One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, the main character McMurphy was sentenced to do time at a work farm but decided to fake insanity and be placed into a mental hospital. McMurphy believes that his sentence would be made much easier being carried out at the hospital. Foucault discuses, "whether the mental hospital would be a more suitable place of confinement than the prison, whether this confinement should be short or long, whether medical treatment or security measures are called for" (Foucault, 21). Reading about this particular wing of the hospital, who is headed by the notorious Nurse Ratched, we find that this place is not particularly suitable for individuals. As we spend our time with McMurphy we find that he has made a very grave mistake in choosing to spend his sentence in the hands of Nurse Ratched. Here the length of his stay is placed into the hands of the nurse and she gets to choose whether or not he is ready to go back out into the world rather than his sentence being finite on the work farm. The nurse constantly utilizes her position of power to an unnecessary advantage upon the patients and seems to place more of a security restraint upon them rather than assisting them to overcome their mental disabilities.