The place of an individual in a society has been a matter of constant interrogation.  There are imposed certain limiting factors for an individual and those who do not conform to these parameters have always been stamped as outcasts. It is this curbing and limiting of an individual in a larger canvas that forms the theme of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in a smaller canvas of a mental asylum.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is narrated by a schizophrenic inmate Chief Bromden and it pictures the story of an energetic con man, Randle Patrick Mac Murphy, who seeks institutionalization as a means of escaping the rigours of the prison work farm. Mac Murphy, in order to reduce the sexual and emotional impotence of the inmates, challenges the authority, only to be doomed. He strives and suffers for the salvation of others. In fact, it is the story of the Chief’s progress towards sanity.

The novel has a well-built structure which gets tallied with the plot development with twenty nine chapters in four parts.  Parts I, II and IV are set inside the hospital premises itself and Part III is set on a boat. Part I begins with Bromden describing the entry of Mac Murphy and his subsequent winning of the inmates to his side, much for Nurse Ratched’s trouble. Nurse Ratched is the real authority and terror among the inmates. In part II Mac Murphy surrenders, but on realizing the dependence of others upon him he sets on revolt. In the third part, the patients are in their fullest self and highest confidence. Mac Murphy takes them for a fishing trip, which seems very useful.  In part IV, Nurse Ratched tries to “divide and rule,” but fails and lands Mac Murphy in the shock room. Billy’s suicide gets him lobotomized by the Nurse and finally the Chief gives him “mercy-killing.” Then he escapes, which makes the greatest victory over the Big Nurse.

The modern chaotic atmosphere of aimlessness, struggle and disunity are captured in the title, adapted from a toungue-twisting nursery rhyme:

Vinterym MIntery, Cutery, Corn

Apple seed and apple thorn;

Wire, Briar, limber lock,

Three geese in a flock

One flew east,

One flew west,

And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Those who fly east and west are diametrically opposed to each other and represent the two combatants in the novel. The one that flies over the cuckoo’s nest(mental hospital) is the giant Chief Bromden who finally escapes.

The narration is often magical and incoherent. Kesey’s choice of Bromden as his narrator helps in the technical excellence. The novel also contains certain flashbacks that area effectively incorporated and developed. The mood of the book is gloomy with an undercurrent of fear and constraint and this keeps pace with the setting.

Societal repression and hostility are diagnosed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest under the mask of insanity and matriarchy.  Basically the novel is a story of the journey of Chief Bromden towards sanity and the friendship and love among the inmates, especially between the White Irish Mac Murphy and the Black Chief. It is natural and universal for two people under the same unfavourable disastrous conditions to feel a spiritual kinship and that is what is shown in this novel. Kesey’s novel transcends the mental institution and has successfully taken apart a system which we may feel we are inmates of.

This novel has been adapted for stage by Dale Wasserman and also filmed by Milos Forman. The film version won great acclaim and also won five Oscars. Both the novel and the adaptations remain Classics.

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