Theme Of Microcosm In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Param Jansari
Mrs. Llyod-Henry
ENG 4U0
January 20th 2016
The Asylum: A microcosm of Society The 1950’s, a time of oppression and confinement. A time when people were ignorant of their own situations and were manipulated by those in power. Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, represents an asylum as a microcosm of the 50’s society. It shows how the patients are oppressed by the rules of Nurse Ratched. The patients are unable to stand up for themselves due them fearing and in some ways relying on Nurse Ratched. Eventually, a hero, McMurphy comes to the asylum and free the patients from Nurse Ratched’s grasps. In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Ken Kesey uses the ward as a microcosm of the 50’s society. Kesey confronts the negative impacts of such a society with the use of allegories throughout the novel, he shows how society takes away takes away freedom, the ability to make decisions and how those in power benefit from this.

In the novel, the patients are manipulated by Nurse Ratched, she has rules and regulations which keep everyone in their place, if these rules are not followed then they are punished. For example, at the beginning of the book, Chief Bromden says, “when the fog clears to where I can see, I'm sitting in the day room. They didn't take me to the Shock Shop this time. I remember they took me out of the shaving room and locked me in Seclusion…This morning I plain don't remember. They got enough of those things they call pills down me” (Kesey 10). At the

Kesey uses the asylum as an allegory of the world, he shows how patients are confines, and robbed of their free will, and how those in power benefit from this, drawing parallels to the oppression of the people by the government. The novel reveals the defects of a capitalist society, how it manipulates people and warns of what may happen if people do no stand up for