One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Transcendentalism

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” The father of transcendentalism, Emerson believed that people who resist change to be what is most natural, themselves, are the true heroes of the world. Ken Kesey, another popular writer, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in a similar spirit. His novel takes place on the ward of a controlling army nurse at an Oregon mental institution in the late 1950s. The storyline mainly follows the interactions between Nurse Ratched, a manipulating representation of society, and Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient, gambler, and renegade. Kesey echoes the transcendentalists and romantics in his work by

using various settings that portray the triumph of natural divergence over technological conformity.

Both One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and transcendentalist/romantic works display nature as representative of independence, technology’s failed attacks on the earthly, and otherworldly backdrops that reveal truth.
Natural Settings exhibit people diverging from societal pressures to be the best versions of themselves.

Emily Dickinson, a transcendentalist author, demonstrates how settings away from society and technology are representations for virtue and individuality. In her poem Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church she writes about how she stays home on Sundays saying, “I keep it, staying at Home/–With a Bobolink for a Chorister/–And an Orchard, for a Dome” (Some Keep the Sabbath going to Church). Dickinson uses objects of nature such as birds and flowers to convey that she loves nature so much she stays away from society. She basks in her natural haven far from a massive stone cathedral and an orthodox way of life. She is at peace in nature but more importantly she follows her own beliefs and ideas, exhibiting her independence. In Ken Kesey’s writing, one such example of a character who prospers greatly in nature is Billy Bibbit, the stuttering patient from Nurse Ratched’s ward. Throughout the first half of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bibbit fails to show any genuine feelings other than fear due to the immense control the nurse has over his life. However, he finds courage on the expansive open ocean. When on the boat trip there is “a fuss as to who'd be the three that braved that [storm] without [life]jackets... Everybody was kind of surprised [when] Billy...volunteered...and helped the girl right into [his]” (252). Bibbit acts like a hero on the stormy seas, a far different

response to any danger he faces at the asylum. Away from institutions and their technological methods of conformity, Billy unearths his bravery by willingly giving up his safety for the sake of others. He acts as the best version of himself in nature far from societal pressures and displays what it means to be independent, using his own judgement and morals to help another person. The natural settings away from society and technology that Dickinson and Kesey utilize foster independence and positive character development, qualities that prove nature’s victory by enhancing the lives of characters.
While natural environments are a haven of freedom for protagonists, technological ones are precarious and present a clash between nature and its conforming counterpart. Settings such as the laboratory in The Birthmark reveal the danger of machines and science. In a mad pursuit for unearthly perfection, a scientist named Aylmer attempts to remove a hand shaped birthmark from the face of his wife. When his endeavor to make the mark disappear backfires, his wife proclaims, "You have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!" (20). The potion the alchemist uses to remove the blemish is representative of technology and perfection, presenting a clash between the earthly and the ideal. The death of Aylmer’s wife creates a very literal metaphor for the victory nature has over technology. Although the potion clears the mark, the woman perishes and fades from reality, demonstrating that when technology aims for unrealistic perfection, nature will dominate. Death, a natural phenomenon, takes Aylmer’s wife, further proving that nature cannot be contained by technology. The tragic consequences that occur when science attempts to battle nature are a key element to romantic works. Kesey draws from the Romantics by applying technological settings in a similar fashion. His backdrop for technological conformity is Nurse Ratched’s ward. One such character on the ward undergoing treatment because of his differences from society is Dale Harding. While he has no mental illness, he is looked down upon by society for being a homosexual. When speaking on why he is in the asylum he explains, "I discovered at an early age that I was—shall we be kind and say different?... I indulged in certain practices that society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It wasn't the practices, I don't think, it was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me—and the great voices of millions chanting, 'Shame. Shame. Shame.' It's society's way of dealing with someone different" (308). Kesey strategically places him inside the ward where everything is supposed to be uniform from the daily schedule to the music volume. Harding’s differences create a clash between the natural and the technological; he is representative of the battle between individuality and conformity. The quest for similarity that descends top down from Nurse Ratched to the patients creates confusion for nonconformists such as Harding. Yet, no matter what drugs he is forced to take or however much electroshock therapy he goes through Harding will remain himself. Natural feelings such as sexuality cannot be altered, exhibiting another example of nature’s supremacy over technology. In The Birthmark and Cuckoo’s Nest technology seeks to manipulate characters into autonomy, conformity, and perfection in mechanical and societal settings. Exposing characters to autonomy and restriction jeopardizes their independence, a value that transcendentalists and romantics place heavy emphasis on. Kesey takes the ideas of the romantics and transcendentalists that focus on technology’s submission to nature and illuminates them to his audience through Dale Harding, a man whose natural uniqueness cannot be changed.
The scenes that take place in dreams and visions give readers a sense of what the truth is in the struggle of nature versus technology. In Dickinson’s I Could Not Stop for Death she explains her hypothetical courtship with a personified phenomenon as natural as Life: Death. While riding a chariot with Death, she “Paused before a House that seemed/A Swelling of the Ground /The Roof was scarcely visible/The Cornice – in the Ground/Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet/Feels shorter than the Day/I first surmised the Horses’ We Heads/Were toward Eternity” (I Could Not Stop for Death). In her fictitious world she includes symbols Kesey refers to as part of the combine such as a school and house. However, the house is barely visible, slipping back into the ground and conveying the mortality of technology. Only the eternal cycle of life and death lasts forever, while constructs of humanity eventually topple and return to nature. Dickinson’s encounter with Death highlights truths that cannot be found in everyday life among ordinary observations. The poem shows that nature is immortal and technology such as the house is only temporary. Yet, the chariot she rides on is a combination of nature and technology. An image of free spirited horses pulling a man made cart on two wheels presents the quintessential metaphor for the relationship between nature and technology. Without nature, there is no technology and without technology, what would carry Dickinson? The cart cannot be put before the horse because nature is essential to everything, as can be observed in her poem. But technology does have a part, albeit a smaller one, as the chariot she rides on supports her in the same way tools for farming support the agriculture of the world today. Ms. Dickinson recognizes the ultimate importance and value of all things natural yet does not reject all human inventions and tools, an example is her chariot. Drawing from thinkers like Dickinson, Kesey also utilizes otherworldly settings to show the ground truth in the nature versus technology struggle. Most notable is when Chief Bromden, the tall and mute narrator, hallucinates scenes of nature during electroshock therapy. He asks his father in his vision, “‘Didn’t we use to listen for buffalo by stickin' a knife in the ground, catch the handle in our teeth, hear a herd way off’” (284). Even confined to the restricting leather straps of conformity and shocked with electricity, the fuel for modern technology, Bromden dreams of nature. His body remains stuck in a technological hell but his mind roams free in natural nirvana with his father, searching for Buffalo. Visions are very personal, and allow people to reach deep into their minds. Through his hallucinations, Bromden breaks free of technology and finds himself in nature, showing the fragility and impermanence of conformity and constraint. An interesting parallel to Dickinson’s work can be seen when Bromden talks about using a knife to find the Buffalo, a knife being a man made object. Although both Dickinson and Kesey are staunch advocates of all things natural and convey the utmost importance of nature, they include subtle but noticeable technological elements such as the chariot and the knife that demonstrate how the feud is not as black and white as it may seem. After all, humans rely on technology for survival on a daily basis. The fundamental truth that humans are part nature, part technology, can only be seen in these otherworldly settings that uncover how divergent yet dependent human nature is. This paradox represents the crux of humanity. Dickinson and Kesey understand that technology is important to mankind, but the former’s house that is swallowed up by the ground indicates that humanity, like technology, may not be as independent and natural as the earth desires and will be engulfed like the house.
Kesey draws from the transcendentalists and romantics, using different settings to vaunt the victory of natural independence over technological restriction. He uses natural settings to highlight the individuality nature stands for, technological settings to show that perfection and uniformity are not natural characteristics, and visions that show how on an even playing field nature eternally defeats its man-made counterpart. The overarching theme of diverging nature’s dominance of conforming technology that the 1960s renegade draws from the transcendentalists and romantics applies not just to literature, but to the founding of the United States of America. Independence was won in the home of the brave by an underdog team of soldiers fighting from the cover of nature against uniform ranks of Red Coats. The same spirit that inspired authors including Kesey and Dickinson can be traced back to the Declaration of Independence, a natural move for a divergent people.