Curable?

1960s. Sex. Drugs. And more drugs. One Flew Over the Cuckoo´s Nest is in fact a prettycuckoo novel. In an age of counterculture, Ken Kesey, writes on the definition of what is truly insane. The fog represents the "combine", the system, that seems to be the oppressive power. But due to the fact that the Chief is in a mental hosiptal: the reader is left questioning whether the fog symbolizes the insanity of the Chief or insane techniques of the combine.

Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock (1969)

Granted, I am no doctor. I seem to think that the tactics used by Nurse Ratched are the truly insane characteristics of this mental institute. The fog that is endured by Chief Bromden is not shaving cream covering his eyes, its the electroshocks that have placed him in a constant mind of hallucinations: A Chronic. The way this mental institute is handled is insane: the point of sending a supposedly insane person to a mental institute is to help cure this physiological disorder. The exact opposite is occurring under Miss Ratched´s perfect planning. She creates the fog.  She creates the fear. She makes the patients develop strategies like Chief´s to survive. This totalitarian and oppressive system creates an absurd scenario: it creates insanity. Kesey ridicules the insanity of society, he indicates the true problems are created by ones "up-top."
The fog, Chief sees, is the perfect example of the paranoia that is lived in the confinement under Miss Ratched and The Blacks. Chief panics to the idea of not being in control, of knowing that not even by acting deaf will he evade the idea of being in another person´s hands. The symbolism of being incapable to see ¨six inches in front¨ is the terror and anxiety caused by being touched by the hands that will make you a vegetable. Slowly yet surely, discretely yet swift, Miss Ratched, creates a fog in each of her victims.  (victim is a far better word than patient maybe puppet could qualify.) Miss Ratched is fog. Fog is fear. Fear becomes insanity.

Distortion

Well-acted yet weird, different but clear, the movie presents a different feelings as to the original play. While reading WFD, I felt no significant emotion coming from the characters: no clarity as to what was really going on in the characters´ minds. The monotonous tone produced an extreme level of boredom, as to which impaired the act of actually being able to analyze the character´s thought. 

But in the movie, this impairment of not begin able to "read" the character is nonexistent. The movie expresses the characters in an obvious matter: a way in which the viewer can interpret what the actor feels. This ability of knowing exactly what the character is trying to say, or more importantly what the character feels, conveys a varying perception to the viewer. The act of questioning is extinct, the director eliminates any doubt, and expresses  his perspective on how he questioned and analyzed the play. While reading Lucky´s speech, I pictured a man, a man with deep thought, surprisingly intellectual with his long redaction of speech, an overall philosophical man is conveyed. I interpreted Lucky for the first time as a man of wisdom. But the same speech in the movie, is not the same character that I interpreted. The director transforms Lucky into a schizophrenic-like figure, a possessed man, speaking as thought the lines had been memorized before, a robotic sentiment is acted: the eyes and the frozen body. 

This makes me feel as though the whole point of WFD is: eradicated. The entire play is so boring and simple that it obligates the reader to think deeply, ask questions, and leave the reader to conclude what he/she conclude what Beckett wanted to say. The movie cheats the viewer from what WFD signifies. Boring yet interesting, simple but profound, the play must be read before watching the movie, the reader must have his own idea before being spoon-fed what a director thought Beckett was trying to portray. 

A movie in color?  Don't even think about it.  

Incredibly...ridiculous

An incredible thriller; Waiting For Godot, not. Beckett´s play will indoubetbly be placed in my Hall of Shame. Shame isn´t the correct word to describe what I felt while reading the play, but it defenitely will not be parralled with my Hall of Fame. I mean no offense to Beckett´s honorary position in the arts, but this text really wasn't for me. Despite the mind-boggling boredom, Waiting for Godot and The Stranger associated in my mind. Both books try to reflect an opinion on what society and the human-being represent. Both authors try to express their philosophy on the behavior of man, even though each idea is distinct, a message is sent.

Beckett induces perplexity into his message, he bewilders the reader by disorganizing time and reference for the reader. But the hints that he sends such as the names, Adam, Cain, etc., express the human race in a more direct fashion. Beckett underlines the "five more minutes¨ slogan that has stained society. The incapability to act on one´s will. The uselessness of society is highlighted and procrastination is defined as a daily part of society. While Camus, in his novel; places ridiculous events to represent society. His hints are embedded through Monseuir Mersault´s extraordinary actions: random murder, passionate sex but lack of love, addiction. 

It´s always interesting to garner the ideas, conceived by authors that have left a mark in history, but the way Beckett expressed his was bottom-line boring. The repetitiveness is essential for expressing the circular aspect of daily life, but Beckett´s technique proved to be monotonous and unstimulating. 

Ball of Stress

A man who throws society aside, and  lives in the now, is quite frankly a superhuman. I am not saying that the actions of taking the motto "living only once" are impossible. I know plenty of people who have skydived, smoked, and have never fastened their seatbelt. It is perfectly normal for people to care about the future. The problem is the past. Not even Meursault, the messiah of existentialism could could cope with the "series of choices...", choices that would "create stress."

Meursault again schemes the reader into thinking that he is man of no passion, no dwellings on the past:  a person who frankly doesn't give a @#∞¢. Camus tries hard to engage the reader into disliking Meursault: the murder, maman´s burial, and with such disasters no feeling? Such feelings leads the reader to think of Meursault as a psychopath. But suddenly all the choices that Meursault has executed fall hard on his supposedly YOLO lifestyle. 

Once Meursault lands is jail, he dwells on the PAST! He thinks about sex (Marie), true love (maman), and society as a whole (the chaplain.) The chaplain, that tries to persuade Meursault to repent his sins is ousted by Meursault. The first time that the Camus depicts Meursault as infuriated, and not only infuriated with a man, but a man who signifies society. A man of god, the symbol in which the majority of the world strives to express tampers with Meursault´s emotion. Stress can be resembled with Meursault´s situation, a man who realizes that his end is near. A man who realizes that he has snowballed, and for once he is illustrated on his past, and what his future will bring him. 

"Life is a series of choices, creating stress." 

Why Not?

Camus leaves the reader guessing why Mersault does ands feels such things. At the beginning I really didn't get why Mersault doesn't describes his "mourning" the way he does, or why he doesn't seem to find a meaning to his life. But all my quarries with the novel tempered with the slaughter that Mesault commits the day at the beach. "I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace."(39) Such a random event, leads to endless questions. I was just getting accustomed to Mersault´s existentialist   lifestyle, but just as a life of boredom and bottom-line shameful  seems to be "normal," Mersault looses his bearings.  

But such a thought, a thought that Mersault is completely insane, seems to distance itself from the core of what is really going on. Even though Camus doesn't explain why Mersault does such a thing, it becomes unnecessary, once I realized Mersault´s goal in life: none. Once I realized that Mersault has no goal in life: he lives for nothing thus justifying such actions. He doesn't mourn his mother, doesn't love Marie, and frankly doesn't care about dwelling on the murder he has just committed. Camus leaves the reader to finally solve the existentialist formula. The fact that life is meaningless, doesn't lead to: why? The formula leads to "why not?"

Pathetic?

"It occurred to me that somehow I’d got through another Sunday, that Mother now was buried, and tomorrow I’d be going back to work as usual. Really, nothing in my life had changed." Before analyzing this passage in class, I thought this passage to be pathetic. Pathetic in a way that for most people in the world, the mother figure reflects: affection, warmth, and bottom-line love. Thus leads to the thought that such words from Monsieur Meursault formulate a man with no moral principle, a man full of depression. But once knowing the meaning of existentialism, such an assumption of a depressive human being can be postponed. Espeacially due to the following quote. 
"The sun was getting low and the whole room was flooded with a pleasant, mellow light." This quote labels the definition of existentialism. Monsieur  Meursault finds himself the night before the traditional funeral, mourning his mother in a ¨bleak white room...¨, with her companions from the nursing home. One would think that the feelings being expressed on such an occasion of mourning, would due gloomy, dark, full of sorrow. But the reader finds himself reading a totally different situation, the setting starts to be expresses. In very situation where Monsieur Meursault finds himself in ¨mourning¨, everything from the clothes of the people to the sky or light is described but nothing of sorrow is articulated. Meursault lives in only the present, he never laments the past, and only describes the exact presentation in where he is located. And very scarcely, the future is blathered. 

Tainted Love

       "Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light."(17)  Fitzgerald from the very beginning of the novel starts hinting at what life really is behind the doors of the Buchanan residence: crimson. A deep red, a dark red that almost hints as purple, almost although disguising its real core. Much like Daisy and Tom go about their lives. Lives that for many appeal as ideal, but as the ¨bloomed light¨ is pealed: a shade of misery is bestowed. A misery that is covered in harrowing occurrences. A household that doesn't even know and care about their child´s whereabouts, a relationship torn by adultery, and the presence of a trophy wife. The "crimson room, " only acts as a curtain to the red that lies beneath its surface. A red that symbolizes anger and blood.

Crimson Skies