One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Viking, 1962. New York: NAL, [1963].

A "total Institution," an insane asylum, becomes a microcosm for a world in danger of succumbing to mechanizing and castrating influences represented in the Narrator's mind as "the Combine." Features a Terrible Mother (Big Nurse) opposed to a clownish rebel (R. P. McMurphy). Since the Narrator is insane for much of the book, the mechanization motifs are mostly metaphoric, and OFOCN is "mainstream" (or "mundane") fiction. Caution: a rather misogynist work.