2005 Fontbonne Hall Academy
English II Trimester I
Ms. Impellizzieri Worksheet
Name:___________________________ Sec#___________
Research the following:
What did the 1960s mean? This book looks at this decade of
civil rights and black power movements, political figures and the Cold War,
student rebellion, and the war in Vietnam and analyzes the role and legacy of
liberal politics in America.
Who is Ken Kesey? Why did he write the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?
Vocabulary you must understand
before reading, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Definition: A combination especially of
business or political interests. Also, a harvesting machine that heads,
threshes, and cleans grain while moving over a field.
Context: In Chief Bromden's mind, the world is run
by an all-powerful, all-seeing secret group—the Combine.
Definition: A philosophical movement embracing
diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an
unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate
responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what
is right or wrong or good or bad.
Context: The Merry Pranksters and the hippies had
some ideas of what existentialism was about.
Definition: Surgical severance of nerve fibers
connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus for the relief of some mental
disorders.
Context: Lobotomy—the ultimate horror in Psychiatry.
During one procedure common in the 1940s, a long tool, very much like an ice
pick, was driven through the top of the eye sockets into the brain, into the
frontal lobes, and then wiggled about to disconnect the cellular wiring.
Definition: Affected with a fundamental mental
derangement characterized by defective or lost contact with reality.
Context: Releasing mental patients from hospitals
led to the bizarre phenomenon of having the street full of psychotic, untreated
people.
Definition: A psychotic disorder characterized
by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the
level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality
expressed as disorder of feeling, thought (as in hallucinations and delusions),
and conduct.
Context: Both schizophrenia and LSD impair the
brain's ability to distinguish whether impulses are coming from outside—out
there in reality—or from inside—from the workings of one's own mind.
Questions to answer after you have read the novel:
1-
How were the insane treated in the 1960’s? Are they treated the same today?
2-
Which character did you identify with most? Which character could you not identify with
at all?
3-
Which scene in the novel do you most remember?
4-
Which scene from the film do you most remember?
5-
How is the film different from the novel?
6-
Did the film’s creator properly depict the characters in
the novel? What should he have done
differently?
7-
Which current day actors would fill the roles of McMurphy,
Chief and Nurse Ratched?
Project: After we
have read the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, you will write an essay
and a movie review.
Your movie review must include,
director, year the film was made, actors and characters they played and what
type of rating you feel this movie deserves.
It should only be one page typed and made into columns (similar to how
you see reviews in the newspapers).