One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest“If it feels good, do it.” This is a quote that many people in the 1960s lived by and tried to use in their everyday lives. This was a time of rebellion and change in the United States. Many young citizens turned against their parents' lifestyle and decided that things had to change. They felt intense anger about the Vietnam War and that's when the rebellion began. Many young people engaged in radical politics, wore hippie clothes, used drugs, and had extremely liberal sexual attitudes. They believed “the man,” or the government wanted to eliminate them and try to silence their opinions. During this period, the government also institutionalized people who held crazy opinions in psychiatric wards. They used bizarre and harmful forms of treatment on these patients such as frontal lobotomy and electroshock therapy. It was a time of change in the United States and you can see Ken Kesey's perspective on it through his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Ken Kesey, “The Intrepid Traveler” The late author Ken Kesey was born on September 17, 1935 and passed away on November 10, 2001. He was the author of numerous works including Zoo, Caves and the most popular One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He is a well-known author internationally and across generations. He began writing his now famous novel in the early 1960s, after an experience he had that year. He was working the night shift at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital in Virginia. He had the opportunity to talk to some patients and began to form his own opinion about them. He did not believe that they were crazy but rather that they had been expelled from society because they did not fit into conventional ideas of how people were s...... middle of paper ...... the institution causes the reader to trust his reliability and believe he knows exactly what he is talking about. It is safe to say that the 1960s were a time of strong rebellion, change and oblivion of psychiatric wards. Anything that was considered “different” or “strange” was overlooked and swept under the rug. This is why television shows like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were so popular because they dissuaded people from society's sick truths, just as it still is today. Ken Kesey took the road less traveled and exposed the world to what was really happening. The sick conditions of mental institutions, the teenagers who wanted to rebel against the government and the conformism that just needed to be broken. This is why critics around the world agree that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the truest, most provocative and thought-provoking novels written in the last century...