One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley are both about closed cultures tightly controlled by an authority. Cuckoo's Nest is set in a psychiatric ward ruled by the "Big Nurse", while Brave New World encompasses a larger society ruled by the World State. Both societies function because dissent is prohibited. In every community an outsider appears who attempts to disrupt control by exercising his free will. In both texts free will must be eradicated because it is seen as a threat to the authority and stability of society. By examining how control is exercised, the outsider as a subversive element, and the necessity of the outsider's death, the effectiveness of the protagonist's sacrifice in these two novels can be determined. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest presents a situation that is a small-scale and exaggerated model of modern society and its suppressive qualities. The story is about the inmates of a psychiatric ward who are all under the control of Nurse Ratched, "Big Nurse", whose very name indicates the oppressive nature of her authority. She rules with an iron fist so that the department can run smoothly in order to achieve rehabilitation of patients with a variety of mental illnesses. Big Nurse is introduced to the reader through the eyes of the Chief, the narrator of the story, and much of her control is depicted through the Chief's hallucinations. One of these most recurring elements is fog, a metaphorical haze that keeps patients confused and controlled. “The fog: then time means nothing. He is lost in the fog, like everyone else” (Kesey 69). Another element of his control is the wires, although the Chief only carries this wire in the middle of the card at opposite ends of the spectrum. McMurphy's sacrifice was successful while Savage's was not. There is a fundamental difference that causes this. Attempts at control in the Cuckoo's Nest begin late in the inmates' lives; they are able to resist up to a point and were able to use McMurphy's rebellion as a means to gain their own freedom. In Brave New World, control begins immediately with life. The people don't rebel because they don't even have the idea of ​​rebelling. Their lives are so programmed that they can barely think for themselves, and the Savage's attempts to deprogram them are doomed to failure. McMurphy was fighting a tough battle, but the Savage was colliding with a sheer cliff. Works Cited Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: HarperCollins Publisher.