Uneasiness

Marlow conveys an uneasiness all along the novel that even himself endures along others. His attitude towards Kurtz is not clear. Whether he is for or against him has been ambiguous even for him. The desire to meet Kurtz draws him away from his duties and furthermore, readers are drawn away from sense too. Inexplicably we are eager to meet Kurtz, maybe because some times people want guidance like Kurtz's: unconditional. 

Marlow has been secluded from the rest of his crew by the charisma of someone he does not even know. He sympathizes with this persona and seeks to meet him, but why? After being attacked by "savages" Marlow lingers on the thought that their search for Kurtz is futile because he is probably dead, and mourns for not being able to meet him. Marlow saw his possible loss and said, "I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life…." (page 87). He felt abandoned, yet he has not met Kurtz. Marlow was holding on to something beyond materials and beliefs: Kurtz gave Marlow his legacy so he could hold on to it during his trip. Marlow was sent to stop Kurtz, nearly a savage, from his misdeeds and ended up admiring him. Marlow had traveled to the ends of earth and certainly wanted more of that presence. People attach to whatever or whoever gives them guidance, but Marlow is drawn over the edge inexplicably. I have beliefs and attachments that are part of my everyday life, but following someone (possibly dead) through the Congo river and admiring them seems irrational. 

Until now Kurtz has provided nothing, but suffering to Marlow. His voyage seems useless, but I believe it is not so. Kurtz's accomplishments seem admirable and like me, Marlow wants to understand what is it in this savage that has gained him idolization. In my irrationality, Marlow's uneasiness justifies because I feel equally ambiguous towards Kurtz. Knowing very little of this man, I think he accomplished what no one had before therefore he is worthy of my understanding. Kurtz beat colonization from both colonizer and colonized perspectives, making a whole new society. He created something quite similar to a theocracy with him as a leader. Kurtz is unconditional and he successfully won the "savages" support with his charisma, giving them something to hold on.

Living Dead

Heart of Darkness, written by Joseph Conrad, snatched my attention when Marlow began to recount his travels in Africa working for a trading company. I found a certain resemblance between the dehumanizing colonizing society Marlow encountered in his early days and the cataclysmic society presented in the t.v show, The Walking Dead. While The Walking Dead sees a group of survivors in a zombie apocalypse try to survive and reestablish society, but loosing social order and society's values, Marlow presents the decay of society in the colonization of Africa.

When Marlow arrived at the Company's station he encountered black natives in their final attempts to survive European order. These men were imposed a new social order and organization that ultimately failed, and it transformed them into nothingness. "They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom." (page 28): Marlow's description of these lifeless people reminded me of the zombies in The Walking Dead. Once a person dies, they eventually become a lifeless wanderer full of disease and nothingness. These soulless corpses eventually take the few survivors to the edge, making them loose their minds. They kill their relatives, become greedy, commit suicide and in the end, they will all end up like the zombies. For now what Marlow saw in Africa is uncertain, but the way Europeans stripped Africans from civilization is similar to the way Rick or Shane dehumanize and try to kill each other when they should have tried to survive together. The natives and the zombies have no opportunity to regain humanity, but colonizers and survivors do. Yet both survivors in The Walking Dead and European colonizers lost civilized and controlled ways. 

Regardless of what made Colonizers savages, or the pressure zombies put on survivors in The Walking Dead, they all end up decaying in the bits of society they have left. Marlow says these men have almost no human life left in them, the same as the zombies Rick fights against, but in the end these inhuman creatures can overrun humane people. The restrains civilized people oppose on uncivilized people take them to the brink of humanity and the preassure of survival or imperial growth imposed on themselves, pushes them over. They take the leap and dehumanize just like zombies or slaves that they see as empty bodies in death.

Marvelous Irony

Certainly Newman satirizes the brute and savage conquest of the Canary Islands. Irony is evident in the broad and amateurish explanation for their name. Actually the Guanches were conquered and these were said to worship dogs. Coincidentally Canary derives from "Canaria" meaning dogs". Following, Newman uses irony again saying there are no more Portuguese there. Now the Canary Islands pertain to Spain because coincidentally they conquered them. The song ends more burlesque and ironic than before saying "There on the horizon is the possibility that some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me destroying everything in its path from sea to shinning sea like the great nations of Europe in the 16th century". Newman suggests that now dark skinned people from Africa will do the same that Europeans did, but he is obviously being sarcastic. He does not think in any way that they will do it, but that is his way of mocking both easter and western world.

Possibly the beginning of the song is not ironic because it sets up the context. Europeans gathered on the shore after they all conquered and dominated what they could and then it was time for them to look West. This could be wrong because even "West" is a relative term. It could also be "East".

He who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

From McMurphy's arrival to Nurse Ratched's ward, up to his death, several changes in the other patients occurred. Most evident is Chief Bromdem's transformation from a delusional schizophrenic with no confidence to a "Big" free man. This is all due to the rehabilitation that McMurphy induced in the patients with his uprising towards Ratched's abusive power. Kesey suggests that even selfless beings like Bromden can take control of themselves and liberate themselves from others (mostly society) grinding and crushing.

In the beginning of One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest Bromdem was overwhelmed by a poor mental state therefore he was hid by the fog. He was almost invisible and had no personality, but he was satisfied being almost no one. Even though he was physically big, a war veteran and football player, Bromden convinced himself he was extremely weak because of others oppression over him. As McMurphy begins to "pull out patients out of the fog" even the Chief takes a stand and lifted himself out of it. "No. That's not the truth. I lifted myself." (page 123). Slowly the Chief got ahold of his own voice and began to use it. He was no longer the pusillanimous automaton that simply lived. He began to build himself towards the Big Chief.

Bromden developed his own individuality as he saw McMurphy taking a stand against the Black Boy's and the Nurse's authority. He had the initiative to fight alongside McMurphy and eventually defeated the control that insanity imposed over him. "It's fogging a little, but I won't slip off and hide in it. No… never again…" (page 248) said Bromden as he realized he would hide no more. McMurphy inspired courage and determination in Bromden throughout rebellious actions that ended up instigating him the need of freedom. McMurphy was a hero and a savior for the patients after sacrificing his own health so Bromden killed him to finally give him rest and freedom. Bromdem's transformation from being almost invisible to being a hero similar to McMurphy is evident, but he is certainly more than that. It is up to one to challenge authority and control to find freedom even though sometimes a savior is needed to ignite an insurrection. Kesey portrays a structure like any society where repression must be fought because those who enforce authority are just as sane and mortal as those who obey.

Executioners

Women are depicted in a harsh and recriminating way In One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest: they deprive men from almost everything. Personally, I know a man who I believe has been unmanned by a woman, much like many of the patients in Nurse Ratched's ward. This man goes "cuckoo" most of the time and deviates from that, but occasionally, when he is unsexed and emasculated, he reacts. Unfortunately he always fails and in the end he is oppressed by that strong, demanding, and big woman.

There is a trend in Kesey's novel, where always it is women who command, give orders, and direct men's lives. Right from the beginning, not just the Big Nurse is presented, but along we are told of Hardings seducing wife. Harding believes he may give her reasons to "seek further sexual attention" (page 39). Then it is told that McMurphy is charged of raping a little fifteen year old girl. McMurphy claims she said she was seventeen, but it really made no difference since he believes she was willing to do it. There are a couple other women like Billy Bibbit's mom and the nurses, but the spotlight is on Ratched even though they all strain men in one way or the other. As a big breasted middle-aged woman, Nurse Ratched conveys Kesey's perspective of woman perfectly: they dominate men in a social order were men are treated as inferior sinners, at least in the ward. Ratched's indifference and superiority are her notable defenses to men, "even going so far as to step up to the Big Nurse in the hall one time and ask her, if she didn’t mind tellin’, just what was the actual inch-by-inch measurement on them great big of breasts that she did her best to conceal but never could. She walked right on past, ignoring him just like she chose to ignore the way nature had tagged her with those outsized badges of femininity, just like she was above him, and sex, and everything else that’s weak and of the flesh," (page 138). McMurphy expresses his sexual discrepancies towards the Big Nurse to minimize her and appeal as the strongest, but she is ultimately given more reason to continue emasculating men. 

This depiction of woman is certainly the correct one for someone like Nurse Ratched or the woman I mentioned before, but still, not all women are like this. The woman I previously mentioned reminds me of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to great extent because of her resemblance to the Big Nurse of course, but also of  McMurphy. She works up to the same social order of her as the sovereign, but like McMurphy, she uses sexual jargon and insinuations and intimidates her man.  When McMurphy tried to intimidate Nurse. Ratched with his sexual comments, she was given more reason to think that McMurphy was actually mentally ill and not so "ordinary" as she thought before. Women are seen as the fixers and castrators over men since men are numerously mentioned to lose their "nuts" and even self castrate themselves along the novel. Men are weak and at the mercy of women in Kesey's novel, breaking the common or natural order of life.

Literary Haze

Fog: a thick cloud of tiny water droplets suspended in the atmosphere at or near the earth's surface that obscures or restricts visibility  
Fog clouds and blinds humanity. It is uncontrollable by most means and it is just an occurrence of nature. Some days are foggier than others, making things more or less visible. Chief Bromden, the narrator of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, employs the word fog as a metaphor of his situation. When the Big Nurse and her Black Boys shave Bromden he hallucinates being surrounded by fog in the midst of his paranoid. After getting shaved and put to sleep with medication, Bromden says ,"When the fog clears to where I can see, I'm sitting in the day room. They didn't take me to the Shock Shop this time. I remember they took me out of the shaving room and locked me in Seclusion" (page 8). Before the fog completely blurred Bromden, he was screaming in fear, but after being completely clouded by "fog" he was himself again. His fears were overcome by medication and fog. By not knowing what he lived he evaded suffering. "One of these days I’ll quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog the way some of the other Chronics have, but…" (page 37). Bromden faces two options: stress about being medically treated by the insensitive staff or simply going along with whatever insanity puts before him. Kesey's use of the metaphor of fog gives a much more profound meaning to this word. As of now I see it as a deviation from suffering in unavoidable conditions, like it is in this ward, but one can not simply avoid insanity. Fog could potentially be a cure to insanity or insanity, or maybe the patients' escape of the hospital.

Mood is affected by a variety of factors, one of them being sound. Bromden does not talk a lot with others and fakes being deaf. As he was approached for his shaving he began to scream, but what mood does the fog he faces give to the novel? Even though he was stressed, the fog seems rather comforting for him. Faking deafness Bromden takes a stand of solitude apart the rest of the hospital. Sound is essential for everything, but faking it seems like part of the fog. It is part of avoiding suffering by being talked to. Insanity is accompanied by sound, but Bromden deviates from it. When Bromden was completely blinded by fog, it felt as if he simply gave in and everything went back to normal. He had no need to scream anymore.

Film of the Absurd

Waiting for Godot is widely known for being the exemplary theatre of the absurd tragicomedy, but its film adaptation went too absurd. The final scene portrays Vladimir and Estragon contemplating their lives, their time and their long days. It concludes in a medium-wide shot of Estragon, the tree, Vladimir and behind them the desolate road and the moon. Motionless, Estragon says "Yes. Let's go," and the two friends remain still for about ten seconds. This impacting shot made the whole point of Beckett even more clear than it was by reading the play. The viewer feels uncomfortable and awkward just seeing these two vagrants do absolutely nothing for such a long time. The lack of belief and decision is evident. They have no will or initiative to move along, therefore remain there, probably for the rest of their monotonous lives. Not too often a film has such a boring and disturbing shot, but with such significance. Absurdity is evident in the film with the use of exaggerated statements and stands, equally to Beckett's suggestion that life can be nothing more than what is seen. 

Both the film and the play portray a world like any other. Beckett does not seek to tell a story of heroes and revelations, but rather a story of life. One does not look forward to a monotonous life, but waiting for a god, a special person, an object of value, or any desire, are futile in preventing this type life. In the eyes of absurdity Godot could be anything, and simply watching the end of Vladimir's and Estragon's wait, portrays the bluntness of this wait. The plot could have been the same if Godot was something else. The point lies in the ridiculousnesses that satisfy people. People get lost into useless desires of anything and wait for them, loosing track of everything else, but this is valid. Waiting for nothing or waiting for everything is just the way people go. Watching the film of Waiting for Godot takes almost two hours of one's time and it surely makes its point. Two hours of nothingness are pointless. Two days of Vladimir's and Estragon's life are useless.