MECHANISMS OF DISCIPLINARY POWER IN KEN KESEY’S ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

Abstract

This paper investigates the disciplinary power in Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, focusing on Michel Foucault’s theories. Kesey, it will be argued, portrays a mental hospital which can be thought of as a microcosm of today’s communities in which its bureaucracies, by virtue of strategies associated with its disciplinary power discussed in the subsequent sections, keep their subjects under control. Upon the arrival of a new patient named Randle Patrick McMurphy, however, conditions, appear to be less severe and more pleasing. McMurphy, one of the protagonists, is the only person who is aware of the way the authorities impose strictures on the psychopaths, and does his best to ameliorate the condition of the hospital. Though he effects some changes, he is finally terribly treated and jettisoned. Chief Bromden is the only character who is able to make an individual choice and escape from the hospital so as to prove the power of the individual against the dominant system. The manner the hospital officials exert their power upon their subjects exemplifies the sort of treatment people living in a given society receive so that any menace on the part of iconoclasts is preempted.