Movie vs Novel

 Yesterday, when I really should have been writing my poetry journals or preparing to write in class on Song of Solomon, I decided to watch the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest instead. I convinced myself that since it was technically for my final project, I was doing something productive and not lazing about on a Sunday afternoon. I borrowed the movie from Kristin, who’s Dad is apparently a Cuckoo Nest fanatic, and spent two and a half hours watching it. The movie started out quite similar to the book, which surprised me. However, about a half hour in, I started to notice distinct differences, the most prominent of which being that the narrator of the novel, Chief, was not really a very important character in the movie until the last half hour or so. In my opinion, the book was still better, because I enjoyed the extra details and thematic concepts that Kesey provided. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (probably because Jack Nicholson’s bad boy attitude was so attractive, especially with the hat on…haha Kristin), and many of the patients were much more comical on the big screen than they were in the book. If you’re sitting at home on a rainy afternoon and have nothing to do, go out and rent the movie. You won’t be disappointed!

If you’re interested I’ve included the movie trailer in a previous blog, and below is a website full of pictures of scenes from the movie. Enjoy!

http://www.jacknicholson.org/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest.html

Annotations take 3!

So today I gave RK two of my annotation rough drafts to read through and mark up. Ironically, the one that I had only done two drafts of came back mark – free, and the one that I had done four of needs a lot of work. I’m somewhere in the middle of my third annotation, and hope to be completely done with them by spring break. My goal for the break is to select which critical essays I plan to write the abstracts on. All in all, I feel that the project is going well, and that I have a good time frame. I’m so glad I didn’t procrastinate too much on this project – frantically trying to finish it the last week of school sounds terrifying and awful. I can’t wait to see it all finished Happy reading!

Annotations take 2!

Since RK so considerately gave us a workday with the sub today, I’m planning to work steadily through my annotations. I have a solid third rough draft for my first passage, and plan on showing it to Kreinbring as soon as I can manage to find the time! I’m halfway through my first rough draft of the second annotation, and plan to wrap that up today. I’ve also started working my way through my mounds of criticism to try and pick the ones I want to use for the project. I found a very interesting one written in the style of the Bible…It’s not a typical critical essay. The others that I have read thus far have been extremely frustrating for me. They aren’t relevant to what I’ve decided to discuss in my paper in the slightest. Hopefully I get lucky the further I get into the criticism. The other interesting find I had was a critical essay comparing the authors of Catch 22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Perhaps I’ll share it with Kristin – she may find it helpful. Happy reading :]

Annotations, take 1!

Well, here Kristin and I sit in the Avondale library during AP English class. I’ve finally chosen all of the passages for my annotations, as well as discovered two excellent background sources in the back of my book. Both are letters, though, so I’m going to have to find another one that is an interview or something else. I have yet to go through the criticism, but since my book is packed with it, I’m sure I’ll find something to suit my fancy.

This book was full of passages I wanted to annotate – I started out with somewhere around twelve orange sticky notes and had to narrow it down to three. This proved much harder than I thought it would be, but in the end, I chose three that were spaced out throughout the book, and helped to emphasize three different themes or central ideas of the book. This will make writing the introduction to the annotations harder than if I were to choose three passages that advanced the same general theme, but this will make it so that each of my annotations are different, and not all talking about the same thing.

Off to write an annotation – Happy reading! :]

FINALLY!

YAY! Today I finally finished my book! I thoroughly enjoyed it; the end left me wanting more, but I think part of the charm of the book is that you never know exactly what happens to Chief. Throughout the entire book you question: sane or crazy? Reality or hallucinations? I think the end of the book is just another one of those questions: will he survive or not? Despite this hanging end, the main conflict of the novel is tied up; the Nurse has lost her inhuman power over the men on the ward, and McMurphy has sacrificed himself on their behalf.  One of the passages I may do for an annotation strongly portrays McMurphy as a Christ Figure; because of this, he had to fall victim to the Nurse while at the same time bringing her down with him, just as Jesus sacrificed himself to cleanse the sins of everyone else. McMurphy sacrificed himself to bring down the Nurse and free the rest of the ward from her totalitarian control. This saddened me a little, but as I said before, it was inevitable.

I had left off blogging for a while in order to get the reading done. Throughout the week I’ll make four more posts on the reading, despite the fact that I’ve finished: One for the rest of part one, and then another one for each of the other parts in the book. My plan of action is to try to have a rough draft for each of my annotations by spring break: one annotation a week. I’ll also be choosing my criticism, as I have several choices and can’t decide between them. Wish me luck!

OU Experience

Today, Natalie and I went on a fieldtrip to the OU Library, where I looked for articles on my book. After running into Adam and Ali, asking the scary librarian for a password and a few frustrating attempts at logging in, I found some criticism that looked promising. After emailing them to myself (I will NOT pay fifteen dollars to print!) we embarked on our journey home. On the way, I was flipping through the back of my book and discovered at least ten articles of criticism on the novel, in their entirety, as well as several interviews with Ken Kesey. I had my background sources as well as my criticism staring me in the face, and didn’t even realize it! If that isn’t enough, some of the articles in the back of my book actually came up in my search! I plan on trying to find other copies of them, so I don’t have to copy pages out of my book. Needless to say, this discovery brightened my mood for the rest of the day. I also got a decent amount of reading done today. I think the project is going well, all things considered. :]

It’s All About How Society Perceives You…

While reading part 1 of Cuckoo’s Nest (yes, I know I’m behind) I became aware of a recurring theme of perception. Crazy vs. Sane. Reality vs. Hallucinations. To everyone in the mental ward, all of their hallucinations were to them reality, and they perceived it as how the world was. To the rest of society, their hallucinations were perceived as insane, and they were locked away. “Society is what decides who’s sane and who isn’t” (47). If this is true, reality isn’t really about how you perceive the world at all. It’s about how the world perceives you. This raises an interesting question of morality: should society be able to deem a man insane simply because he sees the world differently than they do? What is insane? Someone who is different or someone who won’t conform? Or is it simply someone who cannot adjust to their surroundings enough, so much so that it disturbs people around them?

Another conflict of perception is brought about by Nurse Ratched, an interesting character in this novel. She is the head nurse on the psychiatric ward, and runs her ward mainly by using fear and insinuations to control the men. She appears to love control, and will achieve it by any means possible. She belittles the men, reminding them of their places (which are obviously – to her, at least – beneath her and the rest of the sane population), and pits them against each other by rewarding them for tattling on their peers, perhaps to keep them from rallying against her. She emasculates them, and makes them doubt their sanity even more with insinuation techniques. McMurphy says that Nurse Ratched is one of those “People who try to make you weak so they can get you to toe the line, to follow the rules, to live like they want you to” (58). The rest of the ward sees Nurse Ratched as a “ball cutter” and a vicious woman who serves only to try and make the outside world as orderly and controlled as the psychiatric ward. However, a man who comes onto the ward every so often, known only as Public Relation, sees her as “mother like”, with an “angelic face”. Which perception is reality? One is by a man who, to the rest of society, is seen as “sane”. One is by a floor full of men whom society has deemed the exact opposite. Upon reading only Part 1 up to this point, Nurse Ratched IS evil and controlling, and uses harsh punishment including Electroshock Therapy and unnecessary lobotomies to keep order. So are the men on the ward really insane? Or is their perception of the world just different? And which perception is “correct?” IS there a correct perception?

No longer up a creek!

Well, I am officially no longer up a creek without a paddle – I started to read my book. Before I did so, however, two things had to happen. First, I had to remember the password to my blog so that I could write about starting my novel. No such luck. After 5 failed attempts and 3 requests for new passwords, none of which came to my email, I finally had to email the edublogs and request a temporary password, which they sent me this morning. Open sesame - I was in.

The second thing that I did, before beginning to read my book, was research the author a little bit. Ken Kesey, it seems, was an interesting character to say the least. It seems that he was involved in a government experiment which studied the effect of psychoactive drugs, including LSD, cocaine, and others. He also worked in a mental hospital at one point, and used his compiled research from these two experiences to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In the introduction in my book, it also references a letter that Kesey wrote describing how for the first section of the book, he would take drugs in order to create the same state of mind of the inhabitants of the mental ward in the book. Of course, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a complete success. Whoever said “just say no” obviously never took Kesey’s accomplishments made due to drugs into account.

After I did all of this, I discovered that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest has five parts, each with several chapters in it. My plan of action is to blog at the end of each part, as well as in between, as needed. Included below is a link to the movie trailer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which I plan to watch after I finish the book. I believe there are also one or more plays based on the book, and I’ll try to find suitable links to those as soon as possible. If you’ve seen the movie or watch it after being inspired by this lovely, if somewhat dated trailer, let me know your opinions! Ta ta for now – and happy reading

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WSyJgydTsA