Power, and its irrefutable ability to deprave those who wield it, is a central theme in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, which both explicitly examine the consequences of absolute power and the moral corruption that later ensues. Both authors assert that absolute power ultimately results in a blind acceptance of the actions of governing forces. Whilst Slaughterhouse Five exposes the horror of wars incited by almighty governments, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest presents the dangers of dictatorial control and ethical corruption in mental institutions. The emergence of Christ-like figures in each novel can also be attested to the unquestionable power exercised by omnipotent groups in both texts. …show more content…
Furthermore, the development of psychological illnesses in Slaughterhouse Five’s protagonist and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’s narrator can be attributed to their submission to authorities that wield absolute power. In both Vonnegut and Kesey’s novels, absolute power culminates in a blind acceptance of the exploits of brutal regimes. In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched’s emasculation of the men in her Oregon psychiatric ward is a prime example of this. The Nurse, described as a “ball-cutter”, has a “genius for insinuation”, and uses this suggestive aptitude to systematically, but subtly castrate the men. In the case of Harding, “it seems [he] has been accused of…not being man enough to satisfy [his] wife…of having nothing between [his] legs but a patch of hair…”, but she never “once accused [Harding] of anything”. Harding, an effete homosexual, later metaphorically compares the men and Nurse with the predator-prey relationship of rabbits and wolves, believing they are “victims of a matriarchy”, describing the men as “feeble, stunted, weak little rabbits” who “must recognise the wolf as the strong…for it would not be wise to challenge the wolf”. Harding’s justification of Ratched’s emasculative tactics, which he refers to as “a law of the natural world” results in a blind acceptance of her actions, as he is convinced that they are nothing more than for his “own benefit”. Ratched, symbolic of all-powerful bureaucracies, uses her autocratic control to corrupt the men and their masculinity, masking her cruelty behind the face of the “Therapeutic Community”. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five similarly explores the dangers of blind acceptance through the central character, Billy Pilgrim, who has “come unstuck in time”, and is abducted and “displayed in a zoo” on the extra-terrestrial planet Tralfamadore. Whilst Billy is confined to a “glass dome… green creatures…two feet high” force him to acknowledge that “among the things he could not change were the past, the present and the future”. Whilst the men in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest blindly accept Nurse Ratched’s actions to their own detriment, Billy’s acceptance of this alien notion of fate provides him with a sense of peace and understanding, believing “he was devoting himself to a higher calling”. In this way, Billy accepts the actions of those around him. Furthermore, the phrase “So it goes”, immediately follows a death in the novel and is spoken by the detached third-person omniscient narrator. The phrases’ apathetic voice initially dismisses the pain and sorrow typically connected with death, but also mimics the inevitability of dying, appearing over 100 times throughout the novel. This expression encapsulates Billy’s acceptance “of the things [he] cannot change”, as he now views death inexorably. This philosophy parallels Billy’s blind acceptance of his imprisonment and fate, but contrasts the men’s compliance with Nurse Ratched’s mentally harmful emasculation, despite both stemming from absolute power. The authors of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Slaughterhouse Five also criticise all-powerful governments, exposing the harsh reality of war and the horrors of 1960s psychiatric institutions.
Slaughterhouse Five is subtitled “The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death”, a stylistic choice by Vonnegut that highlights the omnipresence of young men enlisted in World War II, who satirically likens the war with a holy “Crusade”. Historically, the real Children’s Crusade involved young boys lured by Christian monks into believing “they were going to [fight in] Palestine”, but in reality, “half of the [children] were sold to North Africa”. Vonnegut compares this mass martyrdom of the 13th century with the indiscriminate bloodshed of the 1940s, juxtaposing “foolish virgins…right at the end of childhood” with the carnage and devastation of the Dresden firebombing. These “boys” were mislead by romanticised depictions of war and powerful figures in society, who utilised their absolute power to expose young boys to the savagery of man. Similarly, the establishment of Billy Pilgrim as an anti-hero serves to deprive war of its heroic status, and unveil the reality of wars incited by autarchic governments. Billy, a “tall and weak…funny-looking child” is characterised in the war as being “powerless to harm the enemy or help his friends”, a soldier who “bore no arms…had no helmet, no weapon and no boots”. He constantly “wanted to quit…he was hungry, embarrassed, incompetent”, and …show more content…
strikingly contradictory to the intrepid and brawny American soldier advertised by their unconquerable government. In contrast, Kesey condemns society’s desire for conformity. Chief Bromden, the story’s narrator, views Nurse Ratched as a “high-ranking official” for the “Combine", a group that controls the world and its populace. He believes the “ward is a factory for the Combine”, a place where “mistakes made in neighbourhoods and in schools and in churches” are fixed. The “Combine” metaphorically represents societal oppression and the American government, a “machine” that strips men of their individuality and innate qualities, before sending the “completed product…back out into society”. Similarly, Nurse Ratched’s very name is a pun of the word “ratchet”, as Kesey compares her to a mechanical device that allows motion in only one direction. This further supports the notion that Nurse Ratched, an extension of the Combine, forces men to be “moulded” into a predetermined “slot”, fitting with societal expectations and bureaucratic requirements, even if individuality is culled as a cost. Furthermore, during one of Bromden’s numerous hallucinations, he ‘sees’ a “worker slice up the front of Old Blastic…but no blood or innards falls out…just a shower of rust and ashes”. The “rust and ashes” Bromden ‘sees’ highlights how institutionalised patients are inevitably dehumanised. They are now old machines, devoid of mortal emotion and character, mere by-products of an oppressive and ethically corrupt regime. Whilst Kesey’s text criticises psychiatric institutions and society’s “adjustment” of those deemed different, Vonnegut’s unveils the atrocities of war through men who serve as “playthings of enormous forces”. Randle McMurphy and Billy Pilgrim both emerge as Christ-like figures, sprung from societies and institutions whose power is absolute. Throughout One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Randle McMurphy progresses to become a symbol of freedom and salvation for his fellow patients. Because of this, McMurphy bears semblance to the Biblical figure Jesus Christ, the Son of God. McMurphy “[leads] twelve [men] towards the ocean to fish”, similar to that of Jesus, who took his 12 disciples to the Sea of Galilee to become “fishers of men” in the New Testament. From this expedition, McMurphy earns the men’s belief, faith and trust, as these “weak-knees from a nuthouse” are introduced to a liberty unbeknownst to them. As McMurphy awaits electroshock therapy on a “cross-shaped” table, he adopts a “crown of thorns”, clearly foreshadowing his eventual demise or “crucifixion”. When McMurphy sacrifices himself to save the men from Ratched’s autocratic regime and society at large, it mirrors Christ’s sacrifice for the “sins of the world”. Comparably, Billy Pilgrim emerges as a Christ-figure in Slaughterhouse Five, albeit embodying different ‘holy’ qualities. The first indication comes in the text’s epigraph, a quatrain which declares that “the little Lord Jesus No crying He makes”. Jesus’s suppression of crying is reflected through Billy, who only ever “burst into tears” when he saw “the condition” of the horses in Dresden “which the Americans treated…as though it was no more sensitive than a Chevrolet”, but Billy “hadn’t cried about anything in the war”. Furthermore, both Billy and Jesus served as icons of deliverance in their respective societies, encouraging the populace to welcome death. After lecturing on “flying saucers and the true nature of time”, Billy explains that “if you think that death is a terrible thing, then you have not understood a word I have said”, believing we all “live again” shortly. This notion of ‘living again’ is Vonnegut’s subtle reference to Billy’s claimed resurrection on Tralfamadore. Equivalently, Jesus Christ preaches in John 11:25-26 that “anyone who believes in Him will live after dying, and will never ever die”. Both men’s ideological teachings differed from the conformist views of their societies, and as a result, Jesus was “despised and rejected by men”, whilst men were “repulsed” by Billy. Each text presents their central characters as Christ-like figures through the frequent use of religious imagery, men whose beliefs separated them from the powerful realm of mainstream societies. The development of psychological illnesses in Slaughterhouse Five’s protagonist and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’s narrator can be attributed to their submission to systems where absolute power is exercised.
Chief Bromden, the narrator of Kesey’s text, is a “six-feet seven inches…Columbia Indian” afflicted with schizophrenia. Bromden immediately explains that the events of the novel are “the truth even if [they] didn’t happen”, positioning readers to question his reliability as a narrator. Bromden begins by stating, “They [the aides] are out there…a hum of black machinery, humming hate and death and other hospital secrets”. Bromden’s paranoia and schizophrenic tendencies are hinted at through his impeding visions of Ratched and her despotic ward, all of which are littered with mechanical “devices” and “instruments”. Furthermore, Bromden sees Nurse Ratched “blow up big as a tractor…so big [he] can smell the machinery inside”. Nevertheless, Bromden believes he too is a “machine”, but “with flaws that can’t be fixed”, as his life has been filled with instances where the power exercised has been absolute. For instance, his mother’s tyrannical dominance over his father led to the loss of his ancestral land, his conscription in WW2 exposed him to the atrocities of war, and his reputed “200 electro-shock treatments” all culminated in schizophrenia. Bromden is now forced to hide in hallucinatory “green fog”, something he believes he “can slip into and feel safe”. In striking
similarity, Slaughterhouse Five’s protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, suffers from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder after witnessing the brutality of war, where men’s feet “transformed…into blood puddings”, and “fire rained from the sky”. Because of his disorder, the novel’s structure reflects Billy’s fragmented, tormented mind. The novel, written as a stream of consciousness, is consistently interrupted by different “thoughts” and episodes of time travel, positioning readers to follow the events created by Billy’s mind. Similarly, it is not mere coincidence that a novel written by Kilgore Trout, Billy’s favourite author, follows “an Earthling man kidnapped by extra-terrestrials and put on display in a zoo on another planet”. Because of the likeness to the events of Billy’s “experience”, it can be assumed that Tralfamadore is simply another figment of his imagination, emanating from his PTSD. Both Vonnegut and Kesey explore Billy’s Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder and Bromden’s schizophrenia as repercussions of absolute power exercised in both war, and society at large. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest both explore autocratic power and examine the corruption that stems. Both authors postulate that a blind acceptance of the actions of power-wielding authorities originates from abused authority. Whilst Billy accepts fate as a positive coping mechanism after war, Nurse Ratched’s castration of her male patients, to which they passively consent to, serves no such purpose. Whilst Kesey’s text denounces psychiatric institutions and the administrations that run them, Vonnegut’s reviles the prevalence of “babies” sent to war and the barbaric nature of war itself. In both novels, Christ-like figures emerge as icons of salvation and freedom, sprung from absolutist societies. The development of psychological illnesses in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’s narrator and Slaughterhouse Five’s protagonist can be ascribed to governments whose power is absolute, ranging from all-powerful institutional bureaucracies to conscription in WW2.
The novel that Kesey wrote is focused on how Bromden’s past memories should not let him down, but to gather his strength and let go of the past to start anew. Kesey builds up the encouragement through the help on McMurphy in order for Bromden to face reality with the hallucinations, to Nurse Ratched’s authorities, and the use of symbolism.
Slaughterhouse-Five is a story of Billy Pilgrim 's capture by the Nazi Germans during the last years of World War II. Throughout the narrative, excerpts of Billy’s life are portrayed from his pre-war self to his post-war insanity. Billy is able to move both forward and backwards through his life in a random cycle of events. Living the dull life of a 1950s optometrist in Ilium, New York, he is the lover of a provocative woman on the planet Tralfamadore, and simultaneously an American prisoner of war in Nazi Germany. While I agree with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt that Slaughterhouse-Five effectively combines fact and fiction, I argue that the book is more centralized around coping.
The human mind is a part of the body which current science knows little about. Trigger mechanisms, and other factors within the brain are relatively unknown to current humanity. Therefore, in order to produce a diagnostic on why Billy Pilgrim became “unstuck” in time, the reader of Slaughterhouse Five must come to terms with situations concerning the experiences described in the novel. Billy Pilgrim starts out, chronologically, as a fairly basic infantryman in the United States Army during the last Nazi offensive of the war, also known as the Battle of the Bulge (Vonnegut, 32). That battle resulted in fierce fighting, and also in massacres (such as the one that occurred near Malmedy, France), and the reader may be sure that there were men who became mentally unsound due to the effects of what they experienced there. Pilgrim is taken in by a group of soldiers who have found themselves behind the Nazi lines and are required to travel, by foot, back to friendly lines (Vonnegut, 32).
“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.” Stated Abraham Lincoln. That quotes applies to Slaughterhouse-Five because even when you think you have conquered something and achieve the victory doesn’t mean that it will last long. Billy Pilgrim is the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim is non-heroic in the anti-war novel which makes the theme of the book Slaughterhouse-Five a man who is “unstuck” in time.
Chief Bromden, known as Chief Broom, is a long-term patient that serves in the psychiatric ward due to his schizophrenic condition. Because of his condition, he creates many hallucinations. For example, he believes that he can hear mechanical operations behind the walls of the psychiatric ward. In discussion of Chief Bromden, one controversial issue has been whether or not he is a heroic figure because of his hallucinations, failing to address the real events in the novel. On the other hand, many contend how Chief Bromden is a hero utilizes his surroundings and observations to overcome his psychosis. I believe that Ken Kesey portrays Chief Bromden as a figure who completes the hero’s journey because he overcomes his own psychosis and decides to express himself and live his own life.
White characters such as Nurse Ratched and McMurphy show surprise that he is able to speak and understand them while the black boys claim that Indians can't read or write. Bromden justifies that he is victim to racial inequality when people look "at me [him] like I'm [he’s] some kind of bug" (26) or when people "see right through me [him] like I [he] wasn't there." Throughout Bromden's childhood, he realized that the white people thought he was deaf and mute and that even if he spoke, no one could hear him. In order to survive through the dangers of the social hierarchy he existed in through the ward, he feigns deafness. Bromden points out that, "it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all." (178) Bromden, has also been constantly abused by the staff and other patients at the ward who call him Chief Broom, a derogation of his name as Chief and a mockery of his floor mopping “duties” in the ward that the black boys force upon him. Bromden's circumstances is illustrative of his race and of his entire tribe. The social criticism that Kesey portrays, emerges piecemeal through Bromden’s constant flashbacks and hallucinations of his village. Kesey compares Native Indian cohesion with the new estrangement accompanying the loss of Indian cultures and the adjustment of a white lifestyle to show the social unity once created by Indian traditions. By the end of
This independent reading assignment is dedicated to Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut experienced many hardships during and as a result of his time in the military, including World War II, which he portrays through the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim. Slaughterhouse-Five, however, not only introduces these military experiences and the internal conflicts that follow, but also alters the chronological sequence in which they occur. Billy is an optometry student that gets drafted into the military and sent to Luxembourg to fight in the Battle of Bulge against Germany. Though he remains unscathed, he is now mentally unstable and becomes “unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 30). This means that he is able to perceive
The word “power” is defined in many ways. There is not a specific statement that defines what power is or what it’s supposed to be. Power can make or break a person or even an entire nation. Power is a measure of an entity’s ability to control the environment around itself, including the behavior of other entities. Ken Kesey, the author of the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, shows us the difference in power and control among the strong nurses and the men in the psychiatric ward. The men who are placed in the ward are controlled by Nurse Ratched, who takes control of situations the same way she did when she was an army nurse. Nurse Ratched is used to the men on the ward obeying her until a man named R.P. McMurphy is admitted. McMurphy is a strong man who had power and control in the outside world and continues to show his power and control once he is in admitted which creates a lot of conflicts within the story. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
When somebody abuses a great amount of power, that individual can lose all their power. The struggle against someone who abuses power is perfectly depicted in the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey. When someone abuses their power, they can impose certain feelings and actions onto others. If someone tries to conceal their personality, . Finally, if someone abuses power and is constantly challenged by another individual who is trying to take the power abuser’s power away from them, the power abuser will always be frightened of his or her challenger. When someone abuses power and takes full control, they can lose all their power and respect quickly.
Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse Five, provides a powerful first-hand account describing the horrific events of WWII. Vonnegut recounted the events and wrote about himself through the novel's protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. He was pessimistic regarding the novel because he wrote, “It is so short and jumbled and jangled, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre” (Vonnegut 22). However, on the other spectrum critics considered it to be “one of the worlds greatest antiwar books”(Vonnegut Back cover). The controversial novel was published in 1969, which was over two decades after WWII.
In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, he talks about World War II and the bombing of Dresden. He writes about this historical event through the character Billy Pilgrim, Billy is drafted into the army at age twenty-one during World War II. He is captured and sent to Luxembourg and then later Dresden as a prisoner. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut constantly ridiculous Billy. He describes Billy as a character that has no individualism and no choice in anything that happens in his life.
However, the books present response to war in a contrasting way. The incorporation of repetition, balance, and the idea of little control of one’s fate display parallelism between Billy Pilgrim and the soldiers of The Things They Carried while still distinguishing the existing psychological and internal contrast between them. When Billy is leading a parade in front of the Dresdeners prior to the bombing, Vonnegut
“Power comes from temperament but enthusiasm kills the switch”. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken kesey reveals how the struggle for power and authority is shown in the psychiatric hospital. Ken kesey expresses this mastery through Nurse Ratched and McMurphy and their effect on the patients in the ward. Nurse Ratched has all the power due to her technically being in charge of the ward. The patients “men” are powerless with their acceptance and obedience to her actions. However, everything changes when McMurphy arrives. His confidence and charisma give him some type of power that challenges and disrupts the Nurse’s drunkening thirst for power. Power in this novel is lost, gained and repossessed.
“Slaughterhouse-Five” is an anti-war novel. It describes a flesh-and-blood world. Main character is Billy Pilgrim, he is a time traveler in this book, his first name Billy is from the greatest novelist in the USA in 19 century’s novel “Billy Budd” ; and his last name is from “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. Differently, the main character in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” ’s traveling has meaning and discovering, Billy Pilgrim’s traveling just has violence and escape. In the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut ’s main character, Billy Pilgrim is sane and his time travel is half in his mind half is real. He is looked so innocent and weakness, there is a sentence which is spoken by Billy Pilgrim “So it goes.” (2) This quotation shows that a poignant sense of helplessness.
Slaughterhouse-Five displays many themes. However, there is a dispute as to whether the book is an anti-war novel or not. Slaughterhouse-Five, the character Kurt Vonnegut explains to Mary O’Hare, is intended to be an anti-war novel, and he says that it shall also be called The Children’s Crusade because of the effect it had on young men who fought in the war. Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war novel because Vonnegut, the character, says it is in the first chapter, because it depicts the terrible long-term effects the war has on Billy, and because it exposes war's devastating practices.