The thesis deals with the motives of punishment and discipline in Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The author and the time period during which the work was created are presented in the first part. The thesis focuses on the operation of psychiatric treatment facilities, from where some controversial traditional treatment procedures originate, including electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomy, and drug experimentation. In the following, Foucault's concepts of understanding madness, which he describes in his work A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, are presented; furthermore, his concepts of punishment and control, which he writes about in the work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, are defined. The thesis intertwines his philosophy and an analysis of the relationship between the novel's protagonist, McMurphy, and the head nurse of the psychiatric unit. Regarding the analysis of the relationship, the thesis focuses on the motives of corporal punishment, which is one of the ways of control and discipline used by the Big Sister. According to Foucault, these techniques lead to the creation of »docile bodies« that submit to authority.
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