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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
by Ken Kesey
** spoiler alert **
Maybe when it first came out, there was something to it. But this is not a book that has aged well.
(First, don't think that I'm railing against the idea that the mental health treatment system has any problems. And don't think I'm defending lobotomies and electroshock treatment (though it's worth bearing in mind that lobotomies weren't a hard target -- by early 60s, when this book was published, lobotomies were significantly on their way out (though they were still performed).))
Now. My problems with this book are twofold: first, whether intentional or otherwise (and I think it's intentional), the stance that mental illness, as an actual, serious problem, is nonexistent. Look back. Nearly no one in the ward actually has any problems. They're tired. They feel emasculated by society (more on that later). But as for anything else? Nah. This is seriously problematic for me. Honestly, a lot of people do feel that mental illness isn't medical and isn't treatable and can be cured by just deciding to snap out of it (a la Bromden at the end). Did Kesey think this? I'm not sure. The evidence points to yes.
Second, women. Women, when you get down to it, are at the root of every problem that every man in this book has. Some of them have an emasculating mother. Some have an emasculating wife. Some have a father married to an emasculating wife. Some of them just find everyone (except the hookers) emasculating. I find it significant that, at the end, when McMurphy ultimately defeats Ratched, he does it by exposing her breasts and causing her to lose her voice. Um, hi, rape culture. (Am I saying she's an admirable character? No. But that doesn't take away from my problem with her ultimate fate.) Yes. Some men have problems with women. But when you write an entire novel in which there is not a single female character who would not benefit from what one might call a good rogering, then that, my friend, tells more about you than you'd like it to.
(First, don't think that I'm railing against the idea that the mental health treatment system has any problems. And don't think I'm defending lobotomies and electroshock treatment (though it's worth bearing in mind that lobotomies weren't a hard target -- by early 60s, when this book was published, lobotomies were significantly on their way out (though they were still performed).))
Now. My problems with this book are twofold: first, whether intentional or otherwise (and I think it's intentional), the stance that mental illness, as an actual, serious problem, is nonexistent. Look back. Nearly no one in the ward actually has any problems. They're tired. They feel emasculated by society (more on that later). But as for anything else? Nah. This is seriously problematic for me. Honestly, a lot of people do feel that mental illness isn't medical and isn't treatable and can be cured by just deciding to snap out of it (a la Bromden at the end). Did Kesey think this? I'm not sure. The evidence points to yes.
Second, women. Women, when you get down to it, are at the root of every problem that every man in this book has. Some of them have an emasculating mother. Some have an emasculating wife. Some have a father married to an emasculating wife. Some of them just find everyone (except the hookers) emasculating. I find it significant that, at the end, when McMurphy ultimately defeats Ratched, he does it by exposing her breasts and causing her to lose her voice. Um, hi, rape culture. (Am I saying she's an admirable character? No. But that doesn't take away from my problem with her ultimate fate.) Yes. Some men have problems with women. But when you write an entire novel in which there is not a single female character who would not benefit from what one might call a good rogering, then that, my friend, tells more about you than you'd like it to.
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Matt
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rated it 5 stars
Dec 25, 2011 02:13am
The nurse on Disturbed ward was the one thing that contradicts your whole argument
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I would agree with this so much if the book hadn't been written before second wave feminism even existed. The problem with feminist interpretations is that they need to be taken in context. Like I get annoyed about Fight Club for the same reasons, but because it was written after feminism was supposedly no longer necessary. But, yes, the portrayal of women in the book and how they were degraded and mostly not even referred to by names apart from Big Nurse (even then, that's hardly her actual name- all the others were called 'the girl' or the little birthmarked nurse or whatever) did annoy me a lot, but I just had to remind myself to take it in the context of the early 1960s. As long as people don't actually agree with what Ken Kesey was trying to say in the 21st century, I don't have a problem and treat it as a historical work rather than something which we can actually learn from now about the present.
