Engl 209:
Reading and Discussion Questions on

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

E.K.Sparks
Engl 209.3
Summer II, 1997

Plot

As with Slaughterhouse Five, you need to make a Gliederung or chapter-by-chapter outline of main events.

In particular, throughout the course of the book, you need to trace Chief Broom's progress towards sanity; this is the main thread of the whole plot. What are the various stages he goes through? Find the important incidents that show him taking steps out of his defenses.

Another way to look at the plot is through the pattern of Campbell's hero's quest. (This works best for Mac as hero.) How does the novel enact the various stages of the hero's journey?

Character

Chief Bromden is the narrator. How does seeing things through the Chief's eyes change the book? What does the Chief's perspective add to McMurphy's perspective? (How is book different from the movie?)

Can you trust the Chief's perceptions? What are his most typical distortions? In what terms/ metaphors does he see reality?

Is the Chief really crazy? How is he perhaps sane -- seeing a deeper truth?

What are the Chief's main defense mechanisms? How do they help him cope? What is the fog?

You will need to construct a map of the Chief's past, much as we constructed one for Billy Pilgrim. How did the Chief get the way he is at the beginning of the book? How was war tied in? What were other major causative factors?

McMurphy -- add up all the stereotypes that go into his creation.

How does he fit the American image of masculinity?

Check out how Mac relates to each separate person on the ward. How is his reaction to Billy different from his treatment of Harding, Ellis, etc. What do his responses to the men tell us about him and about who they are?

Notice the imagery surrounding Big Nurse. What is she symbolic of? Thematically, how is she opposed to Mac?

Theme/Symbols/ Images

Notice references to Christ and Christianity throughout the book. Is Mac a Christ figure?

Try to figure out the bird symbolism throughout the book.

What's the significance/importance of laughter?

What are the attitudes towards women and sex throughout the book? What kinds of images of women do we get? Is this book sexist? How does it reflect contemporary (1964) attitudes towards women?

Why is the Chief a Native American? What is the attitude towards Blacks in this book. Is the book racist?

Connections

What does Cuckoo's Nest have in common with Slaughterhouse Five ? Think in terms of PLOT, CHARACTERS, THEMES, IMAGES.

Do any of the image patterns in the war poems show up in Cuckoo's Nest?

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