Imperialistic Mindset

Irony is used throughout literature as a sharp spear to critique society. In the heart of darkness Joseph Conrad uses tone to induce irony in order to develop his critique on imperialism. For Conrad imperialism is a state of mind that one creates through fake reasoning in order to remain blind.

 The novel attempts to describe imperialism through the words of Marlow as he narrates his life as a conqueror in Congo. Unlike the other characters, which are described only by their professions such as “the accountant”, Marlow is known by name. He is distinctive from his shipmates for he is able and willing to judge imperialism. “The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves.”(69) Conrad uses Marlow’s southing tone to enforce a sense of tranquility that exposes imperialism as inhumane. While he narrates his stories as a English conqueror in Congo we are able to sense the irrational behavior. Conrad uses the irony of his characters being unaware of the absurdity behind their situation in order to critique the mindset of an empire.  “They were conquerors and for that you want only brute force—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.”(69) The sense of superiority that arose in imperialism is yet another form of blindness for the conquerors see the Indian tribes as savages while they are much more peaceful than any kingdom in Europe.

The understanding of imperialism is still vague but the idea of understanding it as state of mind is quite unique. Although the novel offers a new form of undertaking the concept, the tone and the irony that comes with it suggest that Conrad considers imperialism as a form of insanity. This novel is certainly a revolutionary way to consider colonialism, hopefully the construction of the real meaning continues to be reasonable.

Irony

“Hide your wives and daughter; hide the groceries too.
The great nations of Europe comin through.”

This is clearly irony because Randy Newman doesn’t really mean you should hide your wives and daughter because the European nations aren’t doing another run and they weren’t looking for women or groceries, they wanted gold. “the great nations of Europe” is also clearly ironic for the author means to mock the nations because they don’t disserve the title of “great”.

“Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone.
You never seen anyone so gone.
There's pictures in a museum, some lines written in a book
but you won't find a live one, no matter where you look”

Now this is clearly not ironic for the author really means what his saying. We know because of the repetition he uses and from prior knowledge. We really know that tribes are gone forever.

Another example of irony is

“he had them torn apart by dogs on religious grounds they say

the great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way.”

The author now uses irony for we know that it is illogic to claim massacres and torturing on religious grounds. He means to critique the reasoning given by the European nations.

  

“Hide your wives and daughter; hide the groceries too.
The great nations of Europe comin through.”

This is clearly irony because Randy Newman doesn’t really mean you should hide your wives and daughter because the European nations aren’t doing another run and they weren’t looking for women or groceries, they wanted gold. “the great nations of Europe” is also clearly ironic for the author means to mock the nations because they don’t disserve the title of “great”.

“Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone.
You never seen anyone so gone.
There's pictures in a museum, some lines written in a book
but you won't find a live one, no matter where you look”

Now this is clearly not ironic for the author really means what his saying. We know because of the repetition he uses and from prior knowledge. We really know that tribes are gone forever.

Another example of irony is

“he had them torn apart by dogs on religious grounds they say

the great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way.”

The author now uses irony for we know that it is illogic to claim massacres and torturing on religious grounds. He means to critique the reasoning given by the European nations.

Becoming a Chief

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest contains various characters that grow and change throughout the story but perhaps the most evolving one is that of Chief Bromden that matures from a deaf dumb Indian into a strong knowledgeable chief.

Chief is introduced in the novel as the narrator and he describes himself as a tall Native American that has refused to speak for over ten years. He claims that this lets him have a little more control, he can always be one step ahead, listening into secret conversations while pretending not hear a thing. The chief has a point but as an audience we are able to identify that he does this because he feels weak. When chief feels he loses the little control he has, he enters a state of mind described as “the fog” which appears to make him loose control and completely black out. These fog moments are caused when he is forced into doing something he doesn’t like by the staff  a good example is when he is force to shave at the beginning of the novel. The author uses the fog to show the readers the weakness his character feels and therefore establish the chief as tall weak chief.

The weakness the chief feels can be associated to that of Dave Lizewski in the film adaptation of the classic comic book series Kick-Ass.  Dave is a young teenage comic book fan whose dream is to become a super hero. But as the chief, Dave lacks both courage and will power to fight the powers of evil. Dave and the Chief both find the strength to grow through outside characters, Dave uses his online fans and his friends Big Daddy and Hit Girl while the chief has McMurphy to push him.. With the help of McMurphy the Chief starts believing that he’s really strong and powerful, he even starts talking again, something he though of never doing again. While Dave starts feeling powerful again enough to stand up against thieves with knifes. This character growth in both works hints the same: people need someone to push them into becoming strong. Without this pushing force most of us remain as what writer Chuck Palahniuk describes as “trapped at the present moment”. But what these authors are saying is not just wait for someone to gain strength, the strength is there we just have to find it. 

Machines, Machines

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest uses symbolism to explain and impose the theme of insanity. The strongest symbol throughout the novel is that of “the machinery”. We should then ask what is “the machinery”? Ken Kesey uses the basic understanding of machines as purposeful and effective inventions to succumb the reader into understanding the working of entities, specifically a mental institution. The author suggests that the mental institution works with the efficiency and lack of emotion as any machine does, patients are carried in to be processed and hopefully some day emerge fixed. This novel critiques institutions because of the way they work, blindly treating patients as other machines instead of what they are: scared human beings.

“ ‘I don’t think you fully understand the public, my friend; on this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.’ ” (163)

Now that we’ve identified what the machine is we should ask ourselves what for? This symbolism takes on the understanding of machines as both effective and inhumane and the oppressive methods used at the hospital can be regarded as such. Patients are punished and heavily drugged so they won’t cause any trouble. We can therefore infer that Kesey’s use of a machine to represent this hospital is clearly a critique on the understanding of insanity by the human society. Crazy people are regarded as broken because they don’t work normally. “If somebody’s of come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty year old woman hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order recriminations, they’d of though the whole bunch was crazy loons.” (126) The novel poses a valid point: crazy is the label given on people who we don’t care enough to “fix”. It’s much easier to label some one as crazy and send him off to the loony bin instead of actually understanding how that person thinks.

Kesey considers human society to be very lazy, humans choose to avoid complications by becoming machines, with no emotion, no compassion. If the hospital wanted to treat patients in the ways they require they could. But it’s much easier to give them an awful lot of medication and have them be brain dead for the rest of the day than having personalized therapies, they become a huge medication machine. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest portrays human society quite accurately. We believe can just pass most of our problems to the next person without regard to how much worse this problem will get.

“‘ I don’t agree that he should be sent up from disturbed, which would simply be an easy way of passing our problem on to anther ward and I don’t agree that he is some kind of extraordinary being—some kind of ‘super’ psychopath.’” (136)