The Use of Laughter as Medicine in Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoo

The Use of Laughter as Medicine in Ken Keseys One Flew everyplace the Cuckoos Nest For years, it has been said that gag is the best medicine. In Proverbs 1722 it says, A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Imagine being in a throw in where medicine takes the place of laughter. This is the environment the patients at an Oregon psychiatric hospital in Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1962) experienced before the arrival of a naked as a jaybird patient. Chief Bromden, who is presumably deaf and dumb, narrates the story in third person. Mr. McMurphy enters the ward all smiles and hearty laughter as his own personal medicine. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is a story about patients in a psychiatric hospital, who are under the power of Nurse Ratched. Mrs. Ratched has control over all the patients move out for Mr. McMurphy, who uses laughter to fight her power. According to Chief Bromden, McMurphy ...knows you know to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourse lf in balance, just to keep the world from lead you plumb crazy (212). Laughter is McMurphys medicine and tool to get him and the rest of the patients through their endless days at the hospital. The authors theme throughout the novel is that laughter is the best medicine, and he shows this through McMurphys static character. The story is made up of series of conflicts between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. McMurphy becomes a hero, changing the lives of many of the inmates. In the end, though, he pays for his actions by suffering a lobotomy, which turned him into a vegetable. The story ends when Bromden smothers McMurphy with a pillow and escapes to freedom. McMurphy demonstrates how he uses laughter and jokes to get through his days by act to get Mr... ... fact that he has just been shocked when he tells Bromden that they are just charging his battery and when I get out of here the first charwoman that takes on ol Red McMurphy the ten-thousand-watt psychopath, shes gonna light up l ike a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars sic (242-243). Here McMurphy uses a contrary mind to help him adjust to the reality that he has just received shock treatment. When a society replaces medicine for laughter, people are going to have problems just as the patients did in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. McMurphy, along with todays society, believes that laughter truly is the best medicine, and one cannot live a normal, sane life without it. work CitedKesey, Ken. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (1962). The Viking Press Inc. New York, New York.Gideons International. Tennessee The National Publishing Company.