One Flew Over the Cuckoo

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One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

• Author bio
• Historical context
• Characters
• Themes

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Ken Kesey, the author

• Farm boy from Oregon, born 1935
• Attended University of Oregon, married high
  school sweetheart, had 3 kids
• 1959 volunteers in an experiment about
  hallucinogenic drugs
• Volunteers to work night shift in a mental ward
• Believed patients werent crazy, just
  individualized beyond societys expectations
• Begins writing
• Goes on a road trip with his friends, the Merry
  Pranksters

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The Merry Pranksters

• Early 1960s
• Initiated the hippie phenomena in S.F.
• Openly used psyochoactive drugs, wore outlandish
  attire, performed bizarre acts of street theater,
  engaged in peaceful confrontation

• "What we hoped was that we could stop the
  coming end of the world."

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Kesey after Further

• Spent six months in Mexico as a fugitive from the
  law for possession of marijuana
• Turned himself in in 1966 and spent five months
  in jail
• Wrote largely autobiographical prose after
  imprisonment before returning to fiction
• Died in 2001

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The Counterculture

• Unconventional appearance, music, drugs,
  communitarian experience and sexual liberation
• White, middle class, young Americans
• Espoused the ideals of free speech, equality, and
  happiness
• Centralized in Haight St, S.F.

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Themes to Consider

• Physical and moral courage
• Self-reliance
• Independence
• What is insanity? 
• Group effort - The Combine
• Morality  - good over evil
• Biblical allegory
• Challenging symbols of conformity 

• Therapeutic role of nature 
• Importance of sexuality
• Anti-feminism  - superiority of males
• Human freedom  vs control
• Humor and satire, the power of laughter
• Modern version of Western
• Cartoon imagery
• Symbolism of names

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Merry Pranksters
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