control. The other men in the ward accept Nurse Ratched's control because she has conditioned them to believe it to be necessary. This demonstrates the major problem that most of the patients face: they believe themselves to be weak and in need of an authority to control them, but in fact are capable of independent action. She exploits their ‘need for authority’ by using her authority and control to shred the men's courage, pride and eventually all of their manhood down to nothing. She is able to this because of the fear she has installed in the patients. In the simplest terms, Ratched controls through fear. They know that if they do not let Nurse Ratched control their lives, there will be consequences. They all fear that she will retaliate by giving them an Electro-shock therapy (EST) treatment. Other characters like Billy Bibbit fear to defy Nurse Ratched because she would give bad reports of Billy’s progress to his mother who has the same dominance over Billy as Nurse Ratched. Her other effective method of controlling the men is through the group therapy meetings. These meetings begin with Nurse Ratched selecting a patient and humiliating him by describing his personal, sexual, and psychological problems. As a further embarrassment, Nurse Ratched asks the other patients to comment on the problems she has described. “She derives her power from her ability to humiliate and cow a vulnerable constituency.” (Buchanan and Hoffman, 2000) She uses these meetings to pit the patients against one another, thus fostering a sense of strife among the patients so that they remain submissive to her. This method is effective and works like clockwork until McMurphy begins to question her methods. Nurse Ratched recognizes McMurphy as a threat after the first time they meet. He disobeys his first orders from the black boys to have his temperature taken. Other incidents such as the World Series prove to her that he is danger...
