Great Nations of Europe

What examples from the song are ironic? How can you tell?

This song drips out irony from where you look at it, but I believe the most important example is the title in itself. When he says the “great nations of Europe” he’s laughing at the fact that the Europeans in the 16^th century thought of themselves as such saviors and godlike, when al they really did was slaughter the Indians into nothingness therefore showing that Europe at that time showed everything but greatness.

What examples are not ironic?  How can you tell?

“Columbus sailed for India found Salvador instead.
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead.”

This example is extremely literal, giving the fact that we all know that that statement was very well true. When Columbus arrived to San Salvador, all he wanted was the gold and colonization, but since they gave him the slightest opposition, they were all slaughtered in terrible ways.

TO BE, TO BECOME, TO TRANSFORM

One of the amazing things about characters in novels is that the author can change them any way they want, making everything more credible and lifelike in readers’ heads. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest by Ken Kesey is a clear example of this, because by the end of the novel, pretty much every character has changed in some way. Let’s take McMurphy for example. When he first comes into the ward, he’s laughing, showing off his good mood and superior attitude to the patients, not really seeing how terrible the power Nurse Ratched has over them. And as the story progresses, he sees that he can only make a difference and be remembered, if he dies in the ward. Symbolizing personality and mentality change towards his situation and the one that surrounds him.

When McMurphy first comes in to the ward, he performs an act that not only intimidates superior control, but also makes patients idolize him in the ward; he laughs.  Since he comes in the ward laughing, he preforms an act that has not been seen there is no much time, and by that, making himself an image of change and in some ways hope to the other patients that have been trapped in there for so long. Things start to change when he starts opening his eyes to the enormous level of power the nurse has over the ward; the football game and the change of schedule for example.

As the novel progresses and comes to an end, McMurphy starts to become an image of change in a way he didn’t even imagine it. He has not only become the person everyone talks bout, but also because of his brain removal, he is a symbol of sacrifice and pin for others. This part of the novel is not only important because of the instant image one gets of Jesus when reading that he sacrificed himself for the well being of others, but also because as an analyzer, we can see that he as a character at the beginning of the novel didn’t expect it either. At first he came to the ward because he wanted a place to rest and think for himself without any disturbance from society.  But as he meets the people in the ward, and as his character and leadership is constantly pulled down by the “Big Nurse,” his vision of life and his meaning to be there changes drastically, making him sacrifice his own freedom and life for that matter in order to finish off with the horrid organization of the ward.

So as one closes the last pages of the novel, the feeling of change is something very present that is kept in mind. A character as complex as McMurphy has change written all over him when the novel ends because he does something he never thought he would do when he comes into the ward, he gives in to the control of nurse Ratched, and by that he changes the way the ward works and destroys the feel of manipulation she has had since the novel began. Characters change like people do, and McMurphy is an excellent example of this. 

Time Period Relevance

The process of reading a novel as symbolic as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest brings out a few questions about the way comparisons are made throughout the story. For example, Chief insists in comparing human beings to machines, which brings out questions like what does the time period of the book have to do with this comparison? 

            Time after a war as important and scarring to history as World War II brings out questions of feeling and meaning to the human mind, and perhaps that is what Chief means when comparing human beings to machines is precisely that: what is a person really worth in the long run, and how does something like this war turn us humans into nothing more than machines? A war does nothing much except turn family men into slaughter machines, and hurting the ones close to them when they die. So Chief’s intention to turning people into machines when they are doing a harsh action, or acting robotically might be a way of showing readers how easily a human being that is in fact a feeling organism, can turn into a non-sentimental machine when something like a war, or in this case a mental hospital neglects the world there is outside.  

            In conclusion, Kesey makes Chief in the novel is turn humans into machines because he wants to mirror the actions of men when they are put in extreme circumstances. How they forget who they are, that they have values and things they stand for, and become terrible objects of destruction. Thus, proving that time period in a novel matters, and that the elements of literature that are being compared in the novel must be relevant and precise. The machine example probably wouldn’t have mattered as much in a time like this.