Psychopathic Behaviours and Power: Investigating Psychopathy, Sadism, and Insanity in Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Abstract

Mental illness has been on the agenda of numerous researchers for several years. It is considered as an ambiguous subject, especially in literary studies. Psychopathic behaviour, sadism, and insanity for instance, have been classified as severe mental illnesses and were only tackled as a personality trait but they have not been analyzed as state behaviours. Namely, understanding what triggers such behaviours in literary characters is but an attempt to mirror the current studies done on the concepts of psychopathy, sadism, and insanity. In this light, this thesis examines the three psychopathic behaviours and their link to power in the novel of the American novelist Ken Kesey One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). It is based on a descriptive and analytical method in order to demonstrate how these behaviours are represented as a state in selected characters: Chief Bromden, Nurse Ratched, and Randle McMurphy. Additionally, characters with such behaviours feel a sense of domination and control over what they consider weaker subjects. In this regard, this research is theoretically framed by Freud, Lacan, and Foucault to decipher how these behaviours are exhibited in the novel. This dissertation concludes that psychopathy, sadism, and insanity have a parallel link with the discourse of power