We Are All "Manipulators"

On page 27 of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, Miss Flint and Miss Ratched discuss a potential “manipulator” in their ward. When Miss Flint asks Miss Ratched why a “manipulator” would want to come to a mental health institution, Miss Ratched responds: “comfort and an easy life, for instance; the feeling of power and respect, perhaps; monetary gain—perhaps all of these things. Sometimes a manipulator’s own ends are simply the actual disruption of the ward for the sake of disruption” (27). Like everything in my life, I could not help but relate this to our AP English class. Miss Ratched’s definition of a “manipulator” made me realize that all AP English students are “manipulators.” Henry enjoys disrupting discussions in class mainly for the sake of disrupting but also to create interest and controversy, so he clearly is a certain type of “manipulator.” Then there are the “manipulators” who choose to take AP English for the feeling of power and respect. We all like the feeling of power that we get from the knowledge that we gain. Our English skills have improved exponentially from the beginning of our junior years and this gives us a sense of power. Additionally, just being in AP English forces other students to respect us and the amount of work we willingly complete. Automatically, when I tell another student that I am in Ms. Serensky’s class, they respect my intelligence and drive to work hard in high school. Everyone in AP English is seeking monetary gain. In addition to learning about literature and writing, we all want to earn a high enough score on the AP test in May so that we can test out of some classes in college and in turn save some money on our college tuition. Also, we can gain monetarily by learning about proper writing and analysis and which enables us to charge other students a small fee to write their English papers or essays for them. Lastly, we are “manipulators” because we want to be in AP English because it helps us create a comfortable and easy life. AP English does not provide a comfortable and easy life in terms of the amount of work we do or the stress we feel with the big assignments and papers. However, AP English does provide comfort and ease in the sense that we can achieve peace of mind by knowing that we challenged ourselves in high school and that we are trying to learn as much as we can. I hope this is comforting that we all fit the definition of a “manipulator” as defined by the nurse in a mental health institution.