Allegory
Define an allegory.
What is a narrative where a character, setting, or event is used to deliver a message about real-world issues and occurrences?
Define "motif."
What is an image, symbol, line of dialogue, etc., that reoccurs throughout a novel, film, video game, etc.?
Define what a symbol is.
What is an image, character, etc., that stands for something else?
This is the definition of an unreliable narrator.
What is a narrator who is not trustworthy and is potentially lying to the audience either purposefully or unconsciously?
Identify where/when the novel takes place.
What is 1950s-Oregon in a mental health/psychiatric facility?
The psychiatric facility is an allegory for this.
What is a metaphor for an oppressive society?
Define "theme."
What is a main idea that a novel, film, video game, poem, etc., wants the audience to take away, understand, etc.?
Define the symbolism of machinery in the novel.
What is the pressure to conform to society/social standards?
This person is the unreliable narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Who is Chief Bromden?
Danny DeVito voiced a major character in this classic 1990s Disney movie (aka one of Mr. Felano's favorite movies ever).
What is Hercules?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an allegory for this.
What is oppressive American society that forces people to conform to certain norms?
This theme within the "Power of Women" defines female leadership.
What is the "matriarchy"?
Provide one example of symbolic "machines" within the facility.
What is the doctors, technicians, nurses, aides, and/or patients' brains?
These are some of the symptoms Chief Bromden deals with.
What is schizophrenia and hallucinations?
This actor made his film debut in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but went on to star in huge blockbusters such as Back to the Future.
The facility's patients are an allegory for this
What is ordinary people who assert their individuality in a society that doesn't want individuals?
This character is the main focus of the novel's theme/motif of rebellion.
Who is McMurphy?
Provide an example of other symbols that you've seen in other books, plays, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.
Answers will vary.
Define "The Combine."
What is Chief Bromden's name for the outside world, and an invention of his paranoia?
These experiences influenced Ken Kesey to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
What are Kesey's experiences working a night warden on a ward in a mental hospital, undergoing EST (electroshock therapy) to better understand a patient, and volunteering for medical studies on the effects of psychoactive drugs (hallucinogens) while at Stanford?
Define the novel's main thematic allegory and provide examples based on the slides.
What is rebellion against social conformity?
Examples: McMurphy (rebellion, individuality) VS. Nurse Ratched (control, conformity)
This is the reason that many of the facility's patients are confined there for so long.
Define the symbolism of the fog.
What is...
Chief Bromden sees the world through a thick fog that only wanes when Randle McMurphy arrives at the hospital.
Symbolizes the waste mechanized society has created.
People do not have the ability to live naturally anymore?
Provide an example of other unreliable narrators that you've seen in other books, plays, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.
Answers will vary.
This superhero fought both Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito in two of his first major movies.
Who is Batman (see Batman and Batman Returns, 1989 and 1992)?