Freedom or Dictatorship
Who has the authority to say what is and is not moral? Should people have the freedom to do whatever they please, or should they be restricted in the name of safety? In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, the culturally accepted idea of morality in 1960’s America is constantly questioned. Kesey writes the novel through the perspective of Chief Bromden, a man in the ward who acts deaf and dumb but can still speak and hear. In this institution, Nurse Ratched has power over the patients and makes decisions that Randle Patrick McMurphy frequently disagrees with. McMurphy is a patient in the ward who leads a rebellion against Ratched because he thinks that the other men deserve more freedom and the ability to express …show more content…
Ratched frequently intimidates and manipulates her patients so that she can feel superior to them. When McMurphy tries to convince the patients to vote for Nurse Ratched to let them watch the World Series, only 20 out of the 40 people on the ward vote. Ratched says that in order for her to put the game on TV, there needs to be a majority vote. McMurphy tries to convince just one other person to raise his hand and agree to watch the game, but before McMurphy is able to, Ratched ends the group meeting. Moments after it ends McMurphy sees what had happened: “ ‘Twenty-one! The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one!’ […] ‘the meeting was closed’ ” (Kesey 142). Chief Bromden votes moments after the meeting ends. If she is a reasonable person, Ratched would allow the patients to watch the game. But, because she wants to feel more powerful, Ratched makes the excuse that the meeting ended so the patients could not have the liberty to do something that would bring them happiness. She constantly wants to keep the patients in a …show more content…
When Nurse Ratched discusses McMurphy’s personality with the other medical staff, she calls him a manipulator. She explains that people manipulate others for “[…] the feeling of power and respect […] Sometimes a manipulator's own ends are simply the actual disruption of the ward for the sake of disruption” (Kesey 26). The blatant irony in Ratched’s explanation is that she is not describing McMurphy; she is describing herself. Through her explanation of why people choose to manipulate others, Ratched gives reasons why she chooses to control people. Ratched frequently manipulates the patients in the ward but she also influences other ward workers: “Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff […] [some] come and rise up in front of her with ideas of their own about the way a ward should be run […] she fixes these doctors with dry-ice eyes day in, day out, until they retreat with unnatural chills” (Kesey 27). Ratched not only manipulates the patients in the ward to do what she wants, she also makes other members of her staff do remedial tasks until they stop resisting her control. As more of her abusive behavior is revealed, the mental competence of Nurse Ratched herself comes into question. This is evidence that she does not want control in order to maintain a stable environment for the ward; she wants to feel superior to others in a
Who has the authority to say what is and is not moral? Should people have the freedom to do whatever they please, or should they be restricted in the name of safety? In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, the culturally accepted idea of morality in 1960’s America is constantly questioned. Kesey writes the novel through the perspective of Chief Bromden, a man in the ward who acts deaf and dumb but can still speak and hear. In this institution, Nurse Ratched has power over the patients and makes decisions that Randle Patrick McMurphy frequently disagrees with. McMurphy is a patient in the ward who leads a rebellion against Ratched because he thinks that the other men deserve more freedom and the ability to express …show more content…
Ratched frequently intimidates and manipulates her patients so that she can feel superior to them. When McMurphy tries to convince the patients to vote for Nurse Ratched to let them watch the World Series, only 20 out of the 40 people on the ward vote. Ratched says that in order for her to put the game on TV, there needs to be a majority vote. McMurphy tries to convince just one other person to raise his hand and agree to watch the game, but before McMurphy is able to, Ratched ends the group meeting. Moments after it ends McMurphy sees what had happened: “ ‘Twenty-one! The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one!’ […] ‘the meeting was closed’ ” (Kesey 142). Chief Bromden votes moments after the meeting ends. If she is a reasonable person, Ratched would allow the patients to watch the game. But, because she wants to feel more powerful, Ratched makes the excuse that the meeting ended so the patients could not have the liberty to do something that would bring them happiness. She constantly wants to keep the patients in a …show more content…
When Nurse Ratched discusses McMurphy’s personality with the other medical staff, she calls him a manipulator. She explains that people manipulate others for “[…] the feeling of power and respect […] Sometimes a manipulator's own ends are simply the actual disruption of the ward for the sake of disruption” (Kesey 26). The blatant irony in Ratched’s explanation is that she is not describing McMurphy; she is describing herself. Through her explanation of why people choose to manipulate others, Ratched gives reasons why she chooses to control people. Ratched frequently manipulates the patients in the ward but she also influences other ward workers: “Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff […] [some] come and rise up in front of her with ideas of their own about the way a ward should be run […] she fixes these doctors with dry-ice eyes day in, day out, until they retreat with unnatural chills” (Kesey 27). Ratched not only manipulates the patients in the ward to do what she wants, she also makes other members of her staff do remedial tasks until they stop resisting her control. As more of her abusive behavior is revealed, the mental competence of Nurse Ratched herself comes into question. This is evidence that she does not want control in order to maintain a stable environment for the ward; she wants to feel superior to others in a