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It is what others think that so many people are really afraid of, but this fear out of attention is the one that actually should be feared by. People lose themselves in the crowd of gazes and judgments. They eventually learn to wear an iron mask like puppets on a stage. The renowned novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey here opens the gate to a society congregated in an asylum and brings the spotlight to the small show.

“If you don’t watch it people will force you one way or the other, into doing what they think you should do, or into just being mule-stubborn and doing the opposite out of spite”, states McMurphy, the novel’s protagonist. The storyline of the novel touches the very core of the reader, sometimes with poignant dialogues and sometimes with hilarious scenes. Nonetheless, it is the lesson told in between the lines that should be focused on. Behind dialogues and scenes, Kesey hopes to illustrate something else throughout the book— McMurphy, the true individual.

As an outcast who has spit on every regulation of the community, McMurphy outsmarts the law by feigning to be a lunatic and avoids going to prison. He is instead sentenced to a small asylum full of elderly, insane men wearing white uniforms. Nobody, not even McMurphy himself, expects him to be the one that knocks over the whole stage of this cuckoo’s nest. As a newcomer, he senses the subtle atmosphere and absurdity of the asylum. He helps the patients regain their identities as men, teaches how to refuse unreasonable force, and inspires them to release themselves from age-long oppression and ignorance from fear.

Striving to convey large amount of lessons compared to its length, the novel contains a number of symbolism and allegory. Just by reading the book once, a reader might only perceive the coup of a small troop of insane men with protagonist McMurphy as their Napoleon. But reading the book once again, the reader can recognize the hidden doors Kesey conceals between the lines, from genuine definition of insanity, fear, and power as the largest theme to trivial topics including women as castrators. Hence the book provides much fun with layers of allusions unveiling one by one, in accordance with the flipping sound of the pages.

The most essential theme reveals itself when connected to the reality. Kesey intends to depict the small asylum as a microcosm of society. The patients represent fellow members in a society outside the book, in other words, the real world. What should be highlighted is that patients do not reflect insanity, but the attitude of facing life. Their free will subdued, patients lock themselves up under power, and are rendered sick by the crushing reality. Under the pressure of authority and ignorance from fear, they turn their faces and immerse in other’s expectations.

“Then how about us?” asks Kesey to his readers. He has written the novel not only for entertainment, but also for enlightenment. Following his logic, people are merely pretending to become what they are expected to be. They lose their individuality in an effort to fit in to the world at large, just like the patients in the asylum. The only difference lies on the absence of McMurphy. To the patients, there is, at least for a short time, McMurphy as a North Star who can guide them. Unfortunately, there are only few, if any, in our society.

This is when the readers cease their steps for a moment and contemplate where they are standing on. They start with the question—where are we?— and continue with asking—where is McMurphy? By opening the curtains of the small show portraying the world, Kesey asks the reader to quit looking to others and to become their own McMurphy, their own lodestar

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