What makes Graham Green and Ken Kesey not good writers, but great ones is their ability to universalize the characters of their novels, representing expressions of general political and national views of a particular historical time and their ability to create memorable characters. The authors have used various means to create unforgettable characters like McMurphy, Nurse Ratched, Fowler, and Pyle. After reading the books, it seems that the characters exist and continue to lead their life somewhere. What makes them so alive is that the characters are very multifaceted and have many personal emotions, sufferings, doubts, flaws, dreams, and hopes.
The protagonist of Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, an energetic convicted man, Randle Patrick McMurphy, seeks institutionalization as a means of escaping the rigors of a prison work farm. In the mental institution, in order to reduce the emotional and sexual impotence of the men, he began to challenge the dictatorial Nurse Ratched. McMurphy changed the life of the inmates and became a hero, but had paid a high price for his individualism and nonconformity.
Kesey uses many verbal and non-verbal techniques to describe his main characters. McMurphy is described appealing to the readers. He is a charming and handsome man, with long red sideburns and a tangle of curls. He is “broad across the jaw and shoulders and chest” and is tall. He also has a “devilish grin” and a voice that is “loud and full of hell.” He is used to having his own way and is a natural leader. He tells the patients that he is used to being “top man” and quickly assumes that role. The author describes him using a strong sense of humor and comic exaggeration. McMurphy does more then the entire medicine – teaches the inmates to be sane. This description in a way matches Pyle from The Quiet American. Pyle is also a charming young man, forceful, and manipulating.

McMurphy’s appearance in the mental ward seems to be like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down. He starts a gambling operation, smuggles in wine and women, and inspires other patients to join him in the open rebellion. At first, the patients are content to live under the thumb of the Nurse. When McMurphy arrives, he shows them that they are worth more than the poor treatment they are receiving. Very soon McMurphy’s revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for changes from a sport into a fierce power struggle with shattering results. At this point, the story gains political inclination. Both McMurphy and Pyle are fighting for the democracy and people’s rights. They may not play fairly, but both believe they are doing the right thing.
One more thing that makes McMurphy a memorable character is his image of a friend that everybody whishes to have. Chef Bromden says about McMurphy, “He knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.” The Chief believes that “McMurphy was a giant come out of the sky to save us from the Combine that was networking the land with copper wire and crystal, how he was too big to be bothered with something as measly as money.”
McMurphy is talking to the patients after his first day, and he says, “your all just as sane as everybody else out in the world.” That is an interesting thing to say in his situation being in a mental clinic and all that, but coming from a personality like McMurphy’s the readers readily believe it. He boosts the confidence of the inmates. The patients love that McMurphy “got the nurse’s goat the way he said he would.” McMurphy becomes more bold and aggressive, even asking Nurse Ratched the measurements on those breasts she does her best to conceal. After the McMurphy’s lesson, Harding says, “Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is the more powerful he could become.”
But McMurphy is not only great hero and friend. He has other sides as well. While swimming in the hospital pool, McMurphy learns from the lifeguard that Nurse Ratched is the one who decides when to let a patient leave the hospital if involuntarily committed. McMurphy realizes that his making trouble will only be harder on him, so he backs off. The other patients are disappointed that he is trying to save his own hide. Cheswick, McMurphy’s strongest supporter, drowns himself in despair. The negative sides only make McMurphy’s character more interesting and memorable.
McMurphy has a change of heart after he learns that most of the patients have voluntarily committed themselves and stay out of choice. He decides he must become their savior and show them they can function outside the hospital. He makes his comeback statement by smashing the glass of the Nurse’s station. Thereafter, McMurphy slowly becomes a force that is driven not by this own will but by the needs of forty other patients.
Some comparisons can be drawn between McMurphy and the main hero of The Quiet American, a cynical British correspondent Thomas Fowler. He is an aging, world-weary realist, who has made a life for himself in Saigon. He has a job that allows him great autonomy up to a certain point; a wife whom he has left back in England; and a beautiful young Vietnamese lover with whom he lives. In the beginning on the novel, Fowler is far from McMurphy’s image. But later in the story, Fowler makes a decision to change his life. His behavior represents the main idea of the novel, which is that we, as human beings, have to make a stand for what we believe in. In his situation, a cynical English atheist Thomas Fowler cannot remain in the middle of a major conflict “sitting on the fence.” Eventually, Fowler is called upon to make the decision, full with ambiguity, on emotional, ethical, and moral levels. After a car bomb in downtown Saigon kills several innocent bystanders, Fowler traces the contents of the bomb back to Pyle. He realizes that Pyle, in his fervent adherence to ideological theories, has lost his humanity. He sees Pyle as the quintessential innocent and too simplistic: “That was my first instinct – to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection, when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it. Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world meaning no harm.” And finally, Fowler is dramatically forced to take sides. He can no longer be a passive observer to the growing conflict.
At this point, Fowler is more like McMurphy. They both have flaws, but they are brave enough to fight for what the believe is right. They both have fought for freedom and free choice. Caught between French colonialists and the Vietminh, Fowler, as the narrator, observes: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused.” McMurphy probably was the second one.
The climax of One Over the Cuckoo’s Nest comes when
McMurphy tears open Nurse Ratched’s uniform to expose her large breasts, which have caused a sense of wonder amongst the patients. For that, the Nuurse has McMurphy lobotomized in order to control him. He dies as a martyr when the Chief kills him to spare him from living such a shell of an existence. The novel ends in tragedy for McMurphy. When he cannot be controlled by normal means, he is lobotomized. But he helps the patients to win one significant victory over the
repressive hospital staff. Chief Bromden cannot bear to see Nurse Ratched triumphant over McMurphy, who exists as a vegetable after his lobotomy. He mercifully kills McMurphy rather than let him live as a sad example to others. After the murder, he successfully escapes from the hospital. It also reperesents McMurphy’s triumph.
Pyle’s death is different from McMurphy’s in a sense that he did not win his battle. Fowler betrays Pyle and helps some Viet Minh thugs ambush him. Pyle is killed, and the authorities find his body in the muddy river. Fowler briefly struggles with his guilt over this complicity at the end of the novel but we are left with a sense that Pyle’s death would have happened sooner or later regardless of Fowler’s interference.
Another main character of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is Nurse Ratched or the Big Nurse. She is described as “enormous, capable of swelling up bigger and bigger to monstrous proportions.” A negative image of an authoritarian nurse is created throughout the novel. She is the ward superintendent, the ultimate authority demanding obedience and perfect order from everyone. The Nurse is a large, cold, unemotional woman whose “face is smooth, calculated, and refined.” Although she has baby blue eyes, a small nose, and large breasts, she is not feminine. She carries a wicker bag, which is filled with pills, needles, forceps, and the likes. Nurse Ratched has the power to cut a man down by just looking at him. She succeeds in emasculating the men on her ward. She makes the patients suffer guilt pangs and often succeeds in turning one against the other because “she has a genius for insinuation.” They are the “rabbits,” and she is the “wolf” that controls them. Her character is very strong. One reason why it is so memorable is because it personifies and symbolizes the power and control exhibited by large government and businesses. She is a very cold unfeeling person who cannot be touched by anything. Nurse Ratched cannot accept McMurphy’s behavior and is ready to do whatever it takes to bring him down. “Our Nurse Ratched” McMurphy says, “is a veritable angel of mercy,” but his words are ironic, for each charitable act he describes only proves the Nurse’s need for power.
The Nurse only seems to be very powerful and strong, but McMurhpy and all the inmates together are stronger then her. She switches off the main power to the television set when it is time to watch the World Series. This does not faze
McMurphy. He just pulls up a chair and sits watching the blank screen. Observing him, all the Acutes stop what they are doing and join McMurphy. All of the next week, the patients sit in front of the blank screen, laughing and joking.
The Nurse loses almost every time she tries to harm patients or McMurphy. She tried to drive a wedge between McMurphy and the others by making him seem only like a money grabbing con man. He foils her plan by sticking up for one of the patients and beating up the Black orderlies. His actions land him in the shock shop, which ironically restores everyone’s faith in him.
Pyle, “quiet American,” is a very complex character. He is both sincere and cynical. He is selfish, egotistical, and ambitious, but at the same time capable of being generous, honest, self-reflective and genuinely likeable. Fowler was genuinely fond of Pyle, he thought that Pyle was very smart and sinsere. Fowler believed that Pyle was naive about the real world, naive about Phuong, and naive about the war torn land that was Vietnam. Fowlers described Pyle’s naivety best when in Phat Diem crossing a canal filled with dead bodies. During the travel across the canal of death, Fowler was thinking how Pyle wanted to protect Phuong from a harmless Cabaret. Pyle protested that a Cabaret was not appropriate for Phuong because it was against his own believes. Fowler thought that Pyle was mixed up and naive to become concerned that Phuong should not be exposed to female impersonators at a burlesque show, in a land ravaged by war.
The love that Fowler and Pyle feel for Phuong, transforms both men. In one scene, when Fowler realizes his potential loss, he says, “The fear of losing Phoung is more terrifying than any bullet. If I lose her, it would be the beginning of death.”
Even after his defeat, Pyle is seen as a “hero.” Bertrand Russell’s observation that “the trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure, and the intelligent are full of doubt.” However, Pyle is not only a positive hero. After a car bomb in downtown Saigon kills several innocent bystanders, Fowler traces the contents of the bomb back to Pyle. He realizes that Pyle, in his fervent adherence to ideological theories, has lost his humanity. Pyle’s drastic transformation from a “quiet” American to a crafty manipulator.
Fowler is so appalled that he agrees to set up his friend for assassination by the Vietminh (of course, his desire to get back Phuong furnishes an additional motive). He knows that he is violating his own principle of non-involvement, but as a Vietnamese tells him, “Sooner or later—one has to take sides—if one is to remain human.” Fowler’s motives are certainly mixed. Yet, as Pyle himself admits, there is a war going on, and Pyle is involved. Despite his decision to cooperate in an act of violence, Fowler, unlike Pyle, is not a man of violence, and he retains his humanity throughout even as Pyle sacrifices his on the altar of democracy.
Fowler admits to being “an isolationist,” and it turns out that so is Pyle’s blue-blood Bostonian father. The irony is clear. Young America, which started out tending its own garden, has embraced global interventionism, while Old Europe, imperialist for centuries, has re-discovered the wisdom of tending one’s own garden and letting other nations work out their destinies in their own way.
To make the novel deeper and more interesting, Kesey uses many metaphorical elements. The hospital is an authoritarian state that offers the inmates security and social welfare state at the cost of their freedom. The hospital, Dr. Spivey says, is like a real world. “Our intention,” the doctor says, “is to make this as much like your own democratic free neighborhoods as possible–a little world Inside that is a made-to-scale prototype of the big world Outside that you will one day be taking your place in again.” The doctor’s description of the community contradicts itself–what kind of “democratic free neighborhood” forces citizens to spy on each other?
A psychiatric ward becomes a metaphor for the oppressive nature of American society. Kesey compels us to think about just how thin the line is that separates insanity from sanity, and treatment from control. Kesey’s disturbing insights also make us wonder whether certain types of mental disorders are not actually based on some sort of illness or disease, but on outside factors such as upbringing and social pressures. The manner in which the inmates are treated is reprehensible, yet it mirrors the way in which many less fortunate members of society are treated.
Nurse Ratched is the ruler of the secure totalitarian world, since the security impulse is fundamentally female. McMurphy’s initials RPM (revolutions per minute) may stand for a character who represents revolution against authority and symbolizes the male fighting for freedom. The inmates represent the population ready to obey and follow voluntarily a totalitarian leader. They are willing participants of the degradation. They are sexless and spineless, but safe from the outside world. They have surrendered to the Big Nurse and the Combine Electro shock therapy. Billy Bibbitt symbolizes McMurphy’s Judas. He heals Billy hand makes him stop stuttering and procures a woman for him. However, Billy denounces McMurphy to Nurse Ratched and commits suicide afterwards.
Kesey makes heroes names memorable by giving them special meaning and connotation. Nurse Ratched’s name resembles the words “wretched” and “hatchet”, both of which have very negative connotations. Nurse Ratched represents the establishment, and is described by Kesey as “enormous, capable of swelling up bigger and bigger to monstrous proportions. She is the ward superintendent, the ultimate authority demanding obedience and perfect order from everyone.” This is the author’s way of conveying that she is powerful like the establishment, and like the government, she makes and enforces the rules.
The most significant religious image is that both McMurphy and Christ die to save others and give them hope. McMurphy saves the patients from the repressive society and teaches them to have hope in themselves. Christ saves mankind from sin and teaches them to have hope in a life eternal.
There is also other Christian symbolism in the book. The comment “I wash my hands of the whole deal” is a direct allusion to Pontius Pilate, who made a similar comment upon ordering the crucifixion of Christ. McMurphy himself even realizes this comparison when he asks whether or not he gets a “crown of thorns,” another reference to the crucifixion. McMurphy’s laugh is the first real laugh the Chief has heard in years, a brave indication of strength and sanity. While the two patients await their turn at the Shock Shop, they hear a patient cry out, “It’s my cross, thank you Lord.” Before the treatment is administered to him, McMurphy “climbs on the table without any help and spreads his arms out to hit the shadow. A switch snaps the clasps on his wrists, ankles, clamping him into the shadow.” When the graphite salve is put on his temples and he is told that it is conductant, he says “Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?” They also give him a rubber hose to bite on, just as Christ was given a sponge soaked in vinegar to suck on.
It is ironic that the novel about counterculture can be read and interpreted in this way. Nevertheless, the elements of the Cuckoo’s Nest have fundamental cultural meaning. They evoke associations within our minds and strike the touchstones of our shared understandings. As a result, a simple story about a convicted man becomes a book about the universal truths and our vision of the mankind.
Graham Green also uses symbols and metaphors in The Quiet American to make his characters more interesting and memorable. The story is clearly an allegory about the passing away of the colonial way of life of the European empires, and the rise of the idealistic Neo-imperialism of the US. Fowler represents the painfully-learned wisdom of the colonials. His feeble and desperate, though ultimately “successful,” attempts to hold on to what he possesses are clearly seen as securing only a very temporary and costly “victory.” Pyle stands for the “can-do” spirit that frames the world in terms of “problems” and “solutions” and has arrogant confidence in its ability to impose its vision on the world.
The main question the books raise through its symbols and themes archaeology of our entire mythos and the tale returns to the central dilemma of human existence, first presented in the Garden of Eden, should mankind choose security or freedom?
Greene explores the interface between personal psychology and wider political and social consequences, delves into the whole question of how “history” is made, on the level of the individual, through personal ethical, moral and psychological choices – a central question still being played out in our lives every day.
In addition to metaphors and symbols, Ken Kesey uses elegant, beautiful, and eccentric prose. With such descriptions of physical idiosyncrasies that have never been so accurately written, such as the way he describes Harding as trapping his pretty hands between his knees and folding his thin shoulders about his chest like green wings. It is difficult to understand at times, since the narrator, Chief Bromden, is also a mental patient on the ward and sees things differently than a sane person would – but anything he says that’s hard to grasp at the beginning slowly becomes clear as the narrative goes on.
The Chief describes the ward as being “like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren’t for the cartoon figures being real guys.”
Many critics have noted Cuckoo’s Nest’s similarities to comic strips. Whether you agree with that analogy or not, you will probably agree that the book’s characters are larger than life, boldly rather than subtly drawn.
Kesey describes the effects that drugs can have on one’s body and he describes this process so vividly that one can actually imagine what it must be like to swallow some of those “red pills.” The style and the prose make the characters stay in the readers’ brain for a long time. They are made so realistic that it seems we have met them in our lives.
Some characters of Kesey’s novel are based on the individuals he met while working in a Veterans’ Administration Hospital in Oregon. When Kesey was writing, he worked the graveyard shift in the psychiatric ward and actually underwent real-life shock treatment. Kesey described some fillings of his characters based on his own experience, which made his characters look more realistic. Kesey as well as Graham Green wrote about what he knew the best and what was part of his life. This personal experience and attachment made the characters more interesting and memorable.
Graham Green also uses nice prose to make his novel unforgettable. The real beauty of The Quiet American is its straightforward, even style, giving the reader the option simply to enjoy the surface tale, or delve deeper into its important issues. Greene is a great storyteller. He evokes the most actual streets, the most vivid skies, and individuals who can have a lacerating reality as they search the labyrinth of their lives. The novel has very well written, with sharp, cynical dialogs. They may not be strictly speaking “realist,” but they set the mood, and are effective and expressive.
Graham Greene, unlike Kesey and many other writers in this century, did not experiment with language, subvert traditional narrative, or choose exotic subjects. He has simply used the powerful imagination that led him to speak of his work as a “guided dream.” That imagination made Greene’s fiction the best-realized portrayal in its time of the drama of the human soul.
The Quiet American is one of the Greene’s profound first-person confessionals. What he says himself in Ways of Escape, “use of the first person and the time shift, and my choice of a journalist as the “I” seemed to me to justify the use of rapportage.”
Kesey also uses first-person narration purposely. He has cleverly chosen Chief Bromden as his narrator and achieves technical excellence in the narration. Using the same method that Melville used in Moby Dick, Bromden acts like a prism, and the events and characters are filtered through his imagination, appearing as he sees them. The fact that the narrator is a paranoid schizophrenic absolves the author from presenting an objective account of what goes on inside the hospital; as a result of the Chief’s perspective, the narration is often magical and incoherent. It also contains many flashbacks that are effectively incorporated and developed.
The narration raises a constant question in a reader’s mind — is the Chief really crazy? Perhaps he is a sane person seeing a deeper truth? It makes the readers to think about the novel and to try to understand it.
The structure of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is very simple. It is divided into four parts. Parts I, II and IV are set inside the hospital premises itself, and Part III is set on a boat. Each chapter ends with a big victory for McMurphy and the patients are left to choose their own answer.
Returning to The Quiet American, Pico Iyer has compared the novel with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “It is, in fact, the ultimate strength of Greene’s books that he shows us the hazards of compassion. We all know, from works like Hamlet, how analysis is paralysis and the ability to see every side of every issue prevents us from taking any side at all. The tragic import of Greene’s work is that understanding can do the same: he could so easily see the pain of the people he was supposed to punish that he could not bear to come down hard on them.” Green and probably Kesey as well, shows real people in his novel, who have their own flaws, but nevertheless, they are capable of heroic actions.
The authors are similar in the way that they both have invaded and shaped the public imagination probably more than any other writers of the twentieth century. The questions and themes they have raised in the novels are still relevant and interesting today. They have created deep interesting rounded characters in their novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Quiet American, who are still discussed and analyzed.

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