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Control In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Psychiatric hospitals are proven to provide assistance and treatment to those who live with mental illnesses. The system is designed to take away the suffering, assist in the patient’s recovery, and put them on the path toward good health and a happy life. Although hospitals are supposed to take a certain level of responsibility over a patient; in this ward, the control over the patients are clearly interfering with their well being. In Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched’s suffocating authority and the ward’s power over the patients are exacerbating their illness instead of helping these patients heal, proving that them being mentally ill is a faux. Nurse Ratched controls the men with her therapeutic community. …show more content…

The Electrotherapy and Seclusion are the two main machines helped to mold them into perfect members of society. McMurphy is given unwanted and unnecessary electroshock treatments. The patients are meant to be “fixed” even though they were never broken: “When the fog clears to where I can see, I'm sitting in the day room. They didn't take me to the Shock Shop this time. I remember they took me out of the shaving room and locked me in Seclusion” (Kesey 97). At first, Chief describes fog as a hallucination; however as the novel progresses, it serves as a symbol of his state of mind. When he sees this fog, it is when he is medicated or powerless against Nurse Ratched and her tactics. This is when he is most likely to hallucinate. This hospital makes one feel isolated inside themselves :”This morning I plain don't remember. They got enough of those things they call pills down me so I don't know a thing till I hear the ward door open” (Kesey 14). Forcing the men to take these pills is another method used by Nurse Ratched and her team to keep everyone under their watch. Although they use machines to manipulate, they also use pills to control the

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Nurse Ratched’s desire for control, in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, allows her to manipulate the entire hospital ward into believing her work is for the betterment of the patients. Significantly, Nurse Ratched appears doll-like: hair in a tight bun, a neatly pressed uniform, and “too-red” lipstick (48). Traditionally, dolls, like other toys, are made to occupy the unruly minds of young children. By comparing Nurse Ratched to a child’s toy, Kesey implies she is a mere distraction to the patients from their mental impairments.

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Despite all the problems they had, like Chief cutting his thumb and George crashing the boat, they all just let loose and laugh, beginning with McMurphy. Before McMurphy entered the ward, the patients never laughed. He was able to bring out the goodness of the patients and not make the ward so sad and dismal. The leadership of McMuprhy gives the patients hope. He helps them people of society rather than prisoners of the

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McMurphy tests Nurse Ratched’s control by “[running] his fist through [the window]” (176). Here, Kesey suggests that this glass composes the barrier of control Nurse Ratched has over the men. Oddly enough, this division is fragile and can be destroyed by McMurphy’s

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They were using these things to control the patients so that the patients would become sociable, quiet, and would conform. These treatments or therapys really were ways of manipulating the patients into acting like everyone else in society because the nurses in the mental institution as well as the rest of society and government wanted there to be no individuals, everyone had to be the same. These treatments would

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Nurse Ratched is the top nurse in charge and, she wishes nothing but dominate control over the men. Her voice gets polite and controlling when she gets angry with the patients.   Her tightly rolled hair implies the horns on her head, lending a visual weight to her role as McMurphy’s

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But with this battle of dominance going on in the ward won’t go without some ward inmates losing their lives or sanity. During this period of history, the 50’s, many ward inmates lost their battles to electroshock therapy, castration, and the most common treatment lobotomies (Richards, 1). These treatments were used on patients that were acting up and people who would not cooperate with societal norms. Many of these treatments were used multiple times, so the damage would accumulate and destroy the brain changing the person forever. This is what Nurse Ratched use and many other tools to keep control over the mental ward and its

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Weather in literature is often used to symbolize the mood or mental state in which a character experiences. For example, rain is commonly associated with sadness. As it is commonly identified, fog is a cloudy element of weather that affects one’s ability to see clearly, however, it is also used in literature to represent a character’s lack of clarity. Throughout One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the motif of fog is used to represent the mental instability and confusion Bromden experiences under Nurse Ratched’s ward. As the story progresses and Bromden gains confidence, the fog diminishes and he is able to overcome the Big Nurse.

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Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an infuriating drama which contains an unexpected plot twist. Right off the bat they introduce Nurse Ratched as not the most pleasant person to be around. She runs the ward and has everyone cowering beneath her with fear. She uses everyones weaknesses and secrets as a way of getting them to be submissive towards her ; she as well uses punishment as a way of making sure everything is as it should be. The narrator then goes on to introduce the new patient in the ward, Randle Patrick McMurphy everyone senses something different about him.

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This leads to ethical violations that slowly build upon each other with empathic breaches and sadistic interventions to the mental patients by Nurse Ratched; which actually seek to impose order and exercise control, sometimes at the expense of the individual 's (mental) health, but certainly at the expense of each patient’s independence and freedom. Through death; McMurphy spirit and inspiration have developed well beyond any influence that came by that he might have been able to exercise as a "patient". The mental patients,

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The fog begins to appear when Nurse Ratched gains full control and power over the men. However, they “haven’t really fogged the place full force all day, not since McMurphy came in” (78). Bromden’s hallucinations incorporate a thick fog that begins to fade only with McMurphy’s arrival to the ward. The fog represents an escape from reality for Bromden as well as the “pollution” the mechanical nature of society has developed. Bromden physically cannot see through the fog without the help of McMurphy: the beacon of hope that follows his natural impulses.

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In the book “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” Ken Kesey shows that the “insanity” of the patients is really just normal insecurities and their label as insane by society is immoral. This appears in the book concerning Billy Bibbits problem with his mom, Harding's problems with his wife, and that the patients are in the ward

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It is obvious that medical treatment can be very helpful for the patient and would provide results. However simple companionship may also help as they could simply talk about their problem. Counselling might actually help more than medical treatment which may have more of a negative effect emotionally on the patient. Medical treatment aims to heal the patients so they can return and function properly in society however this is not the case in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ written by Ken Kasey. In his novel the mental institution serves as a method to keep the patients away from society and doesn’t function to help the men but to keep them passive.

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1316 Words | 6 Pages

The story “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey is seen through the perspective of a schizophrenic patient in a mental hospital pretending to be deaf, dumb, and mute. Because of his clear mental illness, it is difficult to tell in the story what is true and what is just in his mind. Throughout the story, the intentions of the patients and staff are questioned by whether they are acting morally. The issues brought to light by the story are using cruel and unusual punishments on mentally ill patients, fighting authority, and putting a human out of his or her misery by killing them, and if these actions are morally correct.

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1288 Words | 6 Pages

His rebellious and free mind makes the patients open their eyes and see how the have been suppressed. His appearance is a breath of fresh air and a look into the outside world for the patients. This clearly weakens Nurse Ratched’s powers, and she sees him as a large threat. One way or another, McMurphy tends to instigate changes of scenery. He manages to move everyone away from her music and watchful eye into the old tube room.

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The movie “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” gives an inside look into the life of a patient living in a mental institution; helping to give a new definition of mental illnesses. From a medical standpoint, determinants of mental illness are considered to be internal; physically and in the mind, while they are seen as external; in the environment or the person’s social situation, from a sociological perspective (Stockton, 2014). Additionally, the movie also explores the idea of power relations that exist between an authorized person (Nurse Ratched) and a patient and further looks into the punishment a deviant actor receives (ie. McMurphy contesting Nurse Ratched). One of the sociological themes that I have observed is conformity.

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