Preview

Manipulation In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
388 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Manipulation In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo
In comparison, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the effectiveness of threats and manipulation to control human behavior. Nurse Ratched keeps the patients in the ward completely under her jurisdiction by inducing fear and manipulating their emotions. She uses her power to pressure the patients into acting a certain way to distance themselves from her wrath, and she successfully maintains the stability of the ward. During one of the daily meetings, Nurse Ratched convinces the other patients to tell about Harding’s wrongdoings and struggles with his wife. After the meeting, Harding secludes himself, and the patients feel guilty and shameful that they had “been maneuvered again into grilling one of their friends like he

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The book “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” written by Ken Kesey was based on the life in the mental institute with the cuckoos the narrator is Chief Brodmen. He is a half Indian he let everyone believe him that he was deaf and dumb but instead he is observing the Big Nurse “Nurse Ratched” who is the head of the ward who physically and mentally controls every male patient that she has in her ward. Nurse Ratched a woman who threatens the masculinity of men in the story. Most women in the story. This shows how the women in the story overpower the men who are in the…

    • 110 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a fictional novel that undergoes a series of events that goes on in a mental ward between nurse Ratched and the patient's. This novel in particular is unique because it allows the readers imagination to take part in one's interpretation of the story. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is intriguing because of its ability to capture the reader’s attention with its constant plot thicking. The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is Ken Kesey which was published in 1962. Kesey novel was appealing because of its idea of having rights as an individual versus social conformity.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pain. Power. Control. In Ken Kesey’s classic American novel The One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest these themes of pain, power, and control, are intertwined and juxtaposed with femininity. Linguistic techniques combined with idiosyncratic use of character development lead the reader to simultaneously see womanhood as inadequate and manipulative. Kesey’s…

    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Points of view have a great impact throughout stories sequences. The points of views provide details and evoke emotions that implies readers anxiety as well as depicts images in the reader’s mind. Moreover, a good observer is a good story teller. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel written in 1962, by Ken Kesey, illustrates the use and misuse of authority from hospitals and their administrators, passive racism faced because of origin, and the desire of changes to be made. Throughout Chief Bromden’s point of view along the novel, readers depict ideas of patients live’s within the ward under the administrator’s harsh regimen and consequences in the result of the patients’ rebellion against authority.…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Ken Kesey 's One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest, Nurse Ratched uses abusive procedures on the patients to instill complete control over them and all aspects of their lives. Through her dictatorial rule, Nurse Ratched dehumanizes the patients in a way that would be undeniably prosecutable in present day. However, Kesey wrote this novel in the 1960s. During this time period, people deemed “insane” were seen as sub-human by society. Their maltreatment was not emphasized because of the image society had maintained of the people on the ward and the general public 's ignorance as to how the patients were getting treated. Today, equality throughout all of humanity is particularly accentuated. If people today were lobotomized or treated with electroshock therapy…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kesey uses the element of diction to express manipulation in the cold, unfeeling environment of a mental hospital to showcase how empowerment can be catastrophic when the character has their extreme vulnerability exploited. Throughout the novel, Nurse Ratched influences the patients on the ward to do conform to her control by taking advantage of their weaknesses. On the occasional morning, she would mention to Billy Bibbit, whose mother was a close friend of the Nurse’s, that his mother was thinking of him all the time and emphasizing that she “knew” he wouldn’t do anything to get in trouble. Through this diction Kesey allows the audience to see how the Nurse uses psychological pressure on Billy to make him obey the rules of her ward. Near the end of the text Billy Bibbit was confident, due to McMurphy encouraging him, until Nurse Ratched manipulated Billy again to the point he committed suicide. The Nurse had walked in on Billy with a girl and she said she wasn’t sure how to tell his “poor mother” how he had gone…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Douglas et al., 1975), we follow the mischievous, yet charming criminal R. P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) into a disturbing (and in many cases, authentic) portrayal of life in a 1970’s mental institution. After once again finding himself standing opposite a judge, and facing potential jail time and labor duties, he pleads insanity in hopes of avoiding prison; however, after being sent to the psychiatric ward for potential “rehabilitation”, McMurphy quickly finds himself trapped in an even more oppressive environment than that which he was trying to elude. In the ward, the daily lives of the patients are very deliberately controlled by the particularly cruel and manipulative Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher),…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As I recently completed reading your world fame story, “One who flew over the Cuckoo's Nest” which explains the first person perspective of a patient who joins and becomes a friend with a stubborn rebel who rallies himself with the other patients to dethrone a nurse obsessed with power in the Mental Ward. Overall with certain confusing aspects of the story, the book is a well written piece of history.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Power is the ability to stimulate productive action. The foundation for power is based on the nature of the interaction between a staff member who seeks to influence another staff member or group. There are those who use their powers in a positive way, while others use their powers in a negative way. According to William Gadois, “power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.” In 1962, Ken Kesey wrote a fictional novel named “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. The story was set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional processes and the human mind. Nurse Ratched, the antagonist, is a head nurse who wanted complete power. She was the type of leader who used her power in a negative way.…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most despicable aspects of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is the lengths that Nurse Ratched and the Combine are willing to go to instill order and power in their favor. At first glance, Nurse Ratched appears to be a nice, attractive, and respectable lady who takes care of mentally-ill men for a living, but underneath that initial layer is a deeply cruel, passive aggressive, power hungry menace that is willing to destroy the lives of anyone if someone poses any kind of threat to her position. She uses many tactics to maintain power and authority over the ward that cover both the patients and the other staff members. Some of the tactics she uses is routine and schedule to break down the patients to a point where…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ken Kesey presents the problems with oppression in society through his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In his novel, Ken Kesey argues that self-worth is discovered by breaking the system of oppression imposed upon a person. Because of the sacrifice made by McMurphy, the patients were able to see the oppression put upon them by Nurse Ratched and they were able to restore their individuality and take charge of their own…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Suicide, at this time, was considered a cowardly move, something a Prince or a hero should never consider. We relate to the dark heart, sense of loss, and pain experienced by Hamlet. He is trapped in an unsettled mind with no escape. He is a Prince, but he feels pain like every other man.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Opportunism is defined as self-interest seeking with guile. It includes blatant forms, such as lying, stealing, and cheating, as well as subtle forms of deceit, mostly the incomplete or distorted disclosure of information. It is responsible for real or contrived forms of information asymmetry. (Clegg)…

    • 918 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    purpose; especially, one who has risked or sacrificed his life. This describes one of the main characters in the highly acclaimed novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey. Randle McMurphy is the hero of this novel because he stood firmly against oppressive powers, showing courage and ultimately paying with his life. There were no heroes on the psychiatric ward before McMurphy's arrival. Nurse Ratched wielded supreme power. No single patient had the ability to stand against the injustices to which they were subjected. McMurphy united these patients. He gave them collective courage and a sense that they could resist their persecutor. For example, Harding states, "No one's ever dared…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a number of individuals have been administered into a mental institution, although no clear evidence exists that they suffer from psychological illnesses. Many of the inmates, for example Billy, Dale, and the Chief have voluntarily committed to the hospital because they feel that they are in need of mental rehabilitation. Their actions and behaviour however suggests that they are psychological stable, but are unable to meet society’s expectations and cope under the circumstances outlined by society. The hospital to which they are administered is a mirror image of the society most of the inmates are haunted by, as the inmates are constantly pressured into acting a certain way and conforming to nurse Ratched’s expectations and rules. Moreover, the audience is able to see the power struggle that exists between nurse Ratched and McMurphy, as…

    • 1010 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays