Power in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 

The classic power struggle of rebelliousness and conformity is one that has been 

seen in many, many different literary works. From novels set in a school to movies about 

a political rebellion, conformity and power have clashed since authority existed. Aside 

from the rebels and the people of authority, people caught in the middle of a power 

struggle are always forced to take a side. In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken 

Kesey, we see the conflict between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy. McMurphy wants 

freedom and happiness for the patients, and for them to be treated as actual human 

beings. Nurse Ratched, on the other hand, whether it is intentional or not, dehumanizes 

patients in the ward. The conflict between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched is both 

inspiring and uninspiring to the other patients. Through the balance of power between 

Nurse Ratched and McMurphy, Kesey demonstrates the positive and negative 

consequences of the dehumanization of medical patients.  

Throughout the story, the readers can see that Nurse Ratched and McMurphy are 

almost entirely balanced, and if the power shifts, it will almost always shift back to 

balance out again. The struggle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched shifts a lot. The 

power struggle rarely consistently shifts toward one side’s benefit. If Nurse Ratched 

were to get the upper hand, McMurphy would find another way to rebel or shift the 

power. If McMurphy were to successfully rebel, Nurse Ratched would implement 

another restriction or punish the patients in order to establish her dominance. Both 

McMurphy and Nurse Ratched were very vocal people. They almost always had 

something to say, whether it was to incite conflict or to end it. However, they both had 

rare instances of silence. For example, Chief Bromden, the narrator, writes, “Once, just 

one time that I can remember, four or five years back, did it go any different. The doctor 
had finished his spiel, and the nurse had opened right up with, ‘now. Who will start? Let 

out those old secrets.’ And she’d put all the Acutes in a trance by sitting there in silence 

for twenty minutes after the question, quiet as an electric alarm about to go off, waiting 

for somebody to start telling something about themselves.” In this instance, Nurse 

Ratched was using her power to hold an advantage over the acutes, because they were 

used to her prying the truth from them. However, in this instance, she was using her 

silence as her power. This was confusing to the other patients because it seemed like she 

had no power, where in truth, she had more power when she was silent. They were so 

fearful of her that even when she was silent, she still held absolute power over them. 

There was also an instance where McMurphy was asked by another patient to support 

the effort to get more cigarette privileges. However, McMurphy refused. He had the 

power to change, but he decided not to. He had power over Nurse Ratched, but he 

decided not to use it. The fact that both McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are idolized by 

the people in the ward causes both of them to exert power over each other. However, 

because this support constantly shifts, this causes the power struggle to keep changing 

since patients support McMurphy only at certain times.  

Aside from the power struggle, the conflict between McMurphy and Nurse 

Ratched illustrates the positive and negative consequences of rebelliousness. 

McMurphy, when he first came into the ward, said that he wanted to help make the 

patients’ time at the ward a little more enjoyable. He said that he wanted to bring 

entertainment to the “old birds” in the ward. When he sees the power that Nurse 

Ratched has, he knows that the only way to help the patients rediscover the joys of life 

was to make Nurse Ratched lose control over the potentially joyful parts of the patients’ 

lives. Because of this, there were positive consequences and negative consequences to 
almost all of his actions. For example, McMurphy and the others were supposed to be 

able to watch a baseball game on TV, but Nurse Ratched refused to let them watch it. 

Because of this, McMurphy decided to rebel by pretending to watch the game, even 

though the TV screen was black. Bromden, the narrator, said, “We’re all sitting there 

lined up in front of that blacked out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could 

see the baseball game clear as day, and she’s ranting and screaming behind us.” 

McMurphy went directly against Nurse Ratched’s commands. However, Ratched’s 

outburst caused her to be put in the glass office. She didn’t come out for a while. This 

was seen as a positive consequence. They got rid of Nurse Ratched for a short amount of 

time. However, at the end of the book, McMurphy’s rebellion caused a negative 

consequence. While Nurse Ratched was out of the ward, McMurphy threw a crazy party. 

When Nurse Ratched gets back, she discovers the havoc that the party had wrought, and 

she made McMurphy get a lobotomy. After the Lobotomy, he was completely brain 

dead. McMurphy had lost himself. Aside from the back and forth of power, there was 

also a back and forth of positive and negative consequences to McMurphy’s rebellion. 

This also contributed to the back and forth of the power struggle. It was a cycle that led 

up to the emergence of a victor.  

The back and forth of power directly relates to the negative and positive 

consequences, and it shows why the rebellion of McMurphy is both a good and bad 

thing. The back and forth caused the other patients to gather the strength to rebel, 

which wouldn’t have happened if there weren’t multiple chances to either join into the 

rebellion or to stay out of it. The fact that someone as dehumanized as Bromden 

gathered the strength to rebel by the end without McMurphy shows that nobody can 
ever truly be dehumanized, which goes directly against Nurse Ratched’s view of the 

patients.  

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