(I aslo wrote this awhile ago and am uploading it now) I have just finished the book. I think the book asks a few main questions which I would sum up as:
1. What constitutes as insane, and how is that decided?
2. How does society influence/ control us, and more importantly should we let it?
3. What role do impulses and desires play in human life, and why is are they important?
All of these questions sort of tie back into the main idea of following and accepting what is set out for you vs. acknowledging your inner self and figuring out how you feel as a bases for what decisions you make. The emphasis is on ones ability to not blindly follow. (Though personally I also see the patients follow McMurphy which is still following)

In terms of insanity, I think the book brings into question the idea of how and why it is decided that someone is insane. McMurphy is not what one might classify as classically crazy, but he is admitted, and given intense therapies (electroshock, and a lobotomy). In the story asking questions marks one as insane, and someone who needs to be "taken care of" like Maxwell Taber who was given electroshock treatments to make him docile simply because he asked what kind of meds he was taking. Nurse Ratched is in power, and if she see a threat in you, you will be immediately classify you as insane. It is easier to remain in power if you denote anyone who questions you as crazy. The book insinuates that those in charge of our societies, have discovered this as a way to keep people quiet and obedient.

In thinking about the book, most often society is said to be what influences us, what controls us and makes the decisions, But who/ what is in control of this "society",  how do they influence us and should we let them? The book uses Nurse Ratched and the ward, to represent a bigger picture of society as a whole. The obvious controlling factor in the book is Nurse Ratched, she runs the ward like a dictatorship, and controls the hospital or the "society". As I read more, I started to notice more and more mechanical imagery, used as negative symbols. Machines belittle the individual and help make everyone become part of the whole (the whole being Nurse Ratched's ideal ward, or Kesey's view of the modern society) Nurse Ratched's aids are described as mechanical, and they keep the patients at bay. The fog Bromden see's obscures his judgement and ability to see the world, at times he considers it safe as it shields him from his reality. He also believes this is not naturally occurring as fog usually is, but is a result of a fog machine controlled by the staff and Nurse Ratched. This is blatant use of machinery as a controlling force to stomp out individuality, by clouding one's view of the world. Kesey uses machinery to show the repression we may not even realize we face in modern society. Society has eroded our self awareness and natural impulses. Kesey suggests that we should refuse to allow society into our consciousness, and instead embrace our natural impulses and make decisions for ourselves.

As humans we all have urges and desires. With this book Kesey implies that we should not ignore those, they are part of a human experience. If we ignore our desires, who are we? Certainly not happy. Kesey's work poses the question to the reader "Who are you really? What do you desire? Are you content to let someone tell you that this it is innately wrong to have desires?" It is important to recognize what you desire and sometimes act upon impulses in order to experience a authentic human life.

Huck Finn 4

      After the fiasco with the dead man's will, Huck and Jim try to get away from the duke and dauphin, who have started to have secret conversations with one another on the raft.  Jim begins to worry that they are plotting to turn against him.  The next time they stop at a town along the river, Jim waits at the raft while Huck goes with the con men.  After the con men get in a fight in town, Huck goes back to the raft to find that Jim is missing.  After acquiring information from a local boy, Huck realizes that the dauphin had given up Jim to a local farmer named Silas Phelps.  Huck finds himself at a mental crossroads here as he contemplates the morality of his journey and what to do next.  He knows that if he continues to help Jim, he will be shamed in his town, but he thinks about the kind of honest man that Jim is and decides that he will continue to help him even if it is considered sinful by the people of his town.  He goes back on his earlier word that he would never let his conscience influence his decision and resolves to find Jim and continue to help him escape.  This is a major turning point in the novel as it marks the transition of Huck as somebody who is never quite sure of himself to somebody who can confidently make his own decisions.  At this point, he is no longer the boy who followed Tom Sawyer's lead in a make-believe gang, but a man who is willing to do what he thinks is right, even if it means doing the opposite of what society tells him is acceptable.

      On his way through town, Huck encounters the Duke, who tells him that Jim is at the Phelps Farm. On his way to the farm, Huck cannot help but think that God is watching over him, leading the way to the farm.  This demonstrates more character development from the earlier Huck, who simply thought God to be some sort of magic, wish-granting genie, and did not really fully understand.  Now, however, he sees that God is more than that.  He sees the spiritual value in Him more than the materialistic value that he focused on before.

      When Huck arrives at the farm, he is greeted by a woman named Sally, who is under the impression that Huck is her nephew, Tom, who was meant to come visit a few days ago.  As he had done so many times before, Huck seizes the opportunity and plays along with this charade.  However, it later comes up that the "Tom" who Huck is pretending to be is really Tom Sawyer.  Upon realizing this, Huck heads to the dock in order to meet up with the real Tom and inform him of the situation at hand.  When Tom gets there, he agrees to help Huck to free Jim.  This is especially significant due to the fact that for most of Huck's life, including in the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, he has been under Tom's leadership.  However, now it is the case that Huck is the one leading an "adventure" while Tom takes on the role of an assistant.  However, Huck becomes frustrated when Tom reverts back to his usual romantics, insisting that the rescue must be made in the most theatrical manner possible, or else it is not a real escape.  Unlike Huck, who is grounded in reality, Tom does not seem to grasp the concept that this rescue really could result in death for any of the three involved.  In Tom's mind, it is probably similar to the make-believe gang that pretended to rob fake stagecoaches.  Sure enough, Tom Sawyer seizes control of the operation, and the power is constructed in much the same way as it was for most of the story.

      Despite the fact that Tom's Hollywood-esque preparations have attracted a mob of farmers armed with shotguns who hope to thwart the operation, the three make it back to the canoe with Tom's leg bleeding from a bullet wound.  After escaping, Huck sends for a doctor, and ultimately the three of them wind up back at the Silas's, only this time Jim is chained at the hands and feet.  However, he is unchained when Silas hears of Jim's heroism - another sign that his morals are not different from those of a white man.

      At this point, Huck begins to wonder if his father has taken Huck's huge fortune yet, but Jim tells him that it is not possible because the dead man on the bed was Pap.  Jim simply did not want Huck to see, so he said nothing of it.

      Jim gets his freedom when he finds out that Miss Watson wrote in her will that he would be freed at her death and had actually died two months ago.  Huck decides that he is through trying to be civilized and heads west with the new found knowledge that black men are not so different from white men after all.

(I wrote this on paper like two weeks ago but haven't uploaded it on to here) I am almost done with the book now. I feel like not so subtle Christ imagery has gotten even stronger, with the scene with the electroshock therapy. He lies himself down on the cross shaped table without the kind of fuss or fight you might expect from him. He even asks when he will get his crown of thorns, and obvious Jesus reference. Throughout the book though he has been a Jesus figure since he walked in, the other patients became sort of like his disciples, he takes them fishing (which I'm not completely sure but I think is something Jesus did with his disciples). In the movie he dies, and if this remains the same in the story, one could look at that as McMurphy dying for everyone else absolving them of their sins in a way.

I also think that the book makes Ratched (and most women in the book) appear as symbolic castrators. Ratched is emasculating in a way, she refuses to acknowledge sexual impulses which may be sort of a representation of society and its desire to squelch the overt sexuality of man. McMurphy is very free sexually, but his desires are uncouth and not really accepted in society. Nurse Ratched, even with her large breasts which most would consider an indication prominent sexuality refuses to acknowledge them. She even condemns Billy when he has relations with Candy, she threatens to tell his mom (also portrayed as castrating) and Billy having just have symbolically gained his manhood, kills himself. When McMurphy rips her clothes, showing her skin it pushes her to be seen as a human being, who possesses human qualities, including been both seen as a sexual figure and innate sexuality which she has tried to conceal. She like society, represses sexual urges and feelings by shaming those who admit or act upon them into feeling like they are abnormal. McMurphy accepts his sexual desires as part of not just who he is but also part of a natural human life.

Adventures of Huck Finn (Final Post)

Huck sets out to find Jim, and encounters a family who happen to think he is their nephew, Tom. Once spending some time with them playing this "Tom" role, Huck comes to find out that this Tom he is impersonating is none other than his best friend Tom Sawyer. Tom arrives on a steamboat and thinks Huck is a ghost, believing he killed himself back in the beginning of the book. They find Jim and hatch a litter of plans to get him out and resolve to dig him out with large kitchen knives. Once Tom arrives, Huck's maturity shines bright, Huck sees the potential danger in each of his plans and ends it. But Tom's willingness to help Jim escape confuses not only Huck, but me too. But considering the plans that Tom came up with, he wasn't concerned with Jim's escape, but for the adventure that came with it. One of Toms suggestions was to saw Jim's leg off to get him out of the chains. Huck also uses the n-word in these chapters, I don't know whether it was to imitate a southern style of speaking, or if he still retains some of the mentality he was taught.
Tom sets up a large set of ludicrous plans, one after the other, putting the house in disarray. Huck gets caught up in the madness and begins to feed into these crazy plans, turning Jim into an object rather than a human being. They play games with something that is extremely serious for Jim. Here's the part that loses me, the owners of the house Sally and some other guy visit and pray with Jim, when they plan to make him a slave again. But Tom and Huck are the ones toying with his freedom, but are trying to free him nonetheless. All these shenanigans make it seem like Huck forgot everything he has learned over the course of the novel, and that scares me, at least for Jim's sake.
After making matters worse in their mischievous schemes, Huck and Tom escape with Jim to a canoe after a mob of people attack the shed that Jim is being held in. Tom receives a bullet wound in his leg and Huck goes to get a doctor. The house owners find Huck and the ending of the book is in chaos. They find Tom and Jim, who they chain up roughly. Once everything comes to the light, it seems Tom got what was coming to him once he reveals that Miss Watson died two months ago and set Jim free in her will. The people immediately release him when hearing of this and his care taking of Tom's bullet wound. Huck finds out from Jim that his father is dead when him and Tom plan to find him and the money. Huck decides to leave society with Tom on another adventure, which is completely understandable considering what he has discovered about the misconstrued world he resides in. Jim is the only one who leaves this novel a respectable adult, after hiding Huck from the truth, and taking care of Tom.

After reading this novel I have one large question, with a few smaller ones following.
What did I just finish reading?
Huck seems to look at life from another perspective, but not completely as he sets out on more adventures. Tom is hopeless, and Jim is a free man. Every problem in the book is solved, but the solutions create more problems, for me. They leave me questioning what to take from the story.
The messages I receive are: whether to follow your conscience or what you are taught, that our race is hopeless, and that although Blacks are free, we are still held down by what society is taught to think of us. I'm not sure if i'm satisfied with the ending of this either, it's really upsetting.

Huck Finn 3

      After floating down the Mississippi in hopes of finding the Ohio, Jim and Huck begin to suspect that they have missed the junction altogether.  In yet another stroke of bad luck which Jim attributes to a prank involving a dead snake that Huck played on him earlier, the canoe collides with a steamboat and the two are separated.  While it is unclear what happens to Jim, Huck makes it to shore and is taken in by a family called the Grangerfords, who are in a feud with another family called the Shepherdsons.  It is here that some of Huck's opinions of death are expressed.  One of the Grangerfords, Emmeline, is now deceased but used to write macabre poetry which Huck could not stand for its subject matter.  While walking through the woods with one of the Grangerford slaves, Huck witnesses a gunfight between the two families and is scarred by the death of two Grangerfords.  This is a big moment for Huck, who has spent the whole book up until this point trying to run away from death, only to find that it lurks around every corner.  When he realizes this, he does not immediately flee, but instead takes the time to pull Buck Grangerford's body out of the river, which signifies maturation for Huck.  He ventures on and reunites with Jim, who reveals that he was able to keep the raft by lying to a group of slaves saying that the raft belonged to his master.  

      After floating downriver for a while, Huck and Jim decide to pick up two conmen who are fleeing the people they screwed over.  The conmen try to convince Huck and Jim that they are an English duke and the rightful heir to the French throne, which Huck doubts silently to himself.  The pairing of Jim's lie earlier in order to keep the raft and continue to pursue freedom with all of the lies of the conmen who are simply doing it to make money poses the question "When is it okay to lie?"  Based on the fact that Huck, who has elements of a Christ figure, excuses Jim's dishonesty because it was for his own survival, but seems to frown upon the use of lying to make money, it can be inferred that this is so for all or most cases.  However, this question is further complicated later in the story when Huck fails in his attempt to give stolen money back to a family, the disappearance of which he later blames on a group of slaves.

      In a town in Arkansas, Huck witnesses the shooting of a drunkard followed by the attempted lynching of the perpetrator, who is essentially able to escape his demise by making the mob feel cowardly and weak.  This is a tactic that Pap had used on Huck while trying to convince him to drop out of school, though Huck ended up running away in spite of that.  This shooting does not seem to affect Huck as much as did the Grangerford shooting - probably because he did not know this man and probably because the victim was a drunkard like Pap.  However, it still does impact him, which shows that Huck regards all human life the same way - something that nobody except for Jim has demonstrated in this story.

      As the story progresses, Huck becomes increasingly aware that Jim, despite being a black, uneducated slave, is not very different from himself or from any other white men that he has met in that he loves his family.  When something reminds Jim of a time he mistreated his daughter and makes him upset, it became apparent to me that Jim actually loves his children more than Pap loves Huck.  Whether or not Huck had this same revelation, I can only speculate, but Huck certainly knows now that black men are equally capable of producing the same emotions as white men despite everything that Huck has been led to believe until now.  Furthermore, he becomes disappointed when the duke and the dauphin pretend to be the brothers of a recently deceased man who also happen to be the heirs to his fortune.  However, when expressing his discontent with this action, Huck does not say he is disappointed with the white race for committing such an act, but instead he is disappointed in humanity as a whole.

OFOTCN post 4

Now that I have reached the end of the novel, I feel that I am starting to understand the mechanical imagery in the text. Originally, I had thought that the mechanical imagery was something unique to the ward and the hospital, showing the author's criticism for mental institutions. However, when the chief is recalling his father's story to McMurphy, he speaks about "The Combine" and says that "It worked on him for years." This suggests that the image of the combine exists in ordinary life, an idea that is confirmed when the patients go out on a fishing trip. As they are driving along, the chief comments on how he can "see the signs of what the Combine had accomplished..."

After this realization I think that the image of machinery is meant to be critical of society as a whole. In particular, it criticizes the idea that anyone who is too strong for society, that they might find large and threatening, they tear apart because of their strength.

This idea is further emphasized by the fishing trip itself. While on the boat, the imagery of machinery is completely gone and is not once mentioned. Additionally, we see the characters in a different light here, where they no longer seem like patients but like regular people. It is even stated after they return that something has changed.

"They could sense the change that most of us were only suspecting; these weren't the same bunch of weak-knees from a nuthouse that they'd watched take their insults on the dock this morning."

When they return to the hospital, Nurse Ratched gives everyone an idea that McMurphy is doing everything only to benefit himself. However, it becomes obvious that everything he does is only for the benefit of others. On the boat, he keeps his life jacket, allowing others to "be the hero" and become bigger by giving theirs up.
As time goes on, it seems that McMurphy also becomes more and more tired which I would say is due to the fact that he has given his energy to the others. It is as if by building them up, he is draining himself and giving them everything he has.

The idea that he gives everything he has into them is truly present when McMurphy refuses to escape when given the chance, and instead tries to choke Nurse Ratched. Instead of getting out, he gives up his life to fight for the rights of the other members of the ward. After his death, the other members find ways to get out of the ward, and his death is a final blow to Nurse Ratched. She leaves for a week and when she returns she does not have the power she once did. Additionally, McMurphy gave chief the power to finally escape from that place. Many of the other patients left as well, and some went to other institutions instead.

Though at times McMurphy had selfish intentions, he gave up everything he had to make life better for the members of the ward. He taught them how to be big, and not let the "Combine" tear them apart, and he taught them how to laugh again, and be themselves. Essentially, McMurphy joining the ward was a cure for the other members, who never would have escaped the perpetual "fog" without his rebellious tendencies and his strong beliefs.

OFOTCN Post 3

I've just had an interesting realization about the McMurphy's character and his effects on the members of the ward. To me, it seems like McMurphy actually represents society and reality, as he is so clearly unafraid to speak his thoughts. The chief demonstrates this when he asks the question "How can McMurphy be what he is?"(162). By this he means he is unaffected by how people treat him, and by what goes on around him. He simply is himself, and nothing else. The most interesting part is that McMurphy being himself and rebelling as he does seems to be some sort of cure to the rest of the patients, and the chief in particular.

As I said in my last post, I believe that this "fog" we hear so much about is simply a state of mind the chief experiences due to his illnesses. However, after McMurphy is with them for some time, he states that he figures the fog machine has broken down, since there has been no fog lately. Supposing that it is his mind he is referring to, McMurphy's presence is simply curing him of any illness. He even says that he is feeling the floor for the first time on his bare feet, and he goes and looks outside to realize its turning into fall, and has many average human experiences that we don't see coming from him at any other point in the novel. It seems as if he is suddenly seeing things clearly, and experiencing life for what it is.

However, when McMurphy finds out he is committed and cannot leave until the nurse gives the ok, he starts behaving and acting like someone other than himself. At this point the chief starts experiencing "fog" again, and he also gets a ringing in his head, which both bring him back down into his illness. But when McMurphy lashes out at Nurse Ratched in their meeting (201), Chief states that the ringing in his head has stopped. So, in a way McMurphy is the Chief's cure.

Since we cannot see into the heads of the other patients, we can only assume they are getting the same experience that the chief is, which emphasizes an overall message in the novel. Though I do think the idea of defining "crazy" is important to the novel, I am finding it less important with this new theory. Now, I feel it is more clear that the novel is simply making a comment about mental institutions, and how removal from reality only worsens illnesses, as these people need to be exposed to the real world to be able to heal.