Themes

In the seventh chapter of Sailor Song, ninety-four-year-old Father Pribilof delivers an impassioned sermon based upon a text from Ecclesiastes: "For O, man knoweth not his time! And as fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of man snared in an evil time." Wisely, the priest aptly defines the plight of the residents of Kuinak, for they are most definitely ensnared in an evil time.

In his version of T. S. Eliot's poems "The Waste Land" (1922), Kesey presents a host of ills. Many people are drug-dependent; some choosing alcohol, others the latest trend in stimulants—scoot, made from 'brewing special black and herbal green teas. Physical and moral filth abounds, as symbolized by the hagfish, slimey predators who invade the body and feed off of decaying flesh. In a startling scene Kesey presents...