victory that we are able to hear the story of the Cuckoo’s Nest at all. The hidden meanings and representations of characters is definitely one of the reasons why this is such a great book. Ken Kesey displays many themes in, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to help the reader gain a greater understanding of his message. The biggest being: What is craziness and what is sanity. The patients in the ward have been declared mentally ill by society and in some cases even by themselves. However, Dr. Spivey and the residents display no more courage or rationality than do their patients… Nurse Ratched’s devotion to rules above all else can be seen as some kind of illness, one she shares with much of society. Unrestrained sexuality is a big part of McMurphy’s (and Kesey’s) idea of sanity. Where sane men and women are not afraid of sex, many of the patients are in the hospital at least in part because their sexuality has been devastated. The Chief’s return to sanity is signaled in part by an erection. Billy defeats his controlling mother and Nurse Ratched when he loses his virginity to Candy. Even Nurse Ratched hides her sexuality by trying to hide her large breasts with her heavy white uniform. Kesey seems to share the same point of view, which the author of the Rocking Horse Winner had. That was, we do not pay enough attention to our sexuality. These themes and may others are consistent and scattered evenly throughout the story, which again emphasizes the quality of this novel. The setting was explained with the greatest of detail, the characters were always true to their nature and the themes dealt with in this novel were in fact very real. A quite disturbing piece, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, makes you think about how people in such institutions live. However, as grim as his descriptions of the hospital may be, Kesey is not simply writing a book that criticizes such mental health facilities,...
