Both/And: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

A major theme of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is "Individualism." The free individual resists conformity, authority, and rule. The individual has his or her dignity, rebels against limits to his or her freedom, exerts his or her own will, and is at his or her best when free. It's a free, willful individual that brings down the controls.

A major theme of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is "Community." The Combine/Big Nurse maintain authority by turning the patients against each other, removing any loyalty or trust. Alone, each patient is vulnerable. But when McMurphy brings the patient together, turns them against the Big Nurse together, teaches them to work together, to laugh together, to play together, to resist together, to trust each other, the controls begin to come apart. It is when the patients combine into a unified community that the controls are resisted.