One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest Article Review

A GOOD DREAM IS HARD TO FIND

11 May 2011

Ken Kesey exposes the shortcomings of the Great American Dream, writes Ambrose Howell Hone.

Writer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and ‘Beatnik’ revolutionary, Ken Kesey.

IT’S 1962. The Beatniks are beating, Glinsberg is howling, and

Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is at the forefront of a social juggernaut aimed to turn the Great American Dream on it’s head.

The novel ‘One Flew,’ is fearlessly aimed at undercutting the televised, commercial lifestyle of America, revealing skeletons in the closet and a flawed execution of the so-called, ‘American Dream.’ Through the medium of a militarily strict psychiatric ward, quirky patients and a rambunctious Irishman, Kesey dealt with issues of individualism, happiness, the environment and insanity, revealing the repressive nature of 1960’s society.

While working in those stark white corridors and talking to the patients, he concluded that they were not, in fact, insane, but subject to social isolation because they did not fit in as a ‘Conventional American.’ They were victims of conformity, of an American Dream where individuality was considered a defect and a defects were institutionalised.

In the novel, the character of Billy Bibbit can be taken as a prime example. Because of the young man’s stutters, his fellow schoolmates, friends, lovers and even his own mother ostracised and criticised him; breaking down his self esteem and ‘manhood’ to such a degree that he has committed himself to a mental hospital. Billy breaks down when McMurphy challenges this self incarceration, asking why he isn’t out chasing girls; “I could go outside to-today, if I had the guts... You think I wuhwuh-wuh-want to stay in here? Did you ever have people l-llaughing at you? No, because you’re so b-big and so tough!”

Billy was considered a misfit by his peers; this instance of ‘communal prosecution’ during the 1950’s is expanded upon by award-winning writer and editor of...