to gender stereotypes is portrayed clearer through Nurse Ratched in the novel than insight to the patients' mental and emotional disabilities which are not being treated by the nurse so the patients have no one else but McMurphy to influence them to be more masculine ; I agree that emasculation keeps the patients at the hospital because they're afraid to go against the nurse without the help of McMurphy.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/critical-essays/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-the-film-and-the-novel
ReplyDeleteThe above compares the film and the book. I found this article interesting because it deals with the decisions of the author (Ken Kesey) and the films director's (Milos Forman) decisions. For instance, the change of perspective from Chief Bromden to McMurphy. The article also point out things that distinguish the book like the absence of Cheswick's suicide and important background information for Chief Bromden. Because of this, the film's adaptation seems to be more focused on audience appeal. This article shows how the process of turning a book into a movie can alter its plot and consequently its emotion and meaning to the audience.
The 'hero', Randle Patrick McMurphy, is depicted as being more sane and organised than in the book. The director probably chose this so as to make him appeal to the audience. The article also points out the foreshadowing of McMurphy's poker hand tattoo leading to his death.Chief Bromden is also left out more. His backstory and hallucinations would have been interesting in terms of the cinematic interpretation; however it never made it into the final production. The dog chasing birds were also left out, which should have been kept for its narrative value towards the ending.
I found it amusing that Ken Kesey had vowed to not watch the film adaptation; it means a lot when talking about the relationship between the film director/crew and the author Ken Kesey. I liked this article because it laid out worthwhile points and helped me make more connections between the book and the movie.