1. The Power of a Single Action<br />About a century ago, a man who was walking in a street shot a couple in a car. This became the start of World War II, which led millions of people to death. If, this young gentleman had chosen not to murder these two people, wouldn’t enormous amount of people have avoided dying? People often forget how powerful a single action can be in a real life. Likewise, in literature, a single event can change the outcome of the whole story. Macbeth by William Shakespeare and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey show how one behavior can be a significant turning point in the plot by motivating others to insanity. <br />Macbeth shows how one’s word can wake other’s ambition, greed and cruelty to an extreme point. Three witches deliberately tell Macbeth that he will become the king. After hearing this prophesy, Macbeth, who previously did not have the desire for power, is driven by his new awaken ambition. He starts killing whoever blocks his way including the king Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s family. If three witches had not told him one line: that he will become the king, he would not have been motivated to kill others and go through the mental breakdown himself. William Shakespeare, by this scene, describes how powerful a word can be and warns the audiences to watch what they are saying. <br />Likewise, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest depicts the how abrupt behavior can result in one’s complete downfall. As Nurse Rached attempts to rule over the patients by their guiltiness toward Billy bibbit’s death, McMurphy rips off her cloth and strangles her. Whether it was a punishment or a treatment for the action, McMurphy goes through a lobotomy and becomes a vegetable. As he becomes a vegetable, he is left with a complete lost over the fighting with Nurse Ratched. His dignity and fame vanishes away as a result of single action until Chief Bromden decides that he is in state of worse than death with his complete breakdown. If he hadn’t committed a violent behavior in his loss of emotional control, he would not have become a vegetable or gone through loss of his identity and dignity. Ken Kesey, by his novel, illustrates that one mistake can ruin one’s life. Thereby, he delivers a message that an action taken when in state of extreme anger or other emotion is dangerous.<br />Both Macbeth and One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest shows the difference a single action brought to the story. In Macbeth, Macbeth becomes obsessed with power by one manipulate word of witches while in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, McMurphy experiences a complete downfall after strangling Nurse Ratched. Both authors, by their literature pieces, teach us how powerful a single action is. Therefore, they warn us to be wise in our everyday choices of taking an action. <br />