In awe of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

I am sat here writing my English Literature coursework which is to compare Hamlet, The Bell Jar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm developing the quotes I've found and analysing them. Ken Kesey writes so flawlessly. He makes my essay so much easier as I could probably write a page of analysis on just one phrase in his novel. It's fantastic. By far one of my favourite novels of all time. 

Ken Kesey is an amazing writer. The way he writes gets me all riled up and ready for a rebellion. Almost all of his paragraphs are so profound. He makes every sentence count unlike some novels these days which tend to go off on tangents or just write things for the sake of writing them. It sometimes reminds me of Charles Dickens days when they were paid per page so just wrote huge amounts on nothing. Yes, I do love Dickens and am a big fan of his novels. However, I much prefer the writing of Kesey and others who are straight to the point and do not waffle, keeping you hooked every second of the way!!

"So you see my friend, it is somewhat as you stated: man has but one truly effective weapon against the juggernaut of modern matriarchy, but it certainly is not laughter. One weapon, and with every passing year in this hip, motivationally researched society, more and more people are discovering how to render that weapon useless and conquer those who have hitherto been conquerors"

This quote is just wow. It highlights everything that is great about this novel. This quote somehow sums up the whole novel and brings all the themes together. Obviously here, Kesey begins to develop his misogynistic view of modern society. Women are fully dominant over the men. The only weapon men have against this is their penis. Their only chance to regain power is by rape but women have learnt this and now know how to render this weapon useless, by castration.

Throughout the men's lives they have been oppressed by women and have many damaging memories involving women i.e their mothers, wives and Miss Ratchett. The ways these men gain power is through sex. McMurphy who goads Miss Ratchett all the time, Chief's erection to which McMurphy replies that he is "Getting bigger already" in literal senses and in terms of power and finally Billy Bibbit's wild night with Candy the prostitute which helps him to regain his confidence. However, as always the women are able to take that away as we see towards the end of the novel after all this rebellion that McMurphy has been stirring up just goes down the drain.

I don't know how much I agree with this in reality however the novel certainly makes me feel pretty misogynistic.