Essay: Anti Authoritarianism in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest

Sample Essay

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a tragic yet inspirational account of one man’s self-sacrifice in a struggle against hypocrisy and oppression. Set on a ward of a mental hospital in Oregon, the novel depicts characters that could be found in many settings and a conflict between authoritarianism and individualism that is truly universal.  Ken Kesey tells the story through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a longtime patient who is uniquely knowledgeable about hospital routines and procedures and privy to staff secrets. As important as what Chief knows is what he does not know; he can only infer Randle McMurphy’s motives, a process of discovery that gives the novel its focus.

A paranoid schizophrenic, Bromden reports his hallucinations faithfully; while they cannot be taken literally, they do make sense. As Chief says, his story is “the truth, even if it didn’t happen” (Kesey 45). The narrative is in a way a creation of its era, the anti-authoritarian anti-cultural sixties, celebrating the revolt of an entity in opposition to the method. Particularly it reflects modern displeasure with recognized psychiatric observations and establishments, submission to institutions and overdependence on medications. This simply raises a question at the authoritarian society.

Mountain Language (1988) also reflects the abuse of authority and mistreatment in opposition to prisoners of the social structure and politics. In this small piece of writing Harold Pinter depicts a prisoner’s mother who is asked to remain silent by the guards and officers of the social structure. They do this because she does not speak the common language. The title itself reflects that the short play presents a more distinct setting and tangible subject than the international totalitarianism in the text. Although the play upholds a symbolic topicality for processes of control, decisional concentration, consistency, and conformity in any state, the play appears almost transparent in its setting in an immature democratic organization, for example, the incarceration of Kurds and playwrights in Turkey. In many ways, the play patents the contract of PEN International.

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