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The Power Struggle of Society Represented in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
The Combine. It worked on him for years. He was big enough to fight it for a while. It
wanted us to live in inspected houses . . . Oh, the Combines big big. He fought it for a long
time till my mother made him too little to fight any more and he gave up (Kesey 208). Conflict
between individuals and the power that seeks to control us is characterized in Ken Keseys One
Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. The primary protagonist Randal McMurphy enters the psychiatric
ward, where the majority of events take place. The Ward is run by Nurse Ratched, also called the
Big Nurse, who exercises her power on the patients on the Ward. She maintains control, like a
dictator, having her patients turn on each other, to give her information that she uses to bring her
patients into submission. McMurphy does not accept this and throughout the book he resists the
tyranny of the big Nurse, ending in his death. Kesey the ongoing struggle between McMurphy
and the Big Nurse in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest as a representation of humanities
individual determination to resist the influences of oppressive power for as long as we can, and
the inevitability that even Randal McMurphy will ultimately be overwhelmed by the Combine.
McMurphy is the core representation of humanities instinct to resist the system, or
Combine, in his time checked into the ward. Not all of the characters that reside in the ward with
McMurphy had been able to fight the Nurse the way that McMurphy had or fight as long. When
they make the bet that McMurphy cannot pick up the control panel, McMurphy trys his hardest
to lift it. When he loses, before he walks out of the room McMurphy addresses his fellow Acutes
stating But I tried, though, he says. Godammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didnt I?
(Kesey 121). McMurphy is criticizing the extent to which his fellow Acutes have rebelled against
the Big Nurse, I tried, though . . . I sure as hell did that much (Kesey). McMurphy is
representing the idea that not everyone will have the same level of strength in them to fight the

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way he does. This illustrates the fact that not all individuals will be able to fight for long, against
the tangles of the Combine. After McMurphy begins to pick up the level of his rebellious acts by
putting his fist through the glass window to the Big Nurses office, he tells the Nurse Im sure
sorry, maam, he said Gawd but I am. That window glass was so spick and span I com-pletely
forgot it was there (Kesey 190). McMurphy is using his supposed obliviousness and regret
about breaking the glass, purposefully as a blatant lie to show the Nurse even more disrespect
than he already has by punching a hole through her window. This response was meant to imply
that McMurphy has no respect for the Nurse whatsoever, first by breaking her office window,
directly followed by his blatant lie to pile on top. Throughout the rest of the text, McMurphy
piles on more and more of these actions on top of each other, like a child building a tower with
their building blocks, to further convey his disrespect for Nurse Ratched, and his determination
to resist the Combines control.
McMurphy and some of the other Acutes undertake their most daring and rebellious act
of their time together in the ward. On the night that Nurse Ratched brings McMurphy back to the
ward from disturbed, and the constant visits to the Shock Shop, they throw a wild party in the
ward with two prostitutes McMurphy had gotten to come over during the cover of night. The
patients among other actions that night, got drunk off of vodka and cough syrup, as well as
picking the lock to the medication storage room. One of the girls who came to the ward was
Sandy from the fishing trip, who had come to spend some time with Billy Bibbit (Kesey 283295). The party they had on the ward was their ultimate accomplishment for the display of
resistance and disrespect toward the Big Nurse and the Combine itself. They rebelled against
nearly all of the Nurses precious ward policies in one night. They break every rule set by the
Combine to maintain control over all residing in the ward. The Nurse brought McMurphy back

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from the Shock Shop in order to stop him from becoming bigger as chief puts it, but ends up
the very same night making him the biggest he gets in his entire time on the ward fighting the
Combine, and Nurse Ratched.
The next morning after the fiasco where the two girls came to visit the boys in the ward,
Nurse Ratched is enraged by their insolence and investigates. She finds Billy asleep with Candy
after their night together, she attempts to use him as an example of why the patients should never
act in this way again. She gets Billy to feel so guilty and horrible about his actions that night by
informing him she would have to tell his mother. When Billy is sent to the doctors office to calm
down, he commits suicide with one of the doctors instruments, slitting his own throat. The
Nurse attempts to use even this to her advantage, essentially blaming McMurphy in order to get
the Acutes to turn away him (Kesey 301-304). The Men, including Harding and the Chief
Bromden had tried to get McMurphy to leave the ward after their nights fiasco and escape, but
McMurphy would have heard about it . . . Would have had to have come back, playing poker in
Carson City or Reno or someplace, and let the Big Nurse have the last move and get the last
play (Kesey 296). According to the Chief, McMurphy would have found out about Billys death
and come back to the ward. He would not have been able to let the Nurse get the last move in
their chess match, he could not have let her win. His resolve to resist was too strong to have let
that happen.
In the beginning of their time together in the ward, Harding relates to McMurphy that I
am not a chicken, Im a rabbit. The doctor is a rabbit. Cheswick there is a rabbit. Billy Bibbit is a
rabbit and continues in conveying that were not here because we are rabbits --- wed be
rabbits wherever we are --- were all in here because we cant adjust to our rabbithood. We need
a good strong wolf like the Nurse to teach us our place after McMurphy criticizes Harding for

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letting the Big Nurse walk all over them (Kesey 62). Harding is illustrating to McMurphy and
the reader that the Acutes, including himself, have lost the strength to fight on. They have been
worn down until they are truly rabbits, which need to be led by the strong wolf that is the Nurse.
McMurphy sees this in the Acutes, and it becomes one of the things that keep him going,
relentlessly fighting the combine in the hope that he can turn his friends from rabbits into
wolves. McMurphy is determined to fight the Combine to his last breath, not only for himself,
but for the Acutes in the ward who had already lost their strength to fight it themselves.
McMurphys resistance was not just himself resisting the Combine, he absorbed the need to
resist from all of the other Acutes around him and channeled it all through himself as a giant port
of resistance. His opposition to the Combine was so strong, due to the fact his resistance was for
several people coming from the strength of one body. McMurphy would eventually find that
even he could not hold a burden such as this, or even for just himself forever.
Although humanity has an inherent determination to resist control from the Combine,
even Randal McMurphy learns that he will never win the battle in the end, the Combine is too
strong for even him. The Nurse holds meetings with the staff to discuss matters about the patients
regularly. At one of her meetings they are talking about what to do with McMurphys behavior
and whether they should send him to disturbed. The Nurse decided that it would hurt her power
in the ward more than help it, instead she feels that If we keep him on the ward I am certain his
brashness will subside, his self-made rebellion will dwindle to nothing and that If we just
wait for a while, out hero will --- what is it you college boys say? --- give up his bit? Yes The
Big Nurse decides in this meeting that she had plenty of time to wear down McMurphy, he is
committed so she decides when he is released. All she has to do is keep him in the ward and wait
for the pressures of the Combine to overwhelm him, ending his rebellion (Kesey 149). The Nurse

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here is summarizing one of the main tools used by the Combine to overwhelm our strength to
resist and fight against it, time. The Combine utilized their time on McMurphy. It progressively
wore him down as time went on until he no longer had the strength to continue his fight. If you
do not follow the rules of the Combines system, it wears you down until you give up and
conform to its rules.
McMurphy put up a good fight against the Combine, not many of us could withstand as
much as he did, all the while fighting back with a rare ferocity found in few. It was of course a
vain attempt, no matter how impressive. In reality McMurphy could not possibly win. Yet he
could not give up the fight, because that would have been a complete denial of what the struggle
was all about (Anonymous 233). The fight against the Combine for McMurphy was his inherent
need to resist its oppressive forces. Another cause for McMurphys resolve is partly based on the
fact he cannot turn his back on the struggle and let the Big Nurse win, it is against his very
nature.
The fall of McMurphy begins after Billys death. The Big Nurse trys to use it to her
advantage and bring McMurphy down in the eyes of the other men, to bring their hero into the
mortal realm, making him no longer a martyr of the ward. McMurphy cannot continue the fight,
he stands up and walks over to Nurse Ratched to conduct his final act of rebellion before he loses
all the strength he has left to hold out against the combine. McMurphy begins to strangle the Big
Nurse, he did not succeed in killing her, but it was the last form of rebellion he was able to
muster. When they managed to pull him away from the Nurse:
he let himself cry out: A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and
defiance, that if you ever trailed a coon or lynx is like that last sound the treed and

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shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesnt care
any more about himself and dying (Kesey 305).
McMurphy has finally been worn down by the Combine to the point where he no longer has the
power to carry on the fight. He no longer cares about his fate, whether he lives or dies, it has no
meaning to him anymore. Even individuals like Randal McMurphy will eventually fall to the
power of the Combine. There is no question about whether it will beat you, it will beat all of us.
The unknown is when it will defeat you.
After McMurphy fell to the Combine, it did not just take him away. The Combine had to
use him to put down any thoughts of rebelling that might still be lurking in the patients minds.
After most of the Acutes had worked up the courage to check themselves out of the ward and
after:
McMurphyd been gone three weeks, she made her last play. The ward door
opened, and the black boys wheeled in this gurney with a chart at the bottom that
said in heavy black letters, MC MURPHY, RANDLE P. POST-OPERATIVE. And
below was written in ink, LOBOTOMY. They pushed it into the dayroom and left
it standing against the wall along next to the vegetables (Kesey 307)
The Combine through the Nurse has brought their enemy McMurphy down to the lowest
possible level, defacing what he stood for in the eyes of those left in the ward, as well as those
who were already gone. They wanted to use him as an example for what happened when you
defied and rebelled against their system, it was a subtle warning to keep those left in line. He
became a tool for the Combine, the opposite of what he was before his strength gave out.

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For Kesey, the question of sanity or insanity is not relevant (Anonymous 234). We will
all lose the battle against the Combine in the end, whether you are in a psychiatric ward or not.
Kesey uses Nurse Ratched and McMurphy as a representation or symbol for the Combine and
those who are have the most strength to fight against it, but who still ultimately fail in the
attempt. The unknown author of a book review published in the issues of criminology 3.2 writes
He sees that one can never win in the battle against it. The free individual, Kesey implies, can
struggle and fight, in fact he must do so, but he can win only in the most personal and subjective
sense (234). Kesey is able to see societys relationship with the Combine the way most do not,
he was able to recognize that no matter what we do, we can never win. We all will strive to fight
the Combine but will never win, we can only hope is to hold out for as long as we can. This is
what Kesey why Kesey wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. He is not just writing a novel,
Kesey is using McMurphys fall to represent and convey to us that we will never prevail against
the Combine. Kesey writes about a strong willed man who will not bow down to the system, who
eventually falls and cannot pick himself up again. If a man with the strength of will as strong as
McMurphy cannot withstand the Combine forever, than no one can. This is the concept that
Kesey writes to the reader about through McMurphys battle with Nurse Ratched.

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Works Cited

Issues in Criminology 3.2 (1968): 233234. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.