Essays on Nest

Book Review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest

Introduction One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a breath-taking novel that was written in the twentieth century by Ken Kessey. The plot for this story was set in a psychiatric hospital found in Oregon. This narrative is essential in the world of research because it is a study of the institutional processes as well as the mind. Also, this story serves to critic the theory of behaviorism which is a psychological theory that stipulates that human behavior can be described by conditioning without giving weight to the thought processes and feelings (Ward 4). In other words, psychological ...

Bee’s, Honey, and Humans

A close relationship has been established between honeyguide bird’s species and humans, as witnessed in the woodlands of Mozambique. This relationship is due to the gained adaptations over the centuries in humans and the birds and has led them to work together. The relationship is established whereby the honeyguide bird’s lead honey-hunters towards bee hives upon hearing a specific sound from the honey-hunters, and producing a sound in response to the honey-hunters. It is believed that these birds do so with accuracy. Experiments were performed by scientists to test the practice validity and they were successful. According ...

The General Assembly of the United Nations has stated that “Changes to the climate, brought about by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, will thus lead to changes in the oceans, including sea-level rise and ocean acidification, which will put marine ecosystems and coastal communities at risk. Most of these changes can be attributed to human activities and will negatively affect the animal inhabitants of the marine environment. Some effects of global warming on marine animals include changes in distribution, reduction of habitats and reductions in diversity and sex ratios. In the last hundred years, the rate ...

Review Essay 3

Godzilla Monster figures can be used in affirming the existing order in that they indicate the presence of theaters to normality, which is purged. In most contemporary monster films, no reassuring vision of restored order is affirmed, and Godzilla is not an exception. The monster is usually figured as a less of an external threat to essential good social order and exaggerated as the most normal features of the same order In the film, “Godzilla” MUTO is introduced as the antagonist; MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) is a species of a giant monster. They are considered the first giant ...

The poem, Money, by Dana Gioia, talks about a subject that preoccupies the hearts of many. She describes the many names used to refer to money and at the same time gives the different emotions that money elicits. Gioia describes the satisfaction that is derived from money, while at the same time, brings out the frustration that lack of it or misuse can breed. Her poem is full of descriptions and comparisons, using common money-language that is identified with many people. Through diction and figurative language, Dana Gioia communicates and infatuated tone and conveys the theme that money is ...

The majority of scientists are in agreement that global warming is occurring and is caused by human activities over the last two hundred years or so. Global warming is caused by the build up in the atmosphere of gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and others which have been created by the burning of fossil fuels in order to produce electricity, and for use in industries and motor vehicles. Another contribution to global is the removal of vast areas of natural forest from the planet. . The majority of carbon dioxide exchange between the atmosphere and the earth ...

Analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a novel by Ken Kessey set in Oregon Psychiatric Hospital. The narrative of this novel portrays a study of human mind and institutional process. The novel also provides for a critic of celebration and behaviorism human principles. The main persona in this book is one Chief Bromden who is represented as a deaf and dumb person. Bromden is also a half-native American who is docile but gigantic. Bromden narrates a story of Randle Patrick McMurphy who was rebellious enough to face insanity so that he can be detained in a mental ...

Over the years, behavioral scientists have repeatedly attempted to understand, define and explain tool usage by different animal species. However, given the complexities involved in data collection, it has remained an elusive and somewhat difficult to quantify task. Initially people believe that developing tools for different activities such as transportation, food gathering or for defense was what inherently differentiated ‘humans’ from animals . This is because crafting tools for improved productivity and to make daily tasks easier and simpler to perform, required a certain level of intelligence and maturity of thought that scientists believed animals did not possess. The goal ...

There are some companies whose products and service, impacts the global lifestyle in a significant manner, and for this reason, becomes part of the consumer’s everyday life. There are very few brands that connect with consumers on a personal level and on a daily level. Google has been part of the consumer’s life at all times, the mission of Google is to organize the world’s information and make it collectively accessible and useful in an effective manner (Company Overview, 2016). The impact of Google is remarkable that, the name of the company is used as a ...

English 1B

Ted Kooser was born in the year 1939 in the town of Ames, Iowa (Baker, 2016, p.1). His poetry usually reflects regional life in America, much like the paintings of Grant Wood. He was a poet laureate, and he centered on giving life to objects and images, thereby giving special meaning to them through direct connection to things that are totally different. This is seen in his poem, entitled “Lantern”, in which he gives emphasis on human transience, particularly on the creation of the world, when the Creator bearing the light shares it to the creatures in the barn, ...

Introduction

Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mocking Bird is a unique story, which provides insight into the issue of inequality that existed between the black and white races during the 1930s. The Book is based on the author’s observation of the society during that era and reflected the biased and hypocritical views and actions of the members of the society. Although the book is relatively old and the inequality between the white and black races has been significantly eliminated from society, some resemblance can still be found in the modern day the United States of America and ...

According to the Directory of Supermarkets, Grocery, and Convenience Store Chains, Ralph is a supermarket series in the southern area of California and the biggest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger (469). It is the oldest series of its kind in the western part of River Mississippi. Kroger also operates stores under the Foods Co. and Food 4 Less labels in California. During my visit to the store, I found out that Ralph runs two programs to reward its customers. There is also contribution program where a customer uses Ralph’s Card during shopping, and a share of their buying sum ...

Her diagnosis was Borderline Personality Disorder and it meant that she was a threat to herself and that she suffered from severe depression. Other patients in McLean Hospital are girl similar to Susanna although some of them are in worse condition, while the others just seem to be different than what is considered normal. However, they are labeled as sociopaths only because they do not fit in within the regular norms of the society. Fictional patients from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest are men and they are similar to Susanna and the girls in McLean Hospital because ...

One day children will grow older and desire to leave the home. Every parent knows this with a certainty that comes with age, and that is realized when they walk through their home and hear only the faint echoes of laughter and children at play. At several points in a parent’s life they might wonder when their children will grow up and simply learn how to be self-sufficient, quiet, calm, reserved, and otherwise behaved. What many parents don’t anticipate is that by the time this happens, their children are almost ready to depart for their own lives, ...

The continuous study of natural systems has led to the development of nature inspired computational systems and techniques. The candidate solutions for the optimization problems at hand take on the role of individuals in a population function while the quality of the solutions is determined by the fitness functions. A commonly used nature-inspired algorithm is the Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm which is a heuristic search algorithm derived from the reproduction strategy of the cuckoo birds. The Cuckoo Search algorithm has widespread applications in various domains such as weight optimization in neural networks, job scheduling, image processing, radial basis functions and clustering ...

Mental Illness as an Escape from Cruel Society in The Bluest Eye, Tender is the Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Mental illness in literature is often a way to accentuate eccentricities, make a character seem dangerous, or lend a character a greater sense of tragedy. The best examples, however, involve using the specter of mental illness as a way to reflect on the way society oppresses the Other, and how these people can use it to empower themselves and their own sense of agency. This latter example is highlighted in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, F. Scott Fitzgerald’ ...

- Achilles heel- This expression is used to refer to the sole point of weakness/ singular area of vulnerability, in an otherwise strong person/situation. The weakness so deciphered is fatal in that it is a potential avenue of downfall or destruction.

Background: In the Trojan war, Achilles, the seemingly unvanquished and indefatigable brave warrior who killed the Trojan hero Hector, was overcome by being shot in his heel. According to Greek mythology, Achilles’ mother dipped Achilles’ body in the water of the river Styx (thought to bestow powers of being unconquerable), to overcome the portentous foreboding that Achilles shall die young. ...

Nasher's Nest is Kannel and Boarding facility which requires a secretary at new position. The company can provide competitive package of benefits and compensation to find suitable person. According to Terry Thomason (2001) if Nasher’s Nest Company starts offering good benefits, it will be easier to find and recruit talented secretary for the department. It also has positive effect on marketing and sales.

Employee will be exempt. Our kind of job is usually held by worker with regular position or low-level managers, or other mid-skilled workers. They usually receive a fixed annual base wage and are not prefer overtime ...

Animal:

Welcome to a sensational curriculum structure that offers children a dynamic lesson plan to clinch their natural intellect of interest through practical education. This lesson will focus on and explore a variety of animals and their purpose. Also, the lesson will teach the life, home, food and related topics that can be used in each animal’s daily activity. For instance, a list of the word that children may not familiar with will be posted on the classroom wall with pictures to guide the lessons. Each animal’s purpose will be explained in detail, including communication/sounds for sensory, home and body cover such ...

The concept of Family Life Cycle and use in marketing

The family life cycle is a series of stages determined by factors such as age, marital status presence or absence of children (McDaniel, Lamb & Hair, 2011). Marketers usually adopt this strategy in selling products to various groups of consumers. It helps marketers to know the consumption behavior of different family cycle. The major stages of a family life cycle include; This stage consists of young singles living away from their parent’s home or living with friends and relatives. Customers in this group are mainly low-income earners, and they immediately get to spend t what they earn. They see no ...

Owner’s Equity

As an investor, is paid-in capital or earned capital more important? Explain why. According to viewpoint from accounting, the money invested by the owner of the company is company’s equity and is made up of different parts, some being coming from the money owners directly and some coming from the profits of the company. The need of financing fulfilled from the issuance of the share which is paid in by investor as common or preferred stock is the paid in capital. It also may be referred as contributed capital. On the other hand, additional paid-in capital ...

Question 1

Baltic Sea in the Atlantic Ocean has world’s largest dead zones. It has been a victim of anthropological activities such as over fishing and excess use of fertilizers in agricultural lands (Baltic Nest Institute, 2014). Dead zones similar to that of Baltic Sea are also seen in US territorial waters including Chesapeake Bay, Great Lakes, northern Gulf of Mexico, Long Island Sound and coastal Oregon. The Chesapeake Bay is a major nutrient sink that receives the storm water run-off from the 88,000 farms in the surrounding states as well as effluents from 5 major effluent treatment plants. Hypoxic conditions ...

Clinical Diagnosis and Rationale for the Diagnosis

Randle McMurphy is the protagonist in the movie “One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest”. Although he does not overtly show any mental disorder, he seems to be suffering from narcissistic personality disorder (Zaentz & Forma, 1975). Randle McMurphy suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorders (in Axis 1), which, as he manifests, is proven by several symptoms. The patient employs humiliation and shame to win over others, exploits the situation to gratify himself and becomes jealous easily. He is also confident, arrogant and contemptuous, living in unrealistic fantasies, beauty, power, intelligence and romance, and appearing less emotional (American Psychiatric Association, 2014). ...

Dr. Seuss emerged as a staunch opponent of isolationism in America in the late 1930s as well as early 1940s. He saw inaction in United Sates to German as well as Japanese expansion as appeasement and cowardice. While the world was in a war, America had isolated itself and just sat to look the other countries fight. Dr. Seuss felt the weakness and thought that Americans were leaving their victims exposed to Japanese and Nazi brutality. Again, just before the Pearl Harbor attack, Seuss used to depict isolationists together with appeasers as lazy, cowardly and unintelligent.

First Cartoon by Dr. Seuss

America First His first ...

Interview A Senior CitizenName:Institutional Affiliation:

Q: How many siblings do you have? A: 7

Q: How long were your parents married?

A: 48 years Q: Did most of the members of your family live in good health into their old age? A: Relatively. My sister died of a heart attack when she was 40 and my father struggled with high blood pressure but for the most part we are healthy. We work out a lot. My mom tried to feed us healthy and teach us how to cook healthy. My dad encouraged us to stay active.

Q: Did you like school? How was school for you?

A: I did not like school. It was boring, I felt it was a waste ...

The 1970s was a decade of the public’s disappointment with the government and its policies, domestic and foreign, social and economic. It was the time of counterculture and various movements and protests that followed the example of the civil rights movement. The most important topics for the American people were the distrust for the government after the long-lasting Vietnam War that weakened not only the United States, whose economic situation was already devastating, but other countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia and their neighbors; the Watergate scandal that made Americans doubt that the county is in fact a democratic one, the state ...

The Modern Hero of Energy Production

The Modern Hero of Energy Production Natural catastrophes seem to be happening more and more frequently these days: flooding, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, and so many more. Every television station displays the same sensational headlines—“the west coast of America slammed with rain”; “the east coast buried in snow.” The catastrophes are no different than they have always been, but many people are now concerned about the frequency of these catastrophes. There are many scientists out there who are pointing the finger at global warming. Because of global warming, our weather patterns are changing quite dramatically and it ...

The theory of moral sentiments and the poem ‘A Mouse’ talk about the sentiments of human beings. The two writers have different views on human feelings. In the theory of moral sentiments, Smith believes that other people's sentiments drive a person's sentiments. According to him, human beings are driven with sympathy. They tend to be touched by others sad moments rather than the happy moments (Zhang, 33). When someone is sick people will feel sympathy towards that person but when they are in their happy moments, other people are most likely not to share in with the happiness. People become ...

(Instructor Name) Golf is an increasingly popular sport with increasing number of followers and amateurs wanting to play the sport. Until 2007, the entire sport of professional golf was played around a series of unconnected tournaments, with no champion at the end of it, just individual event winners. In 2007, the PGA Tour system was initiated, which consists of 43 events and 4 PGA play-offs. The final playoff winner will be crowned the PGA Champion for the season. To qualify for the PGA playoffs, the players have to compete in the previous 43 events, and points are awarded on ...

The movie, “How to Train Your Dragon” is a 3D animated movie that was released in the year 2010. Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois directed this movie was one of the biggest successes on the American box office. Dream Work’s produced this action fantasy was admired by children and adult audiences across the world. The movie succeeded in winning support of the audiences, as well as, critics. This paper intends to discuss the movie, “How to Train Your Dragon” along with discussing how concepts of tolerance, intolerance and prejudice are related to this movie. The concept of tolerance ...

1 Start: Californian home automation company, Nest Labs, Inc., has been in news lately for acquiring Revolv, and Nest had acquired Dropcam before. End: Since Nest is owned by Google, Google is on an acquisition spree. Globalization has increased the markets and opportunities for more growth and revenue. However, increasingly diverse markets have a wide variety of needs and expectations that must be understood if they are to become strong customers and collaborators. Organizations must also be aware of their holistic nature and of the ways their members affect one another. The incredible amount of change has forced individuals and ...

- What is meant by traditional pension? Since pension is defined as a fixed sum of money given to an ex-employee, usually after their retirement from service, a traditional pension plan can then be described as a retirement plan in which the employer does all the work, including the calculation and collation of the money and deciding where and how the money is invested. This type of pension plan promises an employee a certain payout once they retire, based on their salary, and the number of years they worked for.

The rapid development of the traditional pension plan was as a result of ...

Internet of Things (IOT)

IOT (Internet of Things) is the connection of devices within the infrastructure of the existing internet. IOT is expected to enable advanced connection of systems, services, and devices. The connectivity is supposed to cover machines, domains, applications, and protocols. IOT involves the embedding of unique devices into the infrastructure of the internet (TechTarget, 2014). The interconnectivity of these devices is geared towards achieving automation on almost all the fields. IOT also enables the use of applications such as smart grid. Some of the devices in IOT include biochip transponders, cars with in-built sensors, implants that are used for monitoring ...

CANCER COUNCIL

DAFFODIL DAY 2014 Executive Summary In the practise of public relations, tactics are used to achieve the goals of the client, organization, or campaign. There are many types of objectives employed from the use of experiential marketing to media campaigns to social media campaigns. Some tactics have a short life cycle where others are ongoing. What makes a tactic is the planning and research used to decide the best plan of action and the evaluation. The most important part of any tactic is the verification of its success during the evaluation period. Being able to justify the ...

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is an American film that is based on a novel of the same name. Milos Forman directed this film in the year 1975 while the novel was written in the year 1962 by Ken Kesey. It is an established fact that when a film is based on any novel, certain changes are made while transforming the book into the film. These changes are made according to making of various scenes and story of the movie. This paper intends to discuss how the movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is different from the ...

Christina Rossetti is regarded as one of the great Victorian poets. Her poetry spans many centuries and include the distinct element of religion. As the youngest of four children, Christina’s mother taught her English, French and Italian Literature as well as the Bible and Orthodox Anglican religion. The close family environment, with its emphasis on learning and its religious disputes, formed the foundation of Christina’s mature character. She was loyal to her mother and remained at home for her entire life as she took care of her family and the household. This loyalty to her mother and ...

Western civilization has often tried to segregate variations from the established social norm. Prisons, universities and mental institutions were devised as a way to ghettoize those who think and act differently from others, giving them a place in society that is, at the same time, out of it. In the case of the latter of these organizations, in the 1960s there was much questioning of the nature of the people that truly deserved to be in it, and even if this was a proper separation or not. Many believed that this was a form of social oppression, with the psychiatrists holding excessive control ...

Those students have a problem with both conceptual and abstract thinking. This workshop is, therefore, very important since it helps the students acquire budgeting skills. Teaching these skills in form of the game makes it not only interesting but also helps in retention rate of the skills learnt by the learners. The use of the visual cues made teaching easier especially for the low functioning skills. Allowing the low functioning students choose weekly goals by themselves from the given choices makes them comfortable since they choose the goals that best suits them and ones which are easy to achieve. ...

Music History

Exactly so, a formal study of music, despite any musical instruments, implicates numerous phases. However, some primary areas are music theory, comprehending its practical knowledge. Further, supplementary units also consist of the chronological music, study of composition and the reading of several categories within music. The history of music communicated via classrooms and the like to students throughout the United States for quite some time. However, more or less learners elect to study music within the public school systems as well as the private sector school systems while others show up more specialized – particularly through actual music schools and colleges. ...

Executive summary

The remarkable issues that have overwhelmed the performance of Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc are the relevant amount of time spent by the executives on low value customer services that have little value to the customer. The decline of share price and income have prohibited Eagle’s Nest Hotel Company from achieving its customer-centric vision of offering fast, opportune and efficient services to customers across all channels. Our proposal will allow Eagle’s Nest Hotel Inc. to transform its retail channels into a high value, reliable customer services while receiving economies of scale via centralization of customer services. The proposal ...

Homo sacer is a person who according to the Roman law he or she may be killed by anyone willing to do so but not as a religious sacrifice. These persons are outcasts in the society. The killers are not regarded as a murderers. They also don’t have any religious right nor are their dead bodies approved as sacrifices. Anyone in the society can become a homo sacer. For one to find her or himself in this condition, they must have collided with the gods through breaking of oaths .Aton oath is regarded as a curse brought about by one self. One who ...

Operational strategy of Google with Google Glass is exceptionally brilliant as well as unique. As estimated by experts, although Glass will take a while to shape up to emerge as the next generation ‘iPad’, the company is aware that connected eye gear and eye wear hold tremendous potential for ushering in a new age of wearable computing to be able to control household devices. In other words, Google Glass takes home automation to the next level. Google Glass was being chiefly employed for outdoor applications. But now with intelligent integration, many devices in a home can be automated and used on voice ...

THE BUMBLE BEE ORGANISM PROFILE

- DESCRIPTION OF THE BUMBLE BEES - Size - Color - A hairy body - IMPORTANCE OF THE BUMBLE BEES - Pollination - Ensuring balance of the ecosystem - LIFECYCLE OF THE BUMBLE BEES - Choosing sites - Laying eggs - Eggs hatch - Grubs covered with silk cocoon - Maturity of grub to a bee - AGRESSIVENNES OF THE BUMBLE BEES - Less aggressive - Stinging; only after being provoked - ACTIVITIES INSIDE THE NEST - Housekeeping - Guarding the nest ...

Introduction

The movie ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest’ is acted with a sense of human life. It demonstrates humanity and features what happens in the human society in depth.

Even without showing any overt signs of mental illness McMurphy the main character and his colleagues avoid hard labor and spend their sentence in a relaxed hospital environment playing sick. This exhibits the behavior of pretence. McMurphy exhibits leadership and responsibility skills by establishing himself as a leader in the hospital. Billy refuses to leave the hospital because he is unwell. This highlights how responsible he is over his health conditions. Washington protects ...

Book Review: Newman & O'Brien(2013). In their book, Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, David Newman and Jodi O’Brien bring out the idea of the structuralism of society. The dual are of the view that the world is highly architectural and structural. Society is stratified into different classes, races, gender among other units of social stratification (Newman & O’Brien 255). Newman and O’Brien describe these architectural stratifications of society as being nest boxes in which various members of society find them in. the different stratifications or nest boxes of society are put together by a commonality ...

Book Review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey was a stalwart American author whose novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, remains as one of the most noted literary works of the past century. The author was deeply influenced by the time he spent with the patients at the Menlo Park Veteran’s Hospital whom he saw as misfits into the conventional structure of the society. These individuals were hence ostracized and left in the dungeon of the asylum from where they could pose no hindrance to the normative functions of the society. The author portrays the hospital as the microcosm of the society and ...

Introduction

The love for homeland for every individual in a society or country is very special and unique. So, everybody has a unique attraction towards one’s own country. It is rightly said that a bird moves here and there all day in the search of food, but at the end of the day, it returns to its peaceful place called nest. Similarly, for me, my country is my nest like a bird where I live with pride, unity, freedom, and love. I personally feel that for any good human being with a logical and broad-mind, a country is one’s home, and everybody is attracted ...

Ken Kesey was a stalwart American author whose novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, remains as one of the most noted literary works of the past century. The author was deeply influenced by the time he spent with the patients at the Menlo Park Veteran’s Hospital. The author strongly believed that the patients were not insane. They were actually misfits into the conventional structure of the society. These individuals were hence ostracized and left in the dungeon of the asylum from where they could pose no hindrance to the normative functions of the society. The author uses ...

A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled to the forest. As he was wandering about there he came upon a Lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee, but finding that the Lion did not pursue him, he turned back and went up to him. As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain. He pulled out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was ...

Birds have been applied in poetic imagery since time immemorial. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries apply birds in the same taste and scale. Ordinarily, the common thread in the use of birds is the position it assumes in the poetry. Birds tend to represent two contrasting yet essential matters. That is freedom and captivity. Free birds and their lives have been applied across the centuries’ poetry to represent freedom of the people, of the beauty of love and freedom. On the other hand, the same birds have been applied illustratively to show the concept of captivity. The latter applies ...

Luxembourg is a potent brand due to its geographic and historical position. It is mainly branded through the use of customer based brand equity through the personalization of communication and customization of its products and services. It has developed a “Made in Luxembourg” label to distinguish its products and services when exported abroad. Luxembourg also has the “Luxembourg for Business” (LfB) brand which establishes a corporate identity for Luxembourg as a “brand with a pro business reputation. This paper discusses the development and further improvement of Luxembourg’s country branding through the following brand management components: Building a strong brand; Brand positioning; Choosing brand elements to ...

Habits of International Students

The Eagles Nest is a large cafeteria with multiple computers for student use; there are many dining tables, where you can visit with friends, study, and/or eat. From these tables, you can watch the big screen TV that is mounted in-wall, but there is also a sofa area where you can sit too.

In my research questions, I had two in my mind that formed: what do women and men do when they go to The Eagles Nest, and where do they sit and with whom. I have chosen this topic because I think it is interesting for people to know ...

Italo Calvino’s novel, The Path to the Nest of Spiders is essentially a coming of age story and the reader is presented with the life and times of various characters but most notably, the character of Pin. This is the novel’s central theme: the idea of a young boy struggling to find his place in the world – a scenario which is made all the more complicated by the backdrop of World War Two. Despite this, the novel has some fairy tale-like elements which bring it away from the increasingly popular at the time neo-realism style but helps to add the ...

It should be no surprise that the idea of utopia has often been explored by American writers, since one could argue that America itself exists as a sort of utopian ideal. The words of the Declaration of Independence posit a sort of utopia in their idealistic talk of ’life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This is very bound up with the notion of America as a new world, a new place where fresh starts can be made and the mistakes of the past avoided: The utopian passages in Euro-American writings tended to elevate American spaces and colonists by comparing them to ...

Ken Kesey (1935 – 2001) published One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1962 – a crucial point in American social history. The McCarthyism of the 1950’s was receding and Kesey’s novel seems, in retrospect to foreshadow or to anticipate the enormous social changes that were to come to in the 1960’s – from the Civil Rights movement to the explosion of rock music, from hippies to experimentation with drugs, from alternative lifestyles to Woodstock. Kesey had worked in a mental hospital while he was a student and was partly drawing on his own experiences of what he he saw and ...