Preview

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and the Crucible Comparison

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1967 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and the Crucible Comparison
Power and control are the central ideas of Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. There are examples of physical, authoritative and mechanical power in the novel, as well as cases of self-control, and control over others. Nurse Ratched is the ultimate example of authoritative power and control over others but R.P. McMurphy refuses to acknowledge the Nurse's power, and encourages others to challenge the status quo. The other patients begin powerless, but with McMurphy's help, learn to control their own lives. Many symbols are also used to represent power and control in the book, such as the ‘Combine', ‘fog', and the imagery of machines.

Arthur Miller develops themes of power somewhat differently in his play The Crucible. Because The Crucible is a play, it can be expected that Miller will use dialogue and characterisation to show the reader power.
Miller created Rev Parris, who believes that the church is the authority of all people in the town. Since he is a Reverend, he considers himself an authoritative figure. He believes that "people are not following their obligations to the church". He comments about the authority of the church. He demands that the people of Salem be obedient to the church and to him. He says that if they are not obedient, then they will burn in hell. He does not leave much room for people to live their lives other than by what the church dictates. Through Parris's comments, Miller is showing the reader the control the church exerts over its parish.

Kesey also uses characterisation to show power. The ‘Big' Nurse Ratched runs the ward in which the central characters reside in a manner that induces fear in both patients and staff. The Nurse controls almost everything in the men's lives; their routines, food, entertainment, and for those who are committed, how long they stay in the hospital. Nurse Ratched is the main example of power and control in the novel. The Big Nurse has great self-control; she is not easily flustered and

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
  • Good Essays

    “Sometimes a manipulator’s own ends are simply the actual disruption of the ward for the sake of disruption” (27; pt.1). In One Flew the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey shows us the different sides of the id, ego, and superego. Although Ken Kesey differentiates in the subconscious forces of the mind within the characters, they are all affected by the combine.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the book “The Crucible”, by Arthur Miller, Deputy Danforth is more to blame for the trials continuation than Abigail Williams because he always believed whoever had been accused a witch, refused any evidence showing that the accused were innocent, and was more concerned with the court’s image than justice being served.…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thesis: In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched exposes the patients to electro-shock therapy and lobotomies, drug therapy, and group therapy; while McMurphy teaches the men to stick up for themselves using laughter, resistance to the Big Nurse, and a fishing trip.…

    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Miller's movie, The Crucible and the play both have heaps of connections and diversities. All of them help forward a underscored message in both of the productions of the Crucible. Arthur Miller diligently made it clear to consolidate countless differences from correlating the two, you can conveniently identify the changes, additions, deletions, and the character patroyal.…

    • 563 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good 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
  • Good Essays

    The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an American classic that was written in the early 1950’s. It takes place is Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. It conveys the story of the Salem Witch Trials. At this time, hysteria, deceit, and paranoia absorbed the minds of the Puritan towns of New England.…

    • 304 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good 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

    Living under a strict society where the system and all of its components were based on God, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Judge Danforth from Arthur Miller's The Crucible were bound to suffer from the Puritan values which they believed in during the Puritan era. After thoroughly analyzing both Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller's The Crucible, it is evident that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and Judge Danforth were notably victimized by the Puritan ethics of body politic and the statute of God as the law. Even though Dimmesdale and Danforth held different powers in their society, their positions were threatened or destroyed by the ethic of body politic, and they were ultimately…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cuckoo's Nest Masculinity

    • 258 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One of the most important things to a man is feeling that he has a sense of power, especially in any relationship with a woman. Without this feeling of masculinity a man may feel weak and powerless. In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the author Ken Kesey expresses this in the relationships between Billy Bibbit and his mother, Dale Harding and his wife Vera Harding, and Chief Bromden’s father and mother. Kesey also proves this through the characterNurse Ratched. The sense of being a true man, being dependent and having a lot of power is what truly gives a man a life. The reader can see Kesey convey this in the downfalls of each man who lost his masculinity to a woman. Dale Harding is an intelligent, educated and effeminate man. Harding…

    • 258 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nurse Ratched used to work as a nurse in the military, indicating she would act tough and keep everything well ordered like anything in the military, but when running a mental hospital the caretakers have to act extremely kind. Unfortunately, Nurse Ratched shows no mercy and she acts the same way with the mental patients as she would have in the military. This means everything must go exactly her way and nothing goes without a consequence. Broaden, the narrator describes her by saying, “The Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kilter or in the way ties her into a little white knot of tight-smiled fury. She walks around with that same doll smile crimped between her chin and her nose and that same calm whir coming from her eyes, but down inside of her she’s tense as steel” (Kesey 22). Not only does she run the mental hospital with precision, but she also inflicts terrible punishments on the patients who step out of line.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ken Kesey wrote the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, about a new inmate at a mental institution through the point of view of one of the inmates. J.D. Salinger wrote the novel, The Catcher in the Rye, as narrated by a teenage dropout. Neither of the novels have the same setting nor the same type of characters. However, both novels contain a theme of coming of age for the characters as expressed through situational irony, sexual themes, and the motif of laughter.…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller in 1953 is a political allegory, based on the Salem witch trials. During its time, it was used to inform people about the horrid nature of the accusations which took place during the Red Scare. In 1996, director Nicholas Hynter released a film adaptation of Miller’s play. Despite popular belief, movie adaptations hold just as much significance as the original written text. Both the text and its visual counterpart are created to convey a message, just in their own respective ways. As authors use literary devices to create meaning and convey themes within their texts, directors use movie techniques. A technique like lighting can be used to characterize, while visual symbolism can allude and foreshadow, and zooming can create a greater…

    • 2021 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, you may find similar themes in these novels The Scarlet Letter features Hester Prynne that commits a shameful sin, that being adultery. Related to The Scarlet Letter, In The Crucible concerns a group of girls that are said to also commit a shameful sin, which is witchcraft. However the children lie and say and said that all they did was “dance” in the woods. Even though both these novels have different plots, themes or ideas including, adultery and witchcraft, committing sins, and symbolism of forest and town views are shared both The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible.…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the crucible vs real life

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials were an extremely controversial period of time in our history. This was a time of suspicion and accusation of many innocent women and men that led to hysteria and complete turmoil in Salem Village. The Crucible portrays the Salem Witch Trials in a dramatic sense, but there are many similarities between the movie and the actual events. We can use these unusual events to compare to our own lives and learn from the mistakes of our past.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics