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Struggles In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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Power Struggle means a situation in which two or more people or groups compete for control in particular sphere. In the protest novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey focuses on the power between a dictatorship and a democracy. Both leaders Nurse Ratched and McMurphy both strive for power over the patients but it is McMurphy’s unselfishness that hold the patient's One example is that Nurse Ratched has a lot of power in the hospital. For example on Pg. 49 Pete comes over and yells “ I’m tired”. The way Pete says it in a way stronger than before. That's when the Nurse sends the aides over to try and control but when one goes close to him he pops on of them straight into a wall. Bancini tries to explain why he is tired. “I can’t help …show more content…

The only reason he does that is because that's the only way he has a chance of getting released from the ward. At a group session Cheswick brings up the cigarettes again and McMurphy doesn't back him up. Cheswick ends up pulled away by the aides and taken to the disturbed ward. “But just as soon as we got to the pool he said he did wish something mighta been done, though, and dove into the water” Pg, 151. That's when Cheswick jams his fingers into the grate at the bottom of the pool and drowns himself. This may have been prevented if McMurphy would have stood up for Cheswick against Nurse Ratched but he didn't. Therefore this shows McMurphy has tremendous power now in the ward and Nurse Ratched knows it. That’s you can say Nurse Ratched fears McMurphy because he's not like the rest of the patients that she can control McMurphy is different. For my third and final example is how McMurphy organizes the Deep Sea Fishing trip and just needs one more man for the trip. McMurphy convinces George a patient that likes neatness to join the trip and be Captain of the boat. “Hell, George, why didn't you say you were a fisherman” Pg 195. This shows McMurphy has the power to organize a fishing trip without Nurse Ratched going. Therefore McMurphy is gaining power in the ward and Nurse Ratched is losing power to

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