ipl-logo

Theme Of Control By Nurse Ratched

640 Words3 Pages

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

Show More
Related

  • Nurse Ratched In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1091 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Tyranny Of Nurse Ratched By Randel Mcmurphy

    523 Words  | 3 Pages

    This sense of justice causes McMurphy to put his own self-preservation at the bottom of his list of importance, as Kesey writes, “—light arcs across, stiffens him, bridges him up off the table till nothing is down but his wrists and ankles and out around that crimped black rubber hose a sound like hooeee! And he’s frosted over completely with sparks” (Pg. 245). McMurphy stood up for the wellbeing of George and his fellow patients, and ultimately paid the price of numerous electro-shock therapy sessions. McMurphy put his well-being behind that of those in the facility because he knew that without him, the patients would not have stood up for themselves. McMurphy’s influence through his search for justice prompted an overall positive change for the

    Read More

  • Examples Of Authority In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1014 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1552 Words  | 7 Pages

    In the original novel, Kesey portrays the emasculation of the patients by having Nurse Ratched use a variety of different tactics to intimidate the men, and ultimately dominate them. Nurse Ratched is referred to in the novel as a “ball-cutter”, because she would make the men feel weak by emotionally hurting them in their most sensitive areas. Nurse Ratched manipulated the men by getting them to expose each other's weaknesses in their group therapy sessions, where the men were left in their most vulnerable state. However in the film, Nurse Ratched is not portrayed as such a dominating and emasculating figure. Nurse Ratched is depicted as a level headed figure who helps the men, rather than a short tempered damaging one as in the novel.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Literary Analysis

    442 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nurse Ratched is the epitome of an “impregnable” (73) authority whose power cannot be simply shaken by a few uprisings. The patients describe the Nurse to “always win” (73) and she has “all the power… behind her” (113) with her close relationship to the “supervisor” (63). Not only does Nurse Ratched have official authority due to her status but the patient’s fear and trust for “her craft”(41) to make them better. Harding tells McMurphy that he “need the nurse to make [him accept] his [differences]” (65). It’s not hard to see that the Nurse’s direct authority is absolute among the ward even though this power may not prove to be the most beneficial to the patient’s recovery.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Conformity In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1682 Words  | 7 Pages

    With this in mind, she does not hesitate to exercise her power on the psych ward. Furthermore, Kesey characterizes Nurse Ratched as the antithesis to Randle McMurphy. In the Chief’s mind, he can “smell the machinery inside the way that you smell a motor” (Kesey 4). This statement further shows how the people of the asylum see her as a regent and connects her to the Combine. Nurse Ratched controls every aspect of the patients’ daily lives.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Character Analysis

    993 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Manipulation In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1086 Words  | 5 Pages

    “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).

    Read More

  • Controlled Environment In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    725 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

    1468 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Nurse Ratched In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

    447 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Sacrifice In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    82 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Authority In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1459 Words  | 6 Pages

    Due to the structure in place by Nurse Ratched’s orders, all patients must participate in therapeutic meetings, where they have a group discussion with the nurse and Dr. Spivey. These discussions specifically target one patient where the others proceed to humiliate them. When Bromden narrates a meeting of this nature, Harding, another patient, is the one under harsh criticism, “The group is still tearing into Harding when when two o’clock rolls around” (Kesey 53). In the ward, the nurse has created an environment where the patients do not feel safe. She pits them against each other using methods such as the therapeutic meetings, which cause the patients to feel as though they cannot trust one another.

    Read More

  • Social Control In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    700 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Psychological Issues In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

    1010 Words  | 5 Pages

    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).

    Read More

More about Theme Of Control By Nurse Ratched

Open Document