Dehumanization In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

When Ken Kesey sat down to pen his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he enlightened many to the problems that were taking place under the veneer of perfection. In his life, he experienced some of these problems, as Kesey had been the subject of multiple science experiments. These experiments were later discovered to be top secret mind control experiments under the purview of the Central Intelligence Agency. These experiments enlightened Kesey and motivated him to share his new world view. Kesey’s worldview would go one to shape the minds of many in the United States and would be one of the largest harbingers of the hippie movement. His novel crafts an overarching theme of challenging particular aspects of society that previously had

been held in high regard.
One pillar of society Kesey had grown to distrust was the mental institution. This distrust is rooted in the experiments that he had been part of during the late 50s’. Vik Lovell, a friend of Kesey’s, actually brought these tests to the attention of him. Lovell thought Kesey would be incredibly interested in what the drug did once in the system of a man. Lovell’s influence in starting the acid tests could be the reason Kesey choose to dedicate the novel to Lovell, with the inscription : “To Vik Lovell: who told me dragons did not exist, then led me to their lairs,” (Kesey). Kesey had been brought to his local VA hospital and given these psychedelic drugs in order to test their effects on people. Once on these drugs, Kesey was no different than any mental patient in the world (Drury). Kesey was trapped in the same type of room and was detached from reality, just as a mental patient would have been. This incident showed Kesey just how much he had conformed to society without a second thought. This phenomena described well in the following quotation from the author Kurt Vonnegut: “A sane person to an insane society must appear insane” (Vonnegut). This experience appears to have impacted Kesey enough to have his novel focus upon a mental institution.
As Kesey worked nights at the same institution he had gotten to know well as a test subject, he started to put his experience to word. One unique choice Kesey made in the writing was his choice of viewpoint. Instead of choosing to present the novel from the typical third person limited omniscient perspective, he instead chose to write it in first person. This point of view would go on to shape the novel, as Kesey choose Chief Bromden, a mental patient, for his narrator. One of the most important quotations from Bromden happens very early in the book. It is as follows: “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen,” (Kesey 8). This quotation on its surface may appear contradictory; as the truth cannot possibly be an event that did not occur. However, this quotation speaks to the state of Bromden and his reliability as a narrator. After this quotation, the reader does not fully trust Bromden’s version of events, just as Kesey did not fully trust what the institutions of his time were telling him. Kesey is openly daring the reader to dispute the narrator's version of the events, even though he refuses to allow the reader to see an alternate perspective.
Another interpretation of the aforementioned quotation is that this story happened exactly as it has been written from Bromden’s perspective. This interpretation ties into a different aspect of the novel, determining the sanity of another is a completely subjective process. This process is merely a comparison to the average person in the world. This comparison certainly has flaws, as if someone does not compare to the average person they are classified as insane rather than different. This subjectivity is symbolically shown the visit from the public relations representative who speaks to, “...how much things have improved over the years,” (Kesey 37). This quotation shows that the people touring the institution are judging everything based on their perception of an institution, not just how it actually is. This perspective on the Bromden’s quotation is directly related to the first tenet of existentialism, existence before essence. It discusses that everyone is shaped by their unique experiences so all people, though the same at birth, can end at radically different places. Using this theory, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the people described as insane in the novel, they just have had different experiences shape their essence. The existential perspective on the quotation also delves into the inability to completely understand the person without understanding their essence, yet, that is not possible without living the same exact life as that person. Another quotation that reflects on the difficulty in determining a person’s sanity comes from Bromden in regards to the patients rebelion: ‘If somebody’d of come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty-year –old woman hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order and recriminations, they’d of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons,” (Kesey 145). In this quotation, the reader sees that from an objective lens, there is very little difference between the big nurse and the patient, other than there standing in the social hierarchy inside the institution. This is a big difference in comparison to the world Kesey tries to create using the symbol of an insane asylum. The final quotation that shows the subjectivity in the term insane comes from Mac, and is as follows:
You gripe, you bitch for weeks on end about how you can’t stand this place, can’t stand the nurse or anything about her, and all the time you ain’t committed. I can understand it with some of those old guys on the ward. They’re nuts. But you, you’re not exactly the everyday man on the street, but you’re not nuts, (Kesey 195).
This quotation is directed at Billy Bibbit, but is applicable to most of the other acuted on the ward. Mac is trying to show them that insanity is relative and it is okay to be who they are. However, the extiesetnical perspective on sanity was not one shared by those who worked at the mental institution.
Those who worked at the believed that these people needed to be fixed before they could be sent back out into society.

This was first mentioned by Bromden in the following quotation: “One side of the room younger patients, known as Acutes because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed...” (Kesey 15). This quotation appears to dehumanize the Acutes, as they are not normal and must be fixed. This dehumanization, paired with other tonal choices by Kesey work to characterize those in the mental institution as animals. The next quotation that describes the institutions ability to fix its patents comes from the lifeguard and is as follows: I’d of left here before now if it was up to me. Maybe I couldn’t play first string, with this bum arm, but I could of folded towels, couldn’t I? I could of done something. That nurse on my ward, she keeps telling the doctor I ain’t ready. Not even to fold towels in the crummy old locker room, I ain’t ready,” (Kesey 171). This quotation shows how much control these institutions have over the people they abertarially deem insane after their subjective examination. This type of control is exactly what Kesey is speaking out against through this novel, as he believes that even the insane could be a value to society. The final quote that illustrates the control the institution has in its quest to help comes from Nurse

Ratched:
Please understand: We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of thought about their therapeutic value. A good many of you are in here because you could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World, because you refused to face up to them, because you tried to circumvent them and avoid them...I tell you this hoping you will understand that it is entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline and order. (Kesey 199-200).
This quote tried to character the nurse as a woman who is just trying to do her job, however this could not be further from the case. The nurse has gone far and above the call of duty, leading her down a dark path of intimidation. This intimidation could have been the same intimidation that Kesey was feeling from society while on LSD. This intimidation is certainly one of the most powerful tools the nurse has, and it continues to yield results in most situations.
Through the aforementioned recurring themes Kesey creates a motif that teaches the reader to challenge specific parts of society. The first example of this lies in Kesey’s choice of a first person point of view. The second example is the difficulty in determining one’s sanity relative to another. The final example is that the residents of the institution needed to be fixed. All of these examples tie into the world as Kesey experienced it while the government experimented on him. Kesey wanted to challenge the world and the people that controlled it. This bias bleed into the prose of the novel and his LSD fueled worldview would go on to shape a generation and a country.