Power is the predominant theme of Ken Kesey's “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”: who has the power, who does does not have it, who wants it, who loses it, how it is used to intimidate and manipulate and for what purposes, and, more particularly, how it is disrupted and subverted, contested, denied and assumed. On a deeper level, the theme reveals the way in which an individual seeking power will reduce all others who threaten that pursuit to the level of disposable goods, and this dichotomy is in turn embodied in the chaotic relationship shared between the nurse Ratched and Nurse Ratched. and his opponent, Randle Patrick McMurphy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Before McMurphy arrives at the hospital, Nurse Ratched's routine works effectively to maintain a simple sense of order. “The neighborhood is a factory for the Combine,” “Chief” Bromden notes in his narration. "It is to repair the mistakes made in the neighborhoods, in the schools and in the churches... When a finished product returns to society, everything repaired like new, sometimes better than new, it brings joy to the community. Great Nurse. something that had come in a twisted and different way is now a functional, fitted component, a credit to the whole outfit and a marvel to behold.” However, this efficiency does not exist in the. hospital as a whole, but only within the confines of Nurse Ratched's ward. "You may sometimes have the impression," Harding later told McMurphy, "having lived only in our department, that the hospital is a large efficient mechanism which would work quite well if the patient were not forced into it." The routine described by Bromden in the fourth chapter of Part One is certainly sufficient proof of this claim: each inmate is assigned a job and must adhere to Nurse Ratched's strict schedule, and each inmate carries out her duties with no questions asked and virtually no disruption. this schedule - until McMurphy arrives. “[He has] a marked disregard for discipline and authority,” hospital staff are told. “Time and time again, he took his hostilities against authority figures – at school, in the service, in prison!” And with the disruptive presence of McMurphy entering the hospital machine, the conflict begins. It is clear from the start that Nurse Ratched holds power over the ward: "We are victims of a matriarchy," Harding tells McMurphy shortly after McMurphy's arrival. That they live under a strict regime is evident in the way each inmate on the block is labeled as "acute" or "chronic" and, similarly, in the way Nurse Ratched is simply referred to as "big nurse" . 'As such, she does not necessarily hold her power for any particular characteristic reason and not just because of the things she does, but, more importantly, she holds power for a functional reason, because of the role that she does. she plays. She's the nurse and she's in charge, and the inmates are just objects in the machine, the Acutes and the Chronicles, and she doesn't treat them as individuals, perhaps because none of them particularly stands out as an individual. But the same cannot be said of McMurphy, and so he quickly sets to work undermining Nurse Ratched's power and her regime, resulting in her power being restored to a characteristic rather than functional level - c 'that is, she is obliged to restore power by the actions she performs rather than by the role she plays - and McMurphyrequires this change by reintroducing into the room the only thing that she suppressed and which has a power comparable to hers: laughter. “I have never seen a group as frightening as you in my life,” he told the inmates. "[You're] afraid to even open up and laugh. You know, that's the first thing that attracted me to this place, that there was no one laughing... Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing... A man lets himself let a woman hit him until he can't laugh anymore and he loses one of the biggest advantages he had on his side. The first thing. that you know, he will start to think that she is tougher than him” And he succeeds in bringing laughter back into the room: “I sometimes forget what laughter can do,” the chef said later. notes McMurphy's use of humor as a weapon against the routine of the room: "He begins to see how funny it all is - the rules, the disapproving looks they use to enforce the rules... [and] he starts laughing, and it infuriates them to no end. He's safe as long as he can laugh, he thinks, and it works pretty well. "Of course, Nurse Ratched can't play McMurphy's game. McMurphy's laughter is the result of his growing familiarity with the ward machine, so, to find her Having lost her power over him, she sets out to disrupt her role within this machine A suggestion circulates around the room that she will send him to Disturbed - but she changes the rules to reassert her power over the room as a whole, and she leaves him "I saw [. [Nurse Ratched] sending men half McMurphy's size to Disturbed for no reason other than there was a chance they'd spit on someone," Bromden says, "[and] now she's got this bull of. a man who objected to her and every other staff member, a guy who she said was about to leave the room earlier that afternoon, and she said no. » She says no because she understands the mechanisms of the power game: "Delete 'I don't believe that this would repair the harm that was done to our service?' He would be a martyr for them. "What she doesn't count on is that McMurphy also understands the rules of the power game. He, too, refutes her expectations and begins to follow her rules obediently -" he surprised everyone on the field. by getting up early and polishing the latrines until they shine” – but, in retaliation, she refutes his expectations that this change in his behavior will be recognized. “She acted like it was nothing surprising. » In this case, there is a power structure at work that is more moral in nature than the power structure that was in place when McMurphy came into the room - it is about the power of a character and their tendencies characteristics rather than the power of a person who fulfills a function. Here we have a structure in which McMurphy establishes the rules for disruption, which Nurse Ratched then relies on when she chooses not to take responsibility for resolving this disruption, which McMurphy chooses to resolve voluntarily the disturbance he has. caused, constructed once again by Nurse Ratched who did not recognize this resolution. McMurphy gains the upper hand through this structure: he puts Nurse Ratched in a position where she can either refuse the opportunity to recognize her voluntary resolution of her own disturbance and, in doing so, recognize her power to harm or heal her cannot recognize her voluntary resolution and, as a result, become a more antagonistic figure than she was before the conflict even began; either way, she loses. "[Some inmates] think he's letting her relax," saysBromden, "then he'll throw something new at him, something wilder and meaner than ever." This is certainly his tactic; he plays Nurse Ratched the same way he plays his poker games: "he dealt and talked and roped [the men] and led them to the point where they were about to quit, then [he] stepped back a hand or two to give them confidence and bring them back.” The power lies with McMurphy, and Nurse Ratched is his pawn no matter what she does. However, while the battle between them is rooted in their actions, the core of their conflict is rooted in their principles. Nurse Ratched doesn't care why certain rules were made - in fact, her excuse for each rule is that it's simply for the therapeutic benefit of patients - but she only cares that certain rules have been established and must be respected. Similarly, during the incident of rearrangement of the television schedule to accommodate the World Series, McMurphy ultimately does not care about what he watches on television, but only cares about what he watches on television. It's a matter of principle: as long as he can change the rules she has established, even if he can't change them as much as he hoped, he wins power. When the pressure becomes too much for her to handle, she responds in the only way possible: she gives in and sends McMurphy to Disturbed for electroshock therapy. But again, even though she holds physical power over him, he is still superior to her: by forcing her to send him to Disturbed, he made her break the vow she had made earlier, and even then, he still resists the treatment she inflicts on him and, at least at first, he laughs about it; Laughter remains his weapon of subversion. But he remains alone with Nurse Ratched until he can bring the other inmates to his side. This is the next step in McMurphy's methods to overthrow Nurse Ratched's power. If laughter is the only truly effective method of overturning this power and thus rendering Nurse Ratched's rigor powerless, McMurphy is faced with the task of making other men laugh, which proves difficult for him within the limits of the room; hence the need for the outdoor fishing trip. "Maybe [McMurphy] didn't understand why we couldn't laugh yet," says Bromden, "but he knew you can't really be strong without seeing a funny side to things." However, McMurphy's ability to make the men "relax" and laugh comes before they even reach the boat: "Never before had I realized that mental illness could have the aspect of power, of power,” Harding said, after the gas station incident. station en route to fishing trip. “Think about it: maybe the crazier a man is, the more powerful he could become.” Later, still speaking of McMurphy, Bromden says, "He knows you have to laugh at things that hurt you just to keep yourself balanced, just to keep the world from driving you crazy." " The fishing trip is the perfect remedy to help the inmates relax, and upon returning to the hospital, the fishermen who had insulted them earlier in the day "could feel the change that most of us only suspected; they were no longer the same. a bunch of weaklings at the knees of a madhouse who they had seen receive their insults on the platform this morning. McMurphy gives them the means to laugh, but it is only later that he gives them the reason: after the secret arrival of the two prostitutes at the hospital. When the secret is revealed, Nurse Ratched's power over men is completely eliminated: her periods. have been.