Politics, Government and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey was published in 1962 and was a best seller of its time. The novel was important for its time because of its anti-establishment message. The United States government at the time was involved in a struggle and the American people were concerned over the threat of nuclear war. The theme of the novel is the individual versus society. I will prove using text from the novel and other critical works that the politics and rules of the hospital mimic that of society.
The setting of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the main ward of a mental institution, and the year is somewhere in the late nineteen-fifties, early nineteen-sixties. The point of view is first person with Chief Bromden narrating. Chief Bromden is a Native American who pretends to be deaf and dumb not because he wants to but because people have ignored him for so long it just comes naturally. The themes of the novel are: the individual against society, sanity a...