Power In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Abraham Lincoln once said “if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” By saying this, Lincoln bestows that power has the ability to change people--ultimately for the worse. If both were in the same generation, Machiavelli and Lincoln would have been great friends. Machiavelli expanded on Lincoln’s thoughts by stating: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Machiavelli believes that if one is given utter power, that person’s mindset will become unscrupulous. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and the Stanford Prison Experiment with leading investigator Philip Zimbardo include numerous examples that further develop and defend Machiavelli’s quote.
Absolute power starts its course of corruption by creating inflated personalities.

Those who receive power always end up to be conceited. Their heads become extremely large. Their egos become extremely large. Within the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a nurse claimed to hold authority over a doctor. Within the real world, everyone knows that a doctor is one step up from a nurse; however, since the nurse is in absolute power, she completely disregards that the doctor has a higher degree and rank than her. With regards to this, she does not respect the doctor’s opinion with any topics--she believes that she is the only one that is right and has a say in anything. That nurse is named Nurse Ratched. That doctor is named Doctor Spivey. Both are employed by the same mental hospital. One day, while in a weekly meeting with all of the patients of the mental hospital, the subject of a carnival was brought up. Doctor Spivey agreed that going to a carnival would be a great idea, ultimately impacting the patients in a positive way; however, Nurse Ratched did not think the same. Once the discussion was in route, Nurse Ratched said, “I believe that an idea like this should be discussed in a staff meeting before a decision is reached” (Kesey 109). This comment led the narrator to write, “Everybody knows that’s all there is to the carnival’ (Kesey 109). Because the Nurse has absolute power, she disregards the patients’ and even the Doctor’s excitement about the carnival, and shuts down the idea (in an implicit way). Nothing happens without her wishing it to happen. The hospital is not a democracy--it is ruled by one person: corrupt Nurse Ratched.

Moreover, the same evil Nurse Ratched pushed a patient to take his own life. A patient named Billy Bibbit was finally making a sexual interaction with a women. Nurse Ratched found out and was appalled. She terrorized Billy while threatening to tell his mother. This terror lead Billy to suicide. After Billy was found with his throat cut, Nurse Ratched refused to take any blame. She said to McMurphy, another patient in the hospital: “I hope you’re satisfied. Playing with human lives” (Kesey 318). The nurse completely blamed Billy’s suicide on McMurphy. She yelled at McMurphy, “as if you thought yourself to be a God” (Kesey 318). This quote is extremely ironic. Nurse Ratched thinks that she is the God. Nurse Ratched thinks that she can do no wrong. Her personality is so inflated that she refuses to take any blame for the death of someone else. Her power has corrupted her mind. In addition, within the Stanford Prison Experiment, Stanford University students who participated were given a role as either a prisoner or a guard. The guards were given absolute power. Zimbardo wrote on his website, “The guards were given no specific training on how to be guards.” The guards were free to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain control and

command respect of the prisoners. Even after the guards were doing cruel things, no one interfered. In her article The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Maria Konnikova points out that “when the ‘superintendent’ and the ‘warden’ overlooked these incidents, the message to the guards was clear: all is well; keep going as you are” (Konnikova 3). Because no one stepped in to say anything to the guards, the guards were given absolute power. The power once again changed their personalities. The guards began to go overboard. They became cruel to the prisoners. The guards thought that they were so much better than those who were “locked up.” Their egos became big. The power made them corrupt.
Power starts with little things like a high ego but it quickly leads to people making rash decisions.

Those who are given absolute power become so corrupt that they treat others very poorly. Going back to Nurse Ratched: she started abusing her power with small things like taking away her patients’ cigarettes. She only allowed each patient to have a pack a day. Getting to a higher extremity, Nurse Ratched threatened to take away the patient's’ game room--one of the few things that they can do within the hospital. Nurse Ratched yelled at the patients, “there would be a certain justice in taking away the privilege of the tub room” (Kesey 200). Nurse Ratched is using her power to punish the patients just because things are not going her way. To an even higher extremity: Nurse Ratched wished shock therapy on her patients. Instead of helping her patients when they act out, she abuses her power and has the patients shocked. For example, after McMurphy got into a run down with the Big Nurse, she wished the shock therapy on him instantly. The texts states, “they gave McMurphy three more treatments that week” (Kesey 289). Nurse Ratched used her power to physically hurt people and literally shock the life out of people. To the highest extremity: Nurse Ratched made one of her patients go into a vegetative state. Because she was not getting her way with McMurphy, she killed off his personality. She used her power to get McMurphy lobotomized. The text states, “in heavy black letters,

MCMURPHY, RANDLE P. POST-OPERATIVE. And below this was written in ink, LOBOTOMY” (Kesey 321). Nurse Ratched became so corrupt that she pretty much killed someone. She could not handle anyone going against her wishes--pushing her to ultimately turn someone into a vegetable! Because of her power, she has turned into a villain. Her utter power has corrupted her. Likewise, within the Stanford Prison Experiment, the guards also began to make rash decisions. As Zimbardo wrote on his website, “the prisoners were rudely awakened from sleep” and were constantly forced to do push-ups as punishment. The guards began to overstep their roles by hastening the prisoners sleep and making them do physical work. That is not what the prisoners signed up for. The guards got so into their role. Everyone started to forget about reality and began to believe that these roles were their real life. That is when the guards became extremely corrupt. Because the prisoners began to act out, the guards forced terrible treatments. Zimbardo wrote, “the guards broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked [and] took the beds out.” The guards decided to deprive the prisoners of clothing, beddings, and even food! Because they were given absolute power--remember, no one was there to stop their actions--the guards turned into terrible people. These once bright, young Stanford males turned into corrupt villains all because of the presence of power.
Machiavelli’s quote, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is further developed and defended within One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and the Stanford Prison Experiment with leading investigator Philip Zimbardo. If one gets put into absolute power, his/her personality inflates ultimately causing him/her to make rash decisions.