QUOTES ANALYSIS

To what extent does Kesey challenge racial stereotypes?

QUOTE ANALYSIS

“All of them black as telephones. The blacker they are, she learned from that long dark row that came before them, the more time they are likely to devote to cleaning and scrubbing and keeping the ward in order. For instance, all three of these boys’ uniforms are always spotless as snow. White and cold and stiff as their own.” (Page 27) – The juxtaposition between the words black and white connotes racial differences between the two groups of people: African Americans and The Whites. The reference to the uniforms being white as snow and spotless clearly shows how the white people thought of themselves as superior and better [even perfect] back in the 1960s. Like the quote shows, there is use of literary techniques such as simile. The use of simile helps create an image in the readers’ mind, in this case of the black aids being “black as telephones”. From the way Kesey portrays Nurse Ratched’s thoughts and ideas, we can understand that she didn’t only have power and control over everyone but also felt superior when referring to race and gender.

“Look at him: a giant janitor. There’s your Vanishing American, a six-foot-eight sweeping machine, scared of its own shadow.” (Page 62)- This quote can be considered very ironic due to the fact that all across the text, Chief Bromdem is the one who speaks of people as if they were machines, not others of him. The use of the word ´vanishing´ is rather harsh because it connotes to the fact that his tribe was virtually going extinct. In this quote, Kesey alludes to the fact that the patients at the mental institution were forced to live under a system of control and lack of freedom through the use of the word ‘machine’. This can be considered an ironic quote because throughout the novel, the only person who refers to the patients as machinery is Chief Bromdem himself whilst at this point Chief Bromdem is said to be a machine.

“He said, what can you pay for the way a man lives? He said, What can you pay for what a man is? They didn’t understand… The Combine had whipped him. It beats everybody. It’ll beat you too. They can’t have somebody as big as Papa running around unless he’s one of them. You can see that.” (Page 189)-alludes to the fact that they took it all away from the Chief. Because he was a Native American he was inferior to all others and treated as such. When it talks about the combine, it refers to the State and how they took everything away from Chief Bromdem, not only his family, his tribe but also his beliefs, his culture and his rights.

“I think I’ll stop along Columbia on the way. I´d like to check around Portland and Hood River and The Dalles to see if there’s any of the guys I used to know back in the village… I’d like to see what they’ve been doing since the government tried to buy their right to be Indians. I’ve even heard that some of the tribe have took to building their old ramshackle wood scaffolding all over that big million-dollar hydroelectric dam, and are spearing salmon in in the spillway. I’d give something to see that” (Page 280-1)-This quotes refers to how they destroyed tribes and they lost their freedom. This shows how Native Americans were treated as inferiors within one same country where they were the ones who many years ago had helped build a society