Humor and Laughter do not play a significant role in the lives of the patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, the patients of the ward live miserable existences, drifting day by day in the homely-looking, sterile, depressing world of a mental asylum. They have forgotten how and when to laugh, or otherwise express humor, because they are under such strict …showed first 75 words of 1008 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1008 total…into the log book. I theorize that McMurphy's comic healing qualities brought life back into the otherwise hopeless patients of the asylum. With newfound laughter and joy, the patients found themselves and meaning in their existence. They became living examples of what the narrator explains, "Now [they know that] you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy," (212)!