One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Freedom

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1. The theme of freedom and confinement is found throughout the novel through Kesey’s words. Kesey encapsulates his thoughts on the subject by discerning the differences between freedom and confinement in the world. In the novel, he evinces the idea of freedom versus confinement through the mental institution and the outside world. The outside world contains many freedoms with the ability to perform any actions with free will. On the other hand, inside the mental institution is the controlling Big Nurse Ratched who dominates over all of the patients, telling them what they can or cannot do. McMurphy is sentenced to the institution by force and learns that most of his comrades are able to leave whenever they would like. The patients are there voluntarily because they feel a sense of security and freedom in the confinement of the ward, despite being confined with the treatments such as electroshock therapy. McMurphy acts as a catalyst for the patients in the ward to start fighting for the …show more content…
Ken Kesey’s usage of laughter in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is that it is a powerful factor when it comes to a human’s sanity and liveliness. The first entrance of McMurphy in the novel is an enormous surprise to the patients in the mental institution. Besides occasional chuckles here and there from the patients, they had never encountered full on laughter in their time inside of the institution. They had never seen as much life inside the walls of the ward until the arrival of McMurphy. He is unaffected by his new and drab surroundings. McMurphy’s laughter begins to bring back light and humanity into the dark ward, causing the patients to laugh and return to the reality mindset, especially during the most intense times of trouble. He is able to achieve laughter from all of the patients on the fishing trip. Despite the Big Nurse’s idea that laughter is what makes one insane, McMurphy is able to bring sanity back into the patients through the power of
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