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Good Life In Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

782 Words4 Pages

What is the good life? Nietzsche argues that humans should seek power in order to have a good life. On the opposite spectrum, Hedonism argues that we should seek pleasure in order to have a good life. The book Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey raises the question of whether or not Nietzsche’s view of the good life is correct and if it is better to seek pleasure over power. Nurse Ratched is the head nurse of the mental health ward. She is in control of everything concerning the ward, which makes the patients fear her, for she has the ability to punish them. McMurphy, a patient in the mental health ward, causes a disruption to Ratched’s power. He teaches the other patients to stand up for what they want and not completely give up their voices to the …show more content…

Throughout the book, there is a struggle for power amongst both parties and neither one is satisfied with the outcome. A majority of the patients voluntarily submitted themselves to the hospital. Billy stammers, “‘You think I wouldn’t like a con-con-vertible 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! Well, I’m not big and tough”(195). The patients are scared of society, scared of the people because of their opinions. Ratched feeds off the patients fear of her and their powerlessness in the ward, yet she continues to be power hungry. With McMurphy starting the opposition towards the Nurse, her authority is no longer being respected and she no longer has the power to control the patients. “She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings and singing in the latrines. She couldn’t rule with her old power any more, not by writing things on pieces of paper”(320-321). With McMurphy being the leader of the opposition towards the Nurse, she needs to find new means of controlling the patients. Before McMurphy came to the ward there was

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958 Words | 4 Pages

Chief characterizes the Nurse as almost robotic in her manipulation and intimidation. In the first chapter of the book, Chief Bromden illustrates how Nurse Ratched uses her position in the ward to control the patients. Chief says, “The big nurse recognizes this fear and knows how to put it to use; she’ll point out to an Acute, whenever he goes into a sulk, that you boys be good boys and cooperate with the staff policy which is engineered for your cure, or you’ll end up over on that side” (18). Nurse Ratched uses her power in the ward to manipulate and control the patients. This is important because with the Nurse's control, the patients are unable to think and act for themselves.

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710 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the beginning of the novel it is evident that some characters over use their powers, one of these characters being Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched uses her position in the ward to take advantage of the patients and make sure that they adhere to everyone of her daunting commands. Nurse Ratched “tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine” (Kesey 28) because she has been on the ward for so long that when something doesn 't go according to her plan, she starts to get mad and will often try to use her power to come down on the patient 's. Nurse Ratched is in control of the whole ward and when someone does something that isn 't in her manuscript she gets irritated. The ward will be run her way and only her way, “ under her rule the ward inside is almost completely adjusted to surroundings” (Kesey 28).

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1158 Words | 5 Pages

Due to McMurphy’s attempts to break down the villainous Nurse Ratched with his particularly disruptive antics despite his selfish motives, and Bromden’s quiet progression to courage, the two are heroes to those in the ward. A former army nurse, Nurse Ratched has the entire ward under her control, going by her schedule and her rules. Everything in the ward has gone by her plan, even the staff was chosen

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447 Words | 2 Pages

However, to Nurse Ratched, this window illustrates her dominance over the ward. “The Big Nurse watches all [that the patients do] through her window” (42). Kesey’s glass division between the sane and the insane demonstrates Nurse Ratched’s overall want of authority. Correspondingly, the Big Nurse is a wolf amongst the hospital full of rabbits. As Harding explains to McMurphy that the patients are essentially small rabbits in the forest that is the mental institution, he also notes that Nurse Ratched is the “strong wolf” that teaches the rabbits their place, much like the hierarchy of nature (61).

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This part is very significant because through the breaking of the window, McMurphy is trying to tell the other patients that even though Nurse Ratched has control and power over them that they can try and break that power. Basically what it is saying is yes Nurse Ratched does have power over them but if they know that some things can upset her then they can try and break her power which means her power would be overtaken by the patients. We also see that McMurphy does all these things to bother Ratched but this also exhausts himself too. His humanity is a good thing but it can make him very run down and become weak, letting Ratched get the power back. I think this is significant because it means just because someone has power over you doesn’t mean you don’t have an opinion.

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654 Words | 3 Pages

Nurse Ratched is the power and authority and she makes sure the “machine”, the ward, is running perfect. She set rules for all of the

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636 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the mental patients were not able to view Nurse Ratched as a woman, despite her physical features. This was because of her ruthless demonstrations of authority, and strength. Nurse Ratched is the all-powerful nurse in the ward of a mental hospital, during the years of the 50s and 60s. The men are fearful of her and always complied with her rules accordingly until Randall McMurphy swaggered in. Nonetheless his power was still minor to Nurse Ratched’s.

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1193 Words | 5 Pages

Many of the rules Nurse Ratched has in place are petty; the only point of most rules is for Nurse Ratched to display her control over the patients’ lives. Rules range from music constantly remaining on in the main hangout room,to eat their medicines, if they do something wrong they get electroshock therapy and the toothpaste being locked away as if it could be used as a weapon or a way of escaping the ward. Ratched Approaching the power that she has to do whatever she wants with them; Like, Lord Acton an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer once said; “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority”(Lord Acton).Acton saying that, demonstrates how people by more power they have, they feel more capable of doing whatever they want to; For example, The fights between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, where McMurphy hates the way that Nurse Ratched manipulates all the patients. McMurphy is so tired and angry that he once strangled her, because he was feeling mcmurphy was feeling helpless trying to help all the patients

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1091 Words | 5 Pages

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the patients are the powerless, forced to undergo the same routine daily, dictated by Nurse Ratched. Kesey shows the patients’ lack of power by often contrasting them against people with power like McMurphy, or Nurse Ratched. When McMurphy first enters the ward “he’s got iron on his heels and he rings it on the floor like horseshoes” (p. 10). He is presented as a cowboy-like character bursting with confidence, a direct juxtaposition against the meek and submissive patients on the ward.

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913 Words | 4 Pages

(Kesey, 140). Fortunately, for McMurphy a surprise voter brings the number of votes to a total of twenty one which wins the majority to change ward policy. The significance the vote holds is that it allows McMurphy and the others patients to obtain dominance over Nurse Ratched. By McMurphy winning the vote, it shows the political power that he has won over Nurse Ratched and this makes McMurphy feel that he is able to make decisions within the ward just as Nurse Ratched does. McMurphy also views this win as a major victory in his efforts to rehabilitate the patients and give them the confidence they need to reach the goal of controlling the

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1578 Words | 7 Pages

He is sent away for three weeks as a result, but when he returns, he is wheeled in on a gurney and is left over by the Vegetables, as he had been lobotomized. In lieu of his seeming defeat, his memory stayed with the patients while he was absent and provoked them to change things for the better at the ward. Nurse Ratched does not have the same power over the hospital that she used to given that she temporarily loses her voice, as “she tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls...” (321). The patients learned to grow out of their fear and used the spirit of McMurphy as reassurance of their actions; Nurse Ratched’s little written commands could not effectively control the patients anymore.

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1459 Words | 6 Pages

These elements keep the nurse in power, as many of the patients fear being the target of one of these meetings and worry that they will again be betrayed by others. By introducing order through these activities, Nurse Ratched undermines the safety of the patients that should be under her care and keeps them silent. Nurse Ratched's oppressive order is not only seen in a literal sense, but also through the attitudes of the patients under her care. Chief Bromden describes the nurse as being “able to set the wall clock at whatever speed she wants just by turning one of those dials“ (Kesey 70). Nurse Ratched’s control over the patients’ lives extends to the point where

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993 Words | 4 Pages

There is an obvious idea presented by Kesey that the Nurse is dominant over Billy, who has become very vulnerable. Nurse Ratched is shown as a character of strength by the way the writer has created her character. Nurse Ratched is also seen as a strong figure by the way the other characters talk about her, for example when Chief says “To beat her you don 't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she 's won for good.” The writer has used this line to show us how both Chief and the other patient give her the strong and authoritative

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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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1010 Words | 5 Pages

The movie was mostly focused on the feud between the warden/nurse Ms. Ratched and McMurphy. McMurphy tried to go against the hard-set plan set by the institution. More he tried to establish dominance and leadership within the group. This threatened the nurse’s ways of subduing patients, and they felt of less importance in their own institution. This led to a bitter rivalry and because of it the nurse tried to subdue, with same techniques as with other patients, McMurphy even after realizing that he was not a mentally unstable person.

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