The Institution In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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The Institution Essay At the core, the institution is established to provide individuals an effective and reliable method of living. However, institutions often counter that by compromising the freedoms of those whom they subjugate. It is ultimately as a result of this deprivation of choice that an individual is necessitated and it is through this response that individuals grow and are empowered. In Ken Kesey’s ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, the mental institution is used as a critical allegory for post war America and the emergence of repressive institutional ideology. Similarly, Oliver Stone’s ‘Wall Street’ portrays the individual as a subject of the institution within society, in doing so, uses greed as a means of power to climb societal…show more content…
Similar to Kesey, Stone highlights how the Institution is able to repress the nature of the human impulse. However, ‘Wall street’ shows how the institution negates the individual’s core morals to corrupt them from simplicity and honesty and provide them with the opportunity to sustain their lives with “the buying and selling of others”. When the protagonist Bud Fox alludes to the governmental system of society, another significant character Gordon Gekko replies “you’re not naïve enough to think we’re living in a democracy? It’s a free market. And you’re a part of It.” Highlights that the money made through the institution is the only contributing factor to power and status. This conflicts with the view of Bud’s father Carl Fox who believes money is made through hard work and honesty. “The rich have been doing it [exploiting] to the poor since the beginning of time” demonstrating how the institution has the power to corrupt one and alter their core values, drawing the divide between the wealthy and the lacking. Moreover, the greed within the institution directly correlates with the constraints of modern society where money is viewed as a source of power. The individuals place in society is determined by the allowance one gives to the institution to become a part of their
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