In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey we are introduced to the theme of the machine that controls patients in the ward. The combine harvester, as it is called several times in the novel, is a machine used in agriculture for cutting crops. In The Cuckoo's Nest, the combine harvester is used as a metaphor for society and how it controls, destroys, and manipulates patients. The character Nurse Ratched is a "high-ranking official" (p. 165) of the combine with almost all the characters in the novel. under his control. With extreme intelligence, he uses his power to influence how the population of the department acts and what it does. Fear is an important component of the nurse's tactics as she uses it to get what she wants and do things exactly the way she wants. The two types of patients in the novel, the Acutes who are "still sick enough to be cured" (p. 13) and the Chronics who "cannot be fixed" (p. 14) are treated very differently by the nurse and the its staff because it has to be stricter with chronic patients and can be more lenient with acute ones. THE ...