What Is The Authority In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Words: 517
Pages: 3
Open Document
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey contrasts life in an asylum and society. The intention of Ken Kesey’s argument is to prove how the authority is in control and that there is no freedom. Throughout part two of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the asylums comparison to “The Combine” is mentioned and allows the reader to understand why Chief Bromden uses that reference. The ward is comparable to society because there are a set of many rules and limited freedom. Throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched (The Big Nurse) is the main authority who is in charge of the patients. Nurse Ratched has a desire to be in control, and those who oppose her power such as Randle McMurphy, allow her to feel threatened. In the novel, …show more content…
Being confined in the ward the patients haven’t sensed freedom and many of them are scared to, the ward serves the patients a sense of security. Randle McMurphy is an example of life outside of the ward and one who is not under the control of “The Combine.” McMurphy speaks his mind and is the only patient brave enough to stand up to Nurse Ratched. “The Combine” is what Chief Bromden refers society to, he believes that we live as if we are under the control of a machine. Society follows a strict schedule with limited freedom, Nurse Ratched is comparable to the government due to her controlling tendencies. If a patient does not follow under her commands she begins to feel insecure and retaliates back. An example is Nurse Ratched's “group therapy” or in Randle McMurphy’s definition “A hen pecking party.” (Ken Kesey, 129) During these group therapies Nurse Ratched finds a way to manipulate friends against each other, which allows the audience to question in what way is she helping the patients heal. Nurse Ratched allows her rules and manipulation to benefit herself rather than the patients of the ward. The rules and confinement of the ward have left the patients under the control of the authority, they are no longer individuals but rather an outcome of Nurse Ratched's manipulation and
Show More

Related Documents: What Is The Authority In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Examples Of Mcmurphy In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

feature standard heroes, but anti-heroes are much more complex. Anti-heroes are heroes that lack traditional qualities of a hero. They quite typically are in a place where they lack control, and are unable to commit themselves to ideals. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, directed by Miloš Forman, based on the novel by Ken Kesey, starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, and Will Sampson, the character R.P. McMurphy fits the literature archetype of an anti-hero. The film follows McMurphy as he fakes insanity…

Words 745 - Pages 3

Essay about Prosecution of Nurse Ratched

This decision will act as a final ruling of what you believe occurred across several months, involving numerous patients and the irresponsible actions of Miss Ratched shaping the operation of Oregon State Mental Hospital. Across these months three deaths have occurred under the security of Oregon State, deaths caused by the Nurse’s depraved indifference to human life. Miss Ratched has demonstrated across the evidence presented, her need of control over colleagues and patients across the entire facility…

Words 882 - Pages 4

Analysis Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Cuckoo’s Nest and Mental Institutes Milos Forman directed the 1975 film adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was originally a novel written by Ken Kesey with the intention of highlighting the terrible conditions of mental hospitals at that time. In the 1960s when the novel was published mental institutes had come a long way in terms of actually treating patients with mental illness compared to 100 years earlier, but in terms of how these patients were treated horribly and inhumanely…

Words 805 - Pages 4

Essay on One flew over the cuckoo's nest

Anthony Cutrone Mrs. Cooley Contemporary Literature 16 May 2010 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Essay The decade of the 1960’s was a period of rebellion in America. It was a time of change compared to the previous decade of the 1950’s. “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey is a novel that shows how different the traditionalist 1950’s was from the rebelling 1960’s. The novel challenged the thinking of the 1950’s by using characters to represent the different time periods. The setting…

Words 600 - Pages 3

LOFT vs Cuckoo's nest Essay

Cuckoo's nest VS Lord of the flies Ken Kesey's novel, One flew over the cuckoo's nest, is about a rude man called Randal McMurphy, who arrives at a mental hospital, even though he has no actual mental illness. As the novel goes on, McMurphy becomes the person in charge of the other patients in the district though there is an increasing disagreement between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched. She is a despised nurse amongst the patients. Because of the continuous commotion caused by him, he receives a lobotomy…

Words 1370 - Pages 6

Authority In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

In Ken Kesey's (1) acclaimed novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author explicates the hospital ward as a mechanized distension of the Combine, an intransigent system that represents authority and dominance. The main protagonist, Chief Bromden (2) scrutinizes the Combine as becoming a part of his own history as a Native American, where his families land was taken from him with the intention of establishing a dam. This notion of jurisdiction and (3) subjugation depicts that everyone had to…

Words 1380 - Pages 6

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Essay

We are what we think. All that we are arises from our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.” People don’t change, but our creations do. As time passes, our subconscious minds are given new colors to paint our perceived reality with, while old paints slowly fade. This has been the norm for as long as people have been around. The scale of our perception - the number of colors we give ourselves - does not remain constant, instead, it usually fluctuates in a relatively steady pattern. The introduction…

Words 840 - Pages 4

Cuckoo's Nest Lobotomy

your brain to induce a seizure. Doesn’t this solve the problem? Would it be better if the nurse took a knife and simply chopped away part of your brain? These are the treatments of electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomy as depicted in “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”, but are they truly as horrifying and gruesome as they are displayed to be? In the…

Words 2107 - Pages 9

One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest Research Paper

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a modern fable pitting a marvelous type of good against a marvelous type of evil. Ken Kesey’s timeless novel depicts how society deals with the mentally ill in various ways, while showing how a 1950’s insane asylum treats its patients because of its dependence on cultural attitudes and sense of social responsibility. Kesey’s own experience adds credibility to his charges that called public attention to the conditions of our nation’s…

Words 2846 - Pages 12

Institution Essay

indestructible forces against human liberty, irrefrangible to any conflict of values from the individual. Such conflict can undermine authoritarian power and control, however it is the institution that will prevail in this contention. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest illustrates this attempt for human liberation and the consequences of challenging the institution. Florian van Donnersmark's 2006 film The Lives of Others highlights the potential for this contradiction of values to amputate the liberties…

Words 1061 - Pages 5