Nurse Ratched In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

“This world... belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world” (Kesey 185). In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, The patients went to the ward voluntarily where they thought they would feel free, but at arrival they find that Nurse Ratched has full control over them. Nurse Ratched and her other leading woman use fear to keep control over and manipulate those trapped inside to keep them from acting and thinking on their own.

Nurse Ratched is power hungry and feeds that power with being able to have the last say and the

This is shown when Nurse Ratched says, "You've—it seems—no other psychiatric history, Mr. McMurry?" which McMurphy replies with, "McMurphy, Doc." And which Nurse Ratched says, "Oh? But I thought—the nurse was saying—"(Kesey 38). Nurse Ratched purposely mispronounces his name. She is trying to get under his skin and break him. McMurphy realizes what she is doing and turns it right back on her. The nurses use manipulating to keep the patients scared. "Mrs. Bibbit's always been so proud of your discretion. I know she has. This is going to disturb her terribly. You know how she is when she gets disturbed, Billy; you know how ill the poor woman can become. She's very sensitive. Especially concerning her son. She always spoke so proudly of you. She al—"(Kesey 37). Ratched manipulates Billy by using the shame that his mother will give him. Billy not being in the best state of mind allows Ratched to get into his head and worry him that she might tell his mother of the prostitute. “Nurse Ratched threatens to tell Billy’s mother that is bring so much worry to Billy that he decides the best thing to do is kill himself” (Kesey 86). The Nurse pushing Billy too far and trying to get him to beg for her mercy finally causes him to break from their control. He finally makes his own decision and kills himself so he could be free from her and the ward. They manipulate the patients and cause some of them to break, they use their power over the patients and go too far.

I will conclude by bringing up my claims and thesis in a different way. And summarize some of the points I have made. I will go over how this power has effected the patients. I will link some of my points to regularly happening world