[There] seems to me to be part of an unfortunate trend among male critics to overpraise [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,] a novel which may be conservative, if not reactionary, politically; sexist, if not psychopathological, psychologically; and very low, if not downright lowbrow, in terms of the level of sensibility it reflects, a sensibility which has been influenced most strongly not by the Bible or a particular literary tradition as much as by comic books, particularly the Captain Marvel variety...

Literary critics have always found ways to contradict each other…. Consider two statements concerning Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: according to Terrence Martin, "The men on the Big Nurse's ward become stronger once they recognize their interdependence…." [see excerpt above], but W. D. Sherman says that "The kind of affirmation which arises from Kesey's novels is an anarchic 'yes' to life, which, despite its joyousne...