I chose the 2009 prompt about symbols:
In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the narrator, Chief Bromden, continually refers to "the Combine" as a central symbol throughout his experience in the mental asylum. This metaphor extends beyond the institution to effectively portray society as a cold machine willing to toss aside anything that does not fill its requirements. This also serves to deepen the characterization of Bromden, as he reveals his despair in the face of the unstoppable machine.
One of Kesey's main themes is the destruction of individuality in the face of society's strong standards, which have taken hold of almost all people. The combine in the novel serves to symbolize this trend, as a machine which discards that which does not fulfill the farmer's purpose. It characterizes societal ideals as mechanical and devoid of true personality, while criticizing the hypocrisy inherent in the search for perfect conformity. This is exemplified in Bromden's characterization of Nurse Ratched and the mental institution, which he describes in mechanical terms. These people, who are actually supposed to be allowing the patients to recover, are in fact hindering their progress by reining them into a strict, uniform state, where they lack the ability to think for themselves. Furthermore, the cold, mechanical nature of Ratched and her colleagues leads Billy Bibbit to commit suicide. Thus, the combine furthers the plot as the continuous suppression that it attempts to force upon the patients generates the central conflict of the story upon the arrival McMurphy, the protagonist.
This symbol is also highly relevant to the development of Chief Bromden throughout the story, alongside his symbolism of the oppressed or tossed-aside individuals of any society. Bromden is Native American, wherein the symbol of the combine reveals his sense of loss that stems from the loss of his culture and lands to the white men. This historical allusion allows Kesey to specify an example, which brings the reader to better understand the overall idea of oppression at the hands of mainstream society. In addition, Bromden lives in fear of the combine for most of the novel, which stems from his mistreatment at the hands of the institution staff and society as a whole. Bromden is an outlier who fails to occupy one of the normal niches in the mainstream society. Society's failure to understand him as a human being has caused him to doubt his own abilities and stripped him of any functional sanity.
The novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, reflects many of Kesey's own feelings of alienation at the hands of his seemingly rebellious involvement in the Beat movement. His novel points out the destructive habit of society to single out and quash those who do not seem to conform to its values, and this idea is reflected in the combine.
Abhijit,
ReplyDeleteBefore I read your essay, I think that to help us commentators it would be beneficial if you wrote out the prompt at the top. But any ways your essay is structured well. I love your topic sentence from the stand point of an AP grader because you answer the prompt directly not only saying you have a symbol, but also explaining what the symbol is. Also, you seem knowledgeable about this book and the themes that go along with it so great choice in literature. I struggle with finding a good book to relate to these passages because the books that I read outside of class I do not analyse like I should. But enough about me, you did a great job on this post just remember my first note about the prompt, that would be very helpful!
Sincerely,
Ana
Abhijit, first of all, I love your blog name and picture, so cute! But not lets get down to business. Like Ana mentioned, I also think it would help in the future to place the prompt at the top of the essay, however, that’s only a minor change. Overall, this is a great essay, the structure and diction is terrific. You keep on focus the entire time and provide great support to each of your statements. Also, your intro is great! Your topic sentence and thesis clearly show that they are answering the prompt and are in the structure Ms. Holme’s has engraved in our minds. The conclusion is also very good and does a good job of bringing your ideas full circle. It is clear that you are well on your way to scoring a top score on that AP exam! Great work!
ReplyDeleteAbhijit,
ReplyDeleteSo, I’m just going to cover this because it’s the only thing wrong with this post (even though Ana and Serena have already mentioned it) remember to post the prompt. I assume it has something to do with symbols in a work, assuming that you followed it.
Other than not adding the prompt, this post is flawless. I think at one point a tear rolled down my cheek. Normally, while reviewing these blogs I ask for more examples(even though I am a violator myself) but you had them everywhere I looked. This is normally another problem that is more frequent than not, but the examples flowed into one another and helped to create the main point. Again, flawless. Not only that, but you were really killin it on the structure, I don’t tend to have a problem with that, but man, you put me to shame. Keep up the awesome work!
Ana and Sarena: Strong peer reviews of Abhijit's excellent essay, though you should have asked for a more concrete example of the claims "This is exemplified in Bromden's characterization of Nurse Ratched and the mental institution, which he describes in mechanical terms," and you might have pointed out that there are a few passages where the syntax needs to be simplified or revised for precision.
ReplyDeleteRachel: Though yes, Abhijit should have posted the prompt, you could very easily have used the info at the top of this post to look up the prompt yourself--and should have, prior to writing this review. The bulk of this review is simply you enjoying your own voice, and is of no help to Abhijit as a writer at all, aside from the temporary pleasure of being flattered. You can do better.