“One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”: an Allegory of Communism
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”: an allegory of Communism
Have you ever heard anything about the lives of people who live in a Communist country? I am personally one of those whose family struggled 18 years without individual rights and freedom under the Communist rule. I am familiar with the lives of those people. These experiences are not found in any Communist books. Before 1975, Vietnam was a republic. On April 30th, 1975, Communists took over the country. They claimed that our country was independent and that we would have liberty from then on. The truth is our individual rights and freedoms have been lost since that day. We lived under the Communist dictatorship and were forced to obey the orders of their leaders. We could not travel outside the country. They forced each family to have an adult representative at the group meeting one night a week to discuss other people’s problems. We had to sing songs, which praised the government. Each family had to hang a picture of Ho Chi Minh, the Communist leader, in their living room, and a Communist flag at the front door. If anyone did not obey orders, the Communists would put that person in jail.
In Vietnam, one is General Secretary, the most powerful position in the country, until he dies. Then the party votes another one among its members to be the next General Secretary. We were not allowed to vote for that position. We did not have freedom of the press, either. Writers still have to write in favor of the government. Some writers have tried to mock the government or to describe the struggling of citizens in a humorous story, a fairy tale or an allegorical form. Sometimes these writers have been clever enough to get away with it; most of the time they have not.
An allegory is a form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Thus the allegory represents one thing in the guise of another. The film
Have you ever heard anything about the lives of people who live in a Communist country? I am personally one of those whose family struggled 18 years without individual rights and freedom under the Communist rule. I am familiar with the lives of those people. These experiences are not found in any Communist books. Before 1975, Vietnam was a republic. On April 30th, 1975, Communists took over the country. They claimed that our country was independent and that we would have liberty from then on. The truth is our individual rights and freedoms have been lost since that day. We lived under the Communist dictatorship and were forced to obey the orders of their leaders. We could not travel outside the country. They forced each family to have an adult representative at the group meeting one night a week to discuss other people’s problems. We had to sing songs, which praised the government. Each family had to hang a picture of Ho Chi Minh, the Communist leader, in their living room, and a Communist flag at the front door. If anyone did not obey orders, the Communists would put that person in jail.
In Vietnam, one is General Secretary, the most powerful position in the country, until he dies. Then the party votes another one among its members to be the next General Secretary. We were not allowed to vote for that position. We did not have freedom of the press, either. Writers still have to write in favor of the government. Some writers have tried to mock the government or to describe the struggling of citizens in a humorous story, a fairy tale or an allegorical form. Sometimes these writers have been clever enough to get away with it; most of the time they have not.
An allegory is a form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. Thus the allegory represents one thing in the guise of another. The film