Shrinks and the Shrunken: Anti-Psychiatry in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Bell Jar.

Abstract

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath are compared and contrasted in their representations of gender in relation to madness, madness itself and psychiatry. This thesis works with the fact that these novels are considered to be anti-psychiatry novels. Ken Kesey’s work is mainly negative towards psychiatry. In the novel, madness is used as a label stuck on those that form society’s outcasts and psychiatry is merely a tool to either hide or ‘fix’ those mistakes. Regard for the patient’s well being is absent. The Bell Jar contrasts with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It shows positive behaviour towards psychiatry and the protagonist of the plot finds a cure for her depression in it.