Theme Of Laughter In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Can Manipulation Be Used for Good?
Laughter is something humans do inherently. If we find something humorous, we cannot resist the urge to laugh; it is uncontrollable. Control and humor are extremely important themes in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The novel takes place in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, run by a seemingly omnipotent woman named Nurse Ratched. When new patient McMurphy enters the ward, he disrupts the fragile ecosystem the Nurse has created by spreading laughter. Although it may seem that McMurphy is solely trying to delegitimize Nurse Ratched through humor, midway through the novel McMurphy realizes he must use humor in a manipulative way in order to overthrow the Nurse completely. By involving the other patients, McMurphy uses humor to orchestrate a rebellion within the ward.
When McMurphy first enters the ward he uses humor to mock Nurse Ratched and undermine her authority. After

Soon after telling Chief he must get stronger and bigger in order to help all the patients escape, he commends Chief and says “‘Look there, Chief. Haw. What’d I tell ya? You growed a half a foot already. Laughing, he walked down the row of beds to the hall’” (Kesey 192). Throughout the story, Nurse Ratchet usually maintains control, and is nicknamed by Chief, “the Big Nurse”. This implies that size is directly related to dominance over the ward. McMurphy says “you growed a half a foot already”, not just to suggest that Chief has grown physically, but that he has grown in character. As the laughter motif tends to appear when manipulation comes into play, the use of humor suggests that McMurphy is proposing to Chief that he has become empowered, and that this occurrence will allow him to overthrow the nurse. McMurphy hopes that Chief’s belief in his character growth will lead to a rebellion against the Big