Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Loon
On page 138 Chief says that any observer would have thought that they were as "crazy as loons". Obviously there is the connection with the word loony which can be a simile for crazy but I think that there is meaning behind why Kesey choose the loon. They are black and white birds with red eyes and I think that they could represent the struggle between good and evil. The black being the combine and at the head, the red eye as Nurse Ratched and the white could represent the patients. If you look closely the loon's back it has many white spots and on the breast of the loon is a large white patch which fades into black as it gets closer to the spots on the back. Each of the white spots could be a patient and the white breast could be McMurphy as he trys to connect with the patents but is hindered by the black of the ward and Nurse Ratched.
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I agree that maybe the appearance and choice of the loon to describe the patients could show a struggle, although I was thinking of it more along the lines of a struggle between specifically the outside and the inside of the ward or the individuality of the patients versus the uniformity of the ward rather than between good and evil, since the book spends a lot of time mentioning how Chief considers the world and the ward as part of the "Combine" and destroys individuality.
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