Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest follows the power struggle between Nurse Ratched, a head nurse in a psychiatric ward, and Randle Patrick McMurphy, a felon pretending insanity to escape prison. Ironically, though Nurse Ratched holds position as caretaker, she actually does the complete opposite and inflicts pain on the patient's. When McMurphy then goes on to realizes that he is at Nurse Ratched’s mercy. He begins to submit to her because he wants to leave. However, when he finds out that she is the one who causes Billy Bibbit to commit suicide. McMurphy then proceeds to attack Ratched and attempts to strangle her. Unfortunately, like Billy Bibbit, McMurphy becomes a victim of Nurse Ratched’s wrath which teaches the truism: never …show more content…
We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place.”(Kesey 57-58). He places the nurse in a higher position in the food chain because she is of higher power in reality he places everyone including the doctor as rabbits because they are inferior to the nurse as well as in the wild. Which goes to show that she is inferior to everyone, even the doctor who is suppose to be at a higher ranking than she is. For example, whenever someone tries to defies her she attacks and never lets her guard …show more content…
In the end, Nurse Ratched is proven to be superior by sending McMurphy to get lobotomized. When he returns he is practically unrecognizable “We stood at the foot of the Gurney, reading the chart, the looked up to the other end at the head dented into the pillow, a swirl of red hair over a face milk-white except for the heavy purple bruising around the eyes.”(Kesey,277) Scanlon proceeds to say: “That ain’t him”(Kesey,277) which Martini agrees saying: “ nothing like him”(Kesey,277) which goes to prove that they're in denial about it being McMurphy. Who once was a carefree, loud soul is now a Vegetable all because of Nurse Ratched. He not only mentally dies, but later on also physically dies in the hands of Chief Bromden, who can’t bare to see Nurse Ratched win and because Chief know he will never be the same man as he once was. The irony is that McMurphy first enters the ward as sane as can be to never leaving the place of corrupt ruling because he ends up dying in the ward. According to Jean Griffon she expresses that “This conflict is further complicated by Kersey’s use of Christ imagery to describe McMurphy, leading readers to regularly accept McMurphy’s death as a selfless sacrifice for the greater good. This particular reading can only result from readers missing the irony.”(Griffin 25) However it is also ironic because he is seen as a heroic figure to the patients and usually in
In both novels, the situation that the characters are placed in is fertile ground for any unscrupulous anti-hero’s perfect rebellion. In McMurphy’s case, Nurse Ratched has a chokehold on all the patients and almost all the staff, even though she isn’t the formal leader. She is a master manipulator, and through this, creates a sense of total powerlessness. “All twenty of them, raising not just for watching TV, but against the Big Nurse, against her trying to send McMurphy to Disturbed, against the way she’s talked and acted and beat them down for years” (Kesey 81). McMurphy constantly disobeys her wishes and plots events, ranging from minor to major, that rebel against the Nurse.
McMurphy is eventually murdered by Chief in the middle of the night by suffocation to eliminate any chance of Nurse Ratched trying to turn McMurphy into an example of what happens when she is crossed. The nurse at this point has no more ammunition to use against the patients, and in turn, takes her place as a rabbit of the ward like the
Nurse Ratched uses him as an example of “what will happen if someone challenges me”. Chief smothers McMurphy because he refuses to let his friend be an example of Nurse Ratched’s conformity
Nurse Ratched was very controlling and wanted complete power. This caused many of the patients to rebel and break loose from her control. McMurphy lead the ward in this uprising. From brushing his teeth too early to sneaking prostitutes into the ward, he shows Nurse Ratched that she cannot rule him. This story reminded me of Malala Yousafzai and her retaliation against the Taliban.
The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey, presents the ideas about venerability and strength by using his characters and the way they interact with each other to establish whether they are a submissive or a dominant, tamed or leading, venerable or strong. Kesey uses strong personalities to show the drastic difference between someone who is vulnerable and someone who is strong. Nurse Ratchet is a perfect example of how Kasey presents the idea of strength over the venerability of others (the patients). Keys also exhibited vulnerability throughout characters such as Chief Bromden and his extensive habit of hiding himself in all means possible from Nurse Ratchet. Another idea presented by Kesey is a character’s false thought on what
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.
Ken Kesey’s comic novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, takes place in an all-male psychiatric ward. The head of the ward, Big Nurse Ratched, is female. Kesey explores the power-struggle that takes place when the characters challenge gender dynamics in this environment. One newly-arrived patient, McMurphy, leads the men against the Big Nurse. The story is told through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a patient who learns from McMurphy and fights for his freedom.
In the struggle between freedom and power, McMurphy’s sacrifice allows freedom to prevail. His leadership in a rising rebellion parallels many of the countercultures that arose during the 1960s. His rebellion fights against Nurse Ratched in the way that the countercultures fought against the government and society in the past to the present. The men in the asylum are unknowingly unhappy before the arrival of McMurphy. Through his antics, the men are saved from society in the form of Nurse Ratched’s regime.
In the novel, McMurphy attacks the nurse brutally and attempts to kill her, “doctors and supervisors and nurses prying those heavy red fingers out of the white flesh of her throat as if they were her neck bones, jerking him backward” (Kesey 319). Also, the narrator shows mercy towards McMurphy by smothering him in his sleep, “and scissor the kicking legs with mine while I mashed the pillow into the face. I lay there on top of the body for what seemed days. Until the thrashing stopped” (323).
McMurphy arrives to the ward thinking he is different from the other patients on the ward, but throughout the novel his hidden subconscious thoughts of his true mental state are revealed. While introducing himself to the patients, McMurphy tells the background story of how he ended up where he was. He says that the “court ruled that [he’s] a psychopath” (13), and he didn’t argue with that ruling. Although he doesn’t deny that he belongs on a mental ward, he claims that he only acted the way he did to leave “those damned pea fields” (13) and quit working. Because he is a true gambler at heart, he bets the patients that he can get under Nurse Ratched’s skin and shake up things on the ward.
By representing Jesus, McMurphy was betrayed by Billy when he says that “McMurphy! He did” to Ratched when she asked who made him lose his virginity (Kesey 315). This proves that Billy is Judas because Judas turned on Jesus. After this, Billy kills himself and Ratched blames McMurphy. Ratched states to McMurphy that “[she] hope[s] [he is] finally satisfied” because since he has been in the ward, there has been two suicides (318).
It can’t be caused by anyone else, an accident, or a twist of fate. McMurphy’s downfall was brought about by his own actions. If he just sat back and did nothing none of this would have ever happened. The final action taken by McMurphy that really sent Nurse Ratched over the edge was when he ripped open her shirt and tried to choke her after the party. He acted completely by his own free will and let all his built up emotions take over.
By weakening McMurphy’s power in the ward, she creates an environment where can continue to thrive in her power through the systems she has set in place. However, Nurse Ratched’s plan does not succeed and McMurphy is allowed to proceed with his fishing trip. He continues to undermine the nurse’s authority to the point where he physically assults her after she blames Billy’s death on him. His actions give Nurse Ratched an opportunity to give him the ultimate punishment, a
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.
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.