MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In examining literary criticism, scholars frequently syndicate feminist, queer, and disability studies, and the subjugation facing individuals recurrently marginalized by society. Though these areas are distinguishable in their opinions of gender, sexuality, and physical and mental incapacities, individuality and social adaptation remain the primary focus of literary critics. While feminine and queer theorists pursue the deconstruction of social barriers erected by culture, individuals with disabilities continue to experience crises of identity, commanding a prominent rise in disability narratives and the field of disability scholarship. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, mental health and misogyny underscore two of the novel’s most noteworthy themes as a candid reflection of postwar conformist American society. Yet, Kesey’s text also examines the notion of disability, not as a subject of mental health, but instead as an intrinsic relationship between gender and disability. In the absence of this argument in literary scholarship, this paper claims that Kesey’s text is in fact a disability narrative, one that explores the relationship between social nonconformity and disability, inclusive of mental disorder, gender, and sexuality. As such, the term disability cannot be solely limited to its designation as a mental or physical handicap, but instead as an abnormality of identity within society. Kesey’s masterwork exposes emasculation and overt feminism as a disabled identity through which his characters must find personal meaning in their journey for self-acceptance. The characters represented within his autocratic setting are not maltreated merely because of their mental or physical incapacities, but largely because of their failure to align with the socially proscribed norms of gender and sexuality. Thus, Kesey’s text is a “nonconforming” disability narrative, which reflects upon persons suppressed by conventional disability identities and social conformists, in their shared quest for self-worth, redemption, and undoubtedly freedom.