The Emotional Component in K. Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Abstract

The research objective was to study the negative emotional background as a component of the linguistic world image in "One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest" by Ken Kesey. The research featured the lexical means that make up the emotional background of the novel. The author used field method and the method of vocabulary definitions, as well as componential, linguistic, and contextual analyses. The field method and the componential analysis helped to structure the linguistic world image of the work according to invariant lexical meanings. "Negative emotion" appeared to be the archiseme of the text. The nuclear elements of the linguistic world image were formed with the vocabulary of emotions. They were united into three groups: fear, rage, and hate. The peripheral elements were represented by emotional vocabulary. They displayed ways of expressing and perceiving emotions, as well as mental and emotional conditions. The characters of Nurse Ratched, Randle McMurphy, patients, and asylum personnel were the denotative universals of the novel. Methods of vocabulary definitions, linguistic comparison, and contextual analysis revealed the meaning structure of the lexical units and specific features of the emotional background. The linguistic reality created by K. Kesey proved to be based on antithesis. Emotive text elements did not merely express the archiseme "negative emotion" but could also be united into groups with opposite semantic features, which made the text more vivid and emotional. The research results can be used in professional linguistic studies and university courses.