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Theme Of Control By Nurse Ratched

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The men in the ward were very static characters when controlled by nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched inhibits the rehabilitation process by hindering the potentials of all the men. She commits crimes against humanity to exert her dominance therefore hindering the recuperation of the men. Much like freedom, confinement is a very important theme to this novel. This is shown with the various techniques of tortures nurse ratched incorporates. The lack of change is directly due to the manipulation and exploitation towards the men on the ward. This is first seen when Chief Bromden describes his shaving experiences. He says “The least black boy and one of the bigger ones catch me before I get ten steps out of the mop closet, and drag me back to the shaving …show more content…

I hold back till they get to my temples. I'm not sure it's one of those substitute machines and not a shaver till it gets to my temples; then I can't hold back. It's not a will-power thing any more when they get to my temples.”(Page 7). This quotation is depicting how confined and violated the patients feel. The fear instilled in the men slows their recovery. Nurse Ratched purposely commits simple inhumane acts like these to exert her levels of empowerment, by belittling the mental patients. It is also described how horrendously they terrorize the ward members. The inhibition towards recuperation is also because nurse Ratched demoralizes their value as men. She does this through exclusion. This is described when Chief says “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. I don't remember if I got breakfast or not. Probably not. I can call to mind some mornings locked in Seclusion (Page 9)”. The acts of Electrotherapy and Seclusion are the techniques of confinement. This clearly explains why the members of the ward never changed before McMurphy’s …show more content…

This is shown when it’s explained “Her three daytime black boys she acquires after more years of testing and ejecting thousands. They come at her in a long black row of sulky, big-nosed masks, hating her and her chalk doll whiteness from the first look they get. She appraises them and their hate for a month or so, then lets them go because they don't hate enough. When she finally gets the three she wants—gets them one at a time over a number of years, weaving them into her plan and her network—she's damn positive they hate enough to be capable” (Page 29). This shows how little significance they show the ward members. Instead of focusing on their recovery to become apart of society; there is a deeper concern for gaining power and exploiting the ill to become untouchable.The process of manipulating the mentally ill will cause inhibition towards recuperation instead of rehabilitation. McMurphy causes change within men on the ward because of his goal to allow the inmates to pursue happiness. The men don’t change under nurse Ratched’s control because her primary goal is to use manipulation to exert dominance for

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Throughout, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy teaches the patients how to revolt in order to oppose the Nurse’s extensive control with the Combine. He uses his Christ like attributes to allow them to work alone without his assistance and to make them realize their submission to the Nurse’s commandment isn’t necessary since they are men and not mental patients. As a result, McMurphy has conceded the men into controlling their own lives rather than the Nurse doing it for

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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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As a leader, he is able to unite the men against Nurse Ratched. His rebellion is similar to the rebellion of various countercultures in the 1960s. During group meetings, the Nurse routinely turns the men on each other in what McMurphy describes as a “pecking party” (Kesey 57). The men fall to her trickery because they are afraid of the repercussions of defying her. McMurphy successfully gets the men to rebel against her by sitting in front of the T.V. when it is not the scheduled time, leading to Nurse Ratched “ranting and screaming behind us”

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“As a matter of fact, there are only a few men on the ward who are committed. Only Scanlon and—well, I guess some of the Chronics. And you. Not many commitments in the whole hospital. No, not many at all” (Kesey, 436).

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Nurse Ratched’s character is vile in enforcing conformity. She picks her staff to her liking and exercises her authority as she pleases, ensuring that she has total control over the ward. Chief states, “Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff: doctors, all ages and types, come and rise up in front of her with ideas of their own about the way a ward should be run, some with backbone enough to stand behind their ideas, and she fixes these doctors with dry-ice eyes day in, day out until they retreat with unnatural chills” (Kesey 29). Nurse Ratched is detrimental to the men’s physical and mental health. She keeps herself superior to the men through emasculation and shame.

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In the drama film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, Patrick McMurphy was moved from a prison farm to a mental institution to get evaluated for his erratic behavior. Upon being transported to the institution, all his assumptions about his new home were completely wrong. The head nurse, Nurse Ratched, has the whole hospital under her control with little to no freedom for the patients. All the inmates at the institution go through rigorous training to become obedient to Nurse Ratched and her strict schedule and rules. The institution was a very controlled environment with the patients having no control over their own life’s while there.

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In the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there are four characteristics of a controlled environment. These include; status hierarchy, depersonalization, adjustment, and institution. Viewers can see these ideas through different scenes and situations in the movie. The overall movie stems from institutionalization, because it is set in a psychiatric hospital, which keeps the patients there confined to a strict environment and schedule. Doctors and nurses look at small traits or changes as something significant, whereas in the real world that small trait would appear as a norm and be overlooked.

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In the novel, although the men are negatively impacted by the power of the ward, it is McMurphy who helps the men realize their potential and gain self-confidence in fighting the power of the ward. McMurphy helps the men stand up to Nurse Ratched, and so much so that in the end, the majority of them end up signing themselves out of the ward. However in the film, the emotional strength developed by the men with the help of McMurphy is not conveyed. I would like to propose the addition of new scenes in the new film in order to properly communicate the emotional development of the characters. In the novel, the life story of Chief Bromden is explained, which helps the reader understand him as a character, and show his development back to the strong person he originally was and felt like he was earlier in his life.

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The patients dont question his violence with Nurse Ratched because no one has ever standed up to her. Nurse ratched is the reason they dont have confidence in themselves. As McMurphy stays longer, the other patients become more aware as to what is happening. Before McMurphy came in the ward the men believed everything that was done to them was for their own good Nurse Ratched was able to manipulate the men and had full power to boss them around. After McMurphy came he was able to show them that Nurse Ratched uses their weakness against them and was just a manipulator.

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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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Kesey has used characterisation to get the idea that in this novel there are aspects of venerability and strength. In Nurse Ratched’s case, Kesey has made it so that she is shown with strength and power over the whole ward, including the black men in white, other nurses, and mainly the patients. An example of Nurse Ratched’s power over the patients is when she says to Billy Bibbit, “What worries me, Billy, ' she said- I could hear the change in her voice- 'is how your mother is going to take this.” This shows how one sentence was able to debilitate Billy into begging Nurse for forgiveness and restraint of telling his mother.

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The concept of social alienation and various methods of subduing patients like electric shocks and lobotomy were prevalent which further alienated the patients rather than curing them. The movie highlights the strong bond between the patients. The human condition of friendship and bonding is highlighted. During the last quarter of the movie, the protagonist McMurphy had a chance to escape the institution, but he hesitated and stayed to support his friend ‘Billy’. The strong bond that he created with the patients led him to risk his escape plan to stay behind for his friend (Kesey).

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Nurse Ratched has control over every guy in the hospital because she decides what they are doing every day when they wake up. She has brainwashed the men into think they need her. Vera has manipulated her husband Dale into thinking he is disgusting. Billy’s mother has emasculated him by deciding everything for him and letting him have no control over his own life. The men in this novel have lost their manhood to women who have manipulated them and they are too blind to see it till McMurphy shows them.

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