An Analysis Of Ken Kesy s One Flew Over The Cuckoo s Nest

In Ken Kesy’s One Flew over the Cuckoo s Nest, humor is present in a very powerful form. Normally, insane people don’t have the capacity to laugh or find the humor in something as would normal people do. They live tragic existences, wandering day by day in the bland, depressing world of an asylum. They have forgotten how to live because they are under the commanding rule of the head nurse, and under the behavioral influence of drug doses and bossy orderlies. The patients’ laughter is a therapeutic form. In the novel laughter represents freedom and an escape from nurse Ratched’s restrictions. Laughter proves a vital role in helping the patients deal with their problems. Not only does it help them deal with problems but it also gave them the push toward progress on getting out of the institution. Randall McMurphy is sent to the asylum, he shows them that to laugh is good, and laughing at yourself can sometimes be the best medicine. He is the comic healer who gives life to the otherwise hopeless patients of the asylum. McMurphy was the one who started making people laughing in the ward. When he first came into the ward he was cracking jokes and shaking everybody’s hand. (16) No one in the ward responded with any real response but confusion. Nobody knew what laughter was in the ward, it was taken from them. The only thing they had was board games and Mrs. Ratched’s music (15). The ward was a very depressing place. When Mcmurphy comes into the ward his laughing was making