The purpose of the writers incorporating the technique of using sexual desire as a vehicle, instead of just stating the wider themes as they are, is to get the readers to infer the themes of control in One Flew over the Cuckoos nest, power in Engleby,

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Slide 1: With the three texts we've studied, we'll be exploring and discussing how the authors use sexual desire as a vehicle for more complex themes in society through a quote analysis. We’ll discuss how the writers portray this within different relationships in the novels, and the respective underlying themes that they relate to.

All the relationships between males and females, sexual or otherwise, are arguably flawed and damaged, however the authors imply that this is what makes them fascinating. The purpose of the writers incorporating the technique of using sexual desire as a vehicle, instead of just stating the wider themes as they are, is to get the readers to infer the themes of control in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, power in Engleby, and concealment of guilt and abnormality in Enduring love.

Slide 2: First, we'll discuss the relationship between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and how sexual desire is used to explore the theme of control between the characters. 

Slide 3: In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest, the power and control in the ward is held solely by Nurse Ratched. When McMurphy arrives, he challenges this control by trying to undermine and degrade the Nurse, and because she is a woman, the only way for him to gain power over her is by asserting his sexual dominance. This is how sexual desire embodies the wider underlying theme of the diminishment of power and control held by Nurse Ratched over all the men in her ward. She maintains this element of control through her constant emasculation of the men, carried out behind what could be argued is a sexless facade, or an attempted one at that. This is shown through the quote "A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work (1.118)" Nurse Ratched de-womanises herself in order to appear less sexually desirable to the men, as she knows that her power in the ward would be undermined if they saw her as a sexual object. She maintains such power and control by not allowing herself to be degraded in a sexual manner, by hiding and concealing to the best of her ability her womanly assets, which would undermine her authority. Having what could be seen as flaws in her steel exterior makes her more vulnerable and susceptible to harassment, and therefore a loss of control. As McMurphy was revealed to us as a rapist at the beginning of the novel, it foreshadows him raping her at the end. As we have seen throughout the book, Miss Ratched has kept control over the men in her ward through emasculating them. Harding refers to sex as being a man's only weapon against a female, when he says "man has but one truly effective weapon against the juggernaut of modern matriarchy, but it certainly is not laughter". Ken Kesey portrays an arguably misogynistic message through Nurse Ratched’s use of this knowledge of men using sexual desire to gain power over women to her advantage, which is why she emasculates the men. Basically, its the idea that men use their sexual dominance in order to gain power, whereas women dominate through castration. 

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A prime example of this is when McMurphy rapes nurse ratched. He uses sex to expose her as a woman, instead of the machine that the ward had viewed her as before, which we’ll go into a bit later. When McMurphy tears her blouse off and reveals her, he shows the fact that she is a woman and therefore weaker, in their eyes, than the men. This cracks the control and authority she had over them prior to this event, because they no longer fear her.

This is further reinforced when “Some of the guys grinned at ...

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