One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Analysis

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey during a time in our society when pressures of our modern world seemed at their greatest. Many people were, at this time, deemed by society’s standards to be insane and institutionalized. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a ward of a mental institution. The major conflict in the novel is that of power. Power is a recurring and overwhelming theme throughout the novel. Kesey shows the power of women who are associated with the patients, the power Nurse Ratched has, and also the power McMurphy fights to win. By default, he also shows how little power the patients have.

Other patients on the ward begin to stand up to Nurse Ratchet and her rules. For instance, Cheswick hollers “ Rules? Piss on your fucking rules, Miss Ratched!” (Forman One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Film). A momentary outburst from Cheswick is an indicator that McMurphy has been able to model a sense of indignance at all of their treatment, and this is now being emulated by other patients through their behaviour towards Nurse Ratched. Another instance of patients talking down to Ratchet is when Sefelt states “Maybe he'll just show Nurse Ratched his big thing and she'll open the door for him.” (Forman One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Film). In this statement the use of sexual language is about empowerment. This makes reference to the possibility that McMurphy holds the key to their liberation from Nurse Ratchet’s control through his capacity to dominate her both sexually and otherwise. His ability to stand up to her and challenge her has captured Sefelt’s

Finally, Nurse is able to make the patients act out towards each other and tell lies about themselves. Chief thinks to himself, “It was better than she’d dreamed. They were all shouting to outdo one another, going further and further, no way of stopping, telling things that wouldn’t ever let them look one another in the eye again. The Nurse nodding at each confession and saying Yes, yes, yes.” (51) Nurse Ratched is able to get the patients to rebel against each other

Nurse Ratched rules through insinuation and never outright threatens or accuses her patients. Instead she becomes a destructive conscience. After McMurphy is admitted to the ward her glass panel breaks constantly, representing how easily her control is lost to him. McMurphy breaks the glass panel to remind the patients of how Ratched’s power is easily broken. Nurse Ratched, knowing McMurphy can easily thwart her manipulation tactics, sets up a meeting without McMurphy. Nurse Ratched attempts to recapture her patients through manipulation and insinuation. “No, Billy, I wasn’t implying anything. I was simply observing that Mr. McMurphy isn’t one to run a risk without reason. You would all agree to that, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t all of you agree to that?”(264). Nurse Ratched attempts to regain control over the ward by turning the acutes against McMurphy. She tells the group of McMurphy’s gambling problem and implies that he is hustling them. She fears McMurphy’s influence and attempts to convert the patients without his knowledge. Nurse Ratched does not anticipate the change in her patients. Billy surprises her by fiercely defending

As a man who pretends to be deaf and mute, Bromden is considered to be a relatively unbiased character, yet he even displays strong feelings of hatred towards Nurse Ratched, proving just how evil she is. As Nurse Ratched enters the novel for the first time, she brings with her a noticeably ominous atmospheric change with, “A gust of cold,” (4) that represents her complete control over every aspect of the mental ward, even the weather. At the pinnacle of Kesey’s totalitarian society, Nurse Ratched represents the tendencies of an oppressive government or what Bromden calls, The Combine. For example, she suppresses the patients’ free will because regardless of the patients actual sanity, she is undeniably in control of their fates at the hospital. Besides McMurphy, the majority of the patients could leave on their own, but Nurse Ratched has been able to brainwash them into thinking that they are not suited to assimilate with others outside of the ward. Billy Bibbit says to McMurphy when he asks why they do not leave, “You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn’t like a con-convertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you’re so b-big and so tough!” (162-163). Just like an oppressive government, Nurse Ratched convinces its people that they are worthless so they never feel powerful enough to retaliate. Like an alcoholic, Nurse Ratched needs her fix of power that makes her drunk and

Regarding Miss Ratched, she seems to show signs of passive-aggressive behavior throughout the book. This behavior adds to her manipulative ways and contributed to the decrease of the patients’ progress (mental/physical state). Passive-aggressive behavior is used to maintain control and power because it’s a way for her to not display any signs of weakness. Miss Ratched, also known as the Big Nurse to the patients, fights hard to remain as the top authority figure in the Ward due to her thirst for power. To maintain the control over the men, she emasculates them, stripping them of their masculinity, in various ways to prevent the chance of an uproar against her. For instance, after a group meeting regarding Harding’s problem with his wife’s breasts, the patients attack Harding. In response, McMurphy provides an analogy of a pecking party to the current

By carrying out the Combine?s orders and imposing a matriarchal system, the Big Nurse has the ability to systematically dehumanize the patients and suppress their individuality. In Group Meetings, the men are forced to talk about personal experiences, a method Big Nurse claims is therapeutic but is actually very humiliating. Billy Bibbit talks about his first love who his mother disliked. Billy?s relationships with women seem to be the root of his problems. Nurse Ratched worsens the situation by ?grinding (his) nose in (his) mistakes? instead of helping him work through his problems (59). The patients let the nurse manipulate them in fear of the consequences of her wrath, and consequently are shamed, weak, and defenseless men. Even the Chief, the biggest man, has become a person so weakened by his society that he loses his ability to speak against the cruelty that surrounds him, ultimately leaving him powerless. The men are victims of their society and lose all their self confidence and individuality as a result of being pressured to conform.

McMurphy does not come onto the ward with the intention of creating such a big movement. He does not seem intrigued at all when first entering the ward however, he begins to realize how poorly the ward treats its patients through the rules Nurse Ratched has set up. Something as simple as not being able to leave the “mess hall till they [Blackboys] all leave at seven-thirty” causes McMurphy to sarcastically reply that he “sure don't want to go against that goddamned policy” (103). Showing the patients how to go against Nurse Ratched through example and providing them with an experience in the outside world, they slowly begin to develop their own opinions rather than having their thoughts drilled into them. McMurphy becomes a leader indirectly and many patients begin to look up to him, When McMurphy attacks one of the Blackboys “shoving him away from George”,, it becomes clear that he does not want money from them; he truly cares (273). Irwing compares to McMurphy because just like him, he has no intention of creating a scene. Irwing makes it clear from the moment of his arrival that he wants to serve his

A women who truly embodies what McMurphy calls a "ball-cutter" is Nurse Ratched, the main nurse on the ward. She is keen on dominating the men at every turn. Nurse Ratched is quickly described as the only powerful female presence in the ward as Nurse Ratched's power on the ward comes from the fact that no one on the ward questions what she says or does and she can easily manipulate people who have more power than her. For example, when talking about the main doctor, Dr. Spivey, Harding describes to Bromden that he is, "'exactly like the rest of us. . .completely conscious of his inadequacy. He's a frightened, desperate, ineffectual little rabbit, totally incapable of running this ward without our Miss Ratched's help and he knows it. And, worse, she knows he knows it and reminds him every chance she gets”"(13). Nurse Ratched took advantage of Dr. Spivey’s abused him to conform to her so she could to get a

At the first meeting of the ward, Nurse Ratched exposes Harding’s problem with his wife and the other patients laugh and make fun of him. McMurphy sees this as a problem and talks to Harding, “is this this the pro-cedure for the Group Therapy shindigs? Bunch of chickens at a pecking party?” McMurphy is saying that the patients should be helping each other to take out the bigger authority rather than fighting each other. Later in the novel, McMurphy says he wants to leave the ward and go outside, so he bets with the other patients that he can escape the ward by lifting a fountain attached to the ground and throwing it at a wall to make an exit, even though this task is impossible.

Nurse Ratched’s word is law. She has the power to send you to Electroshock Therapy or to receive a Lobotomy:turning you into a vegetable, no longer able to function in life. She also is very manipulative towards the men causing them to turn on one another by having the patient's record embarrassing things other patients said and discussing these things at therapeutic group meeting. She uses this to emasculate the patients by sharing shameful things they said with all of the patients on the ward. McMurphy, the main protagonist, compares the group meetings to a “bunch of chickens at a pecking party”(51).this is when a chicken coop kills each other to escape the spotlight of Nurse Ratched’s

Ratched the head nurse of the institution because as the film begins, Ms. Ratched is portrayed as a person who tries to intimidate and manipulate every patient that is under her care. She also exercises her power through her therapy meetings by disempowering her patients through their weakness. For example, when Billy talks out of turn in the group therapy, Ms. Ratched only has to mention Billy’s mother to make Billy feel ashamed of actions, as she knows that in the past his mother has disapproved a lot of his behaviors and decisions. However, her tactics do not work with McMurphy, because he knows that he is not going to be in the institution forever, and so he takes the liberty to mess around with the system by ignoring the threats and the rules that the institute has placed for the benefit of the patients. Therefore, as a result of McMurphy’s behavior, the other patients in the institution start becoming more aware of what Ms. Ratched is doing to them, which leads her to take more extreme measures to regain her control over them. Yet, it is not until she is nearly strangled to death that she becomes more cautious about her actions and a little more sympathetic towards her

The novel describes the inner workings the the mental institution of how the patients are emasculated and mistreated by terrifying big nurse Ratched, who will go to any length to control them. “We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of thought about their therapeutic value…….for your own good that we enforce discipline and order.” (page 171) The patients are unaware of their surroundings and they all depend on the big nurse for their well-being’s. Beginning of the novel when

Nurse Ratched is a former army nurse who works in the ward, she has manipulates the men in many ways. One way is having the patients “spy on each other” making them write things down, they think she would want to hear, or know. Bromden described Nurse Ratched as having the ability to “set the wall clock to whatever speed she wants”, a metaphor for her control, showing how the patients lose track of

wo of the most prominent conflicts in the story are issues arising from person vs. person (Randle McMurphy vs. Nurse Ratched) and person vs. self (Dale Harding and Billy Bibbit.) Of the two topics, the arising issues between patient McMurphy and Mrs. Ratched seems to prompt for the largest problem. From the moment that McMurphy was admitted to the psychiatric ward, there was tension between him and Nurse Ratched. Upon his arrival, McMurphy established that he wanted to know who the “bull goose looney” (most influential man among the patients) was so that he could overpower him and gain power. Nurse Ratched seemed to disapprove of his thirst for power from the beginning, fearing that he may disrupt the flow of her ward. The tension between the