An Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest From The Perspective Of Archetypal Criticism

The forerunner of American Counter-Cultural Movement Ken Kesey published his representative work One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1962. According to the narration of an Indian psycho who pretends dumb and deaf in the ward, the novel vividly reflects the restraints exerted on human beings by American social mechanism, and expresses people’s aspiration for freedom as well. Employing the archetypal criticism of Northrop Frye, this thesis makes an analysis of the archetypes in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest from three aspects: archetypal characters, archetypal structure and archetypal theme.The thesis first focuses on the protagonist Randle Patrick Mc Murphy. His image originates from Dionysus, the God of wine in Greek mythology, who is dissipated, passionate and extremely destructive to his opponents and the environment which may be against his willingness. Though wild and emotional outside, Mc Murphy essentially acts as the Saviour---Jesus Christ in the Bible by sacrificing himself to enlighten people to pursue freedom physically and spiritually. Another important archetypal character is Nurse Ratched. Analogous to the king of the underworld Hades in Greek mythology, Big Nurse is stiff, tyrannical and dehumanized. She exerts her inviolable authority over the whole ward, emphasizing absolute obedience to rules and orders while her way of implementing control is as cunning and insidious as the serpent in the Bible, full of tricks. The last archetypal character is Billy Bibbit. As Mc Murphy’s faithful disciple, Billy changes from a nervous patient with stutter problem to a normal young man who is able to seek his own human right and happiness as an adult. However, he commits suicide under the threat of Nurse Ratched at the end on the novel, which is against Mc Murphy’s doctrine of pursuing freedom and thus makes him a Judas archetype. To some extent, Billy also resembles Oedipus the King in the Greek mythology. The abnormal love between Billy and his mother leads to the patient’s inconfidence and makes him incapable to integrate into the society like other youth. Through a deep-going analysis of the archetypal characters, the thesis reveals that the real and radical conflict in the novel is the contradiction between the freedom and constraints, between the ruthless social rules and vibrant human nature rather than the conflict of madness and sobriety and therefore shows the constraints and destruction of the American society.Besides, circulation structure and reverse U-shaped structure, the two important aspects of Frye’s Mythological Archetype, are applied to interpret the work and analyze the link between the inherent structure of the work and the sturcture of the mythological archetype. Then it is found that there is a connection between the archetypal structure and the characters’ destiny. The characters’ vicissitudes of life are reflected in the archetypal structures. By the interpretation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest from the perspective of myth-archetypal criticism, the personalities of the characters are further exposed and the destiny of them is unfolded intuitively.The thesis also tries probing into the archetypal theme in the novel. Through the analysis of the archetypal theme----growing, suffering, adventure and pursuit of the hero, this chapter reflects the spiritual need of people in the modern society and expresses man’s infinite longing for freedom and individuality.Through an in-depth analysis of the various archetypal characters, structure and theme in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, this thesis has achieved the aim of deepening the novel’s themes by exposing the restraints of American system over human beings and man’s pursuit for freedom from multiple perspectives.