One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

Kesey has also given this novel great Symbolic value. As an opposer to the McCarthy scheme, he has used the mental hospital as a scale model of how society breaks free of society's conformity. McMurphy acts as the ‘liberator', or rebel of the ward's excessively strict conformity. He saves the patients from "the

Randle McMurphy, the protagonist, is introduced to break down the nurse’s oppressive ways. McMurphy, a con man who was sentenced to a work farm, was diagnosed as a psychopath and sent to the mental hospital, which he much preferred. Serving as a savior figure to the patients of the ward who have already been battered by the Big Nurse, McMurphy causes interference to the nurse’s control. He supports the men as they are ridiculed in meetings and supports their attempts to change policy. Although he does help other patients, he first looks out for himself. He cons the patients out of their money and then follows the nurse’s rules for awhile because of the threat of being kept on the

Nurse Ratched is the Head Nurse in the mental hospital and uses the policy and her own authority in order to take advantage of the frail condition that the patients are in. She feeds off their pain and suffering. Nurse Ratched is often referred to as the Big Nurse;

Interestingly, McMurphy loosely follows the path of Jesus Christ, where he begins a journey of unselfishness to help free his fellow ward members from the strong grips of the combine. With his fusion of an almost thuggish hero and a liberator, McMurphy cements himself as an archetype that was common in the psychological field from that time. In conjunction with the thoughts of many theorists, like Freud, McMurphy becomes a character that serves almost as role model for many young people. In the case of the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy’s fellow ward-mates are the figurative representation of the children McMurphy would appeal to. In the end, it is McMurphy’s rebelliousness and inevitable sacrifice that help portray him as a classical hero, while also allowing him to free society from the constraints of oppression.

He says, “Just as I said: any of you sharpies here willing to take my five bucks that says that I can get the best of that woman, before the week’s up, without her getting the best of me?” (73) This quote shows that McMurphy is very self-assured that he can accomplish what he sets his mind to. The ward was not used to this kind of behavior in a man. Most of the men that were already there needed to be there because of an actual insanity problem, but McMurphy was there because he would rather have been there than where he was before and the court had allowed him to be transferred. McMurphy took them completely by surprise with his resistance to follow their instructions and to do what he was expected to do. At his arrival, he immediately exhibited disobedience. He refused to take a shower, which was the asylum’s policy for new admissions. This instantly put Randle McMurphy under the staff’s radar for them to watch out for.

As soon as McMurphy arrives on the ward, he challenges Nurse Ratched’s abusive regime in hopes of restoring humanity and the rights of the individual. It didn’t take long

As a man who pretends to be deaf and mute, Bromden is considered to be a relatively unbiased character, yet he even displays strong feelings of hatred towards Nurse Ratched, proving just how evil she is. As Nurse Ratched enters the novel for the first time, she brings with her a noticeably ominous atmospheric change with, “A gust of cold,” (4) that represents her complete control over every aspect of the mental ward, even the weather. At the pinnacle of Kesey’s totalitarian society, Nurse Ratched represents the tendencies of an oppressive government or what Bromden calls, The Combine. For example, she suppresses the patients’ free will because regardless of the patients actual sanity, she is undeniably in control of their fates at the hospital. Besides McMurphy, the majority of the patients could leave on their own, but Nurse Ratched has been able to brainwash them into thinking that they are not suited to assimilate with others outside of the ward. Billy Bibbit says to McMurphy when he asks why they do not leave, “You think I wuh-wuh-wuh-want to stay in here? You think I wouldn’t like a con-convertible and a guh-guh-girl friend? But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you’re so b-big and so tough!” (162-163). Just like an oppressive government, Nurse Ratched convinces its people that they are worthless so they never feel powerful enough to retaliate. Like an alcoholic, Nurse Ratched needs her fix of power that makes her drunk and

Regarding Miss Ratched, she seems to show signs of passive-aggressive behavior throughout the book. This behavior adds to her manipulative ways and contributed to the decrease of the patients’ progress (mental/physical state). Passive-aggressive behavior is used to maintain control and power because it’s a way for her to not display any signs of weakness. Miss Ratched, also known as the Big Nurse to the patients, fights hard to remain as the top authority figure in the Ward due to her thirst for power. To maintain the control over the men, she emasculates them, stripping them of their masculinity, in various ways to prevent the chance of an uproar against her. For instance, after a group meeting regarding Harding’s problem with his wife’s breasts, the patients attack Harding. In response, McMurphy provides an analogy of a pecking party to the current

Nurse Ratched a.k.a. Big Nurse- Controlling, apathetic, and cold, Nurse Ratched is the villain in the novel. She is in control of the ward, and has the fate of every patient in her

In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, Nurse Ratched symbolizes the oppression of society through archetypal emasculation. The male patients at the ward are controlled, alienated and forced into submission by the superior female characters. Throughout the novel, there is a constant fear of female superiority; Randle McMurphy, the sexually empowered male protagonist, states how they are essentially being castrated. Castration, in the novel, symbolizes the removal of freedom, sexual expression and their identity. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched, the mechanical enforcer, represents American society: corruption, surveillance and the deterioration of individuality.

By carrying out the Combine?s orders and imposing a matriarchal system, the Big Nurse has the ability to systematically dehumanize the patients and suppress their individuality. In Group Meetings, the men are forced to talk about personal experiences, a method Big Nurse claims is therapeutic but is actually very humiliating. Billy Bibbit talks about his first love who his mother disliked. Billy?s relationships with women seem to be the root of his problems. Nurse Ratched worsens the situation by ?grinding (his) nose in (his) mistakes? instead of helping him work through his problems (59). The patients let the nurse manipulate them in fear of the consequences of her wrath, and consequently are shamed, weak, and defenseless men. Even the Chief, the biggest man, has become a person so weakened by his society that he loses his ability to speak against the cruelty that surrounds him, ultimately leaving him powerless. The men are victims of their society and lose all their self confidence and individuality as a result of being pressured to conform.

Many times throughout one of Ken Kesey’s most famous novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book uses animals as symbols to represent the story’s plot. The animals usually relate to individual characters and their current struggles within the story. Animal imagery provides us with great insight to the themes that Kesey is trying to have us explore, and is a very good tool that the reader can use to help better understand and relate to the characters.

In Kesey’s 1950s novel ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest’ Nurse Ratched’s relationship with male patients is based upon differences they hold about gender and identity. Nurse Ratched is portrayed as a masculine misandrist figure that gains power from emasculation. She carries “no compact or lipstick or woman stuff, she’s got that bag full of a thousand parts she aims to use in her duties” . This implies nothing womanly about her as she prioritises her “duties”, suggesting that she aims to control her male patients by ridding her feminine qualities. In addition, she is shown in robotic with a chilling aura. This is evident when she slid “through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her” . This indicates that as a power figure her only concern is controlling her male patients, making sure they are obedient and abiding by her rules. “Gust of cold” implies that by doing so she wholly ruins her relationship with the males due to her “cold” and callous methods. Daniel J. Vitkus states she is “the Big Nurse, an evil mother who wishes to keep and control her little boys (the men on the ward) under her system of mechanical surveillance and mind control.” Yet, can be argued that she is fulfilling her role of working as a Nurse within a mental institution. However Vitkus’s critique is similar to when McMurphy says “Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter?” McMurphy is a hyper masculine force against Ratched’s emasculating norms. Their relationship is essentially a power

Personified as Nurse Ratched, the Combine’s tyranny causes a major conflict with McMurphy throughout the novel and much of the persecution that he endures. McMurphy rejects compromise and constantly fights the Big Nurse as she tries to emasculate him and the other patients. McMurphy, as the representative of the individual, fights against the grip of the mechanized civilization that has forced him into the ward. He tries to enrage Ratched to cause disorder and thus destroy the foundation of regularity and consistency; he succeeds in this when he and the other patients pretend to watch the World Series and Ratched explodes in anger.

McMurphy is a gambling Irishman and convict, who grows tired of laboring at the Pendleton prison farm. To escape prison life, he feigns insanity and gets himself involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in Oregon. He tries to bring about a change at the hospital, for he does not like the fact that grown men act like "rabbits" and are scared of the Big Nurse. He tries as hard as he can to "get her goat", by not doing the duties he is given. He also ironically ends up serving as a