Woman In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Hospitals are meant to help some people heal physically and others mentally. In the novel One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey published in 1962, readers are introduced to a mental hospital that has goals that do not align with helping people. Within the hospital, characters with varied personalities and opinions are intermixed with three main characters playing specific roles with supporting characters close by. With the characters’ motivations, themes develop such as the emasculation of the men in the hospital by an oppressive nurse. Symbols, such as laughter and the “combine”, are also pertinent to themes as the readers watch the men transitioning from being oppressed to being able to stand up for themselves causing change in hospital policy.

Women in this time were told from a young age that they were to find a husband and to do so fast. While men were given the opportunities to go out in the world and pursue their dreams, women were expected to learn how to be a good wife. A good wife was like a possession for men, something they could show off and brag about to their friends. Being a good wife didn’t mean simply making your husband and family happy, it meant being obedient, taking on your husband’s stresses and making him look good to

From the moment that the apple touched Eve’s lips, women have been seen as an embodiment of all that is evil. This reflects misogynistic societal beliefs that women are below men. While many of the prejudices towards women are hidden in modern American society, some misogynistic stereotypes are still present. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one can see many misogynistic and sexist undertones. Big Nurse Ratched is in a position of authority over a large group of men and is seen as a tyrannical and unjust ruler. Although most of her methods would have been seen as awful when used by any person, the saturation of bad women in the novel creates an unfavorable picture of women in general. The balance of power in the ward is

“We are victims of a matriarchy here my friends…” (Harding). A matriarchy is a social order where women have power. In the novel One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest the women are portrayed as the power figures and have the power manipulate, or control the men in the ward, as shown by the characters of Nurse Ratched, Mrs. Bibbit, and Vera Harding.

The 1960’s was a period of great dissatisfaction from people who felt their rights were being violated. Millions of Americans, young and old, black and white, came together to fight against racial discrimination and protest the Vietnam War. The government suppressed the southern black population the right to vote, while sponsoring a war in Vietnam that was widely unpopular. Reflecting the anti-establishment movements of the 1960’s, Ken Kesey wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It has since become an American classic for its themes of rebellion and nonconformity against an over controlling authority that does not respect individualism and humanity.

In Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, the nurse Miss Ratched is a fine example of a realistic fictional villain. Possession of three key components is essential in identifying what makes Miss Ratched a villian. Motive is what drives the villain to commit the very acts that allow them to be considered evil in the first place, and often drive their entire being as a character. While they must possess motive, they must also have a sense of morals that coincides with their motives (typically evil, or distorted) and follow their moral compass in a way that often causes trouble for those around them. Additionally, a villain is frequently associated with their opposite; the hero who combats them. Kesey’s character perfectly aligns with these three categories of what makes a villain, and it is unquestionable that she is the villain of the novel.

Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is a book in which he dealt with the issues of racism, sex and authority that is going on in a mental institute. In the novel, the women are depicted as the power figures who are able to significantly manipulate the patients on the ward. There are four ways of Ken Kesey’s using of “woman” as a subject: Superiority of male sexuality over female authority, matriarchal system that seeks to castrate men in the society, mother figures as counterpart of Big Nurse and “Womanish” values defined as civilizing in the novel.

“A success, they say, but I say he’s just another robot for the Combine and might be better off as a failure…”(17).

   In 1962, when One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the Nest), was published, America was at the start of decade that would be characterized by turmoil. Involvement in Vietnam was increasing, civil rights marches were taking place in the south and a new era of sexual promiscuity and drug use was about to come into full swing. Young Americans formed a subgroup in American society that historians termed the “counterculture”. The Nest is a product of time when it was written. It is anti-authoritarian and tells the tale of a man's rebelling against the establishment. Kesey used metaphor to make a social commentary on the America of the sixties. In this paper I will

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

The psychoanalytical lens helps us as the readers to better understand the characters and their actions throughout the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but first we have to understand what exactly the psychoanalytical lens is. The psychoanalytical lens has to do with the ID, Ego, and Super Ego. The ID has to do with people’s natural instincts. Most of the time people don’t even realize they’re using their natural instincts and there’s nothing they can do to change them. In a way, it’s like a new born baby. Next there is Ego. The Ego has to do with figuring out what’s best for each person and not worrying about anyone else besides one’s self. People ask their self, what’s going to make them feel the happiest? It’s almost like they’re being

Our perspective of a stranger whom we’ve never met nor seen, but only heard of through the mouth of the enemy’s opinion, will inevitably align with the only version of the story we’ve heard. This sort of bias is found in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with Nurse Ratched’s depiction through the narration by Chief Bromden. The reliability of Bromden’s perspective is questionable, as it is his interpretation of the world, rather than what it actually is.

We feel that One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest is filled with many psychological connotations. This movie is set in a mental hospital where McMurphy was admitted to be psychologically evaluated because of violent behavior. Upon his arrival McMurphy noticed that the patients were very robot-like in their actions. The hospital is extremely structured where the patient’s daily life was monotonous. We will discuss the various connotations by answering the following questions that have been asked.

While she was a child, she would learn how to act properly as a lady. Her father would usually be knight and her family would be noble (Butterfield 9). Her husband’s family were friends with her father because her father’s land was in the neighboring area (Butterfield 9). She was taught from a young age about how she should behave (Butterfield 9). When she was born, she was forced and expected to be a lady and had no choice in any other lifestyle (Butterfield 9). When she got to the proper age for marriage her new life as a lady would start. The wife of a knight (nobility) was called a lady (Butterfield 9). The lady would be the most noble in her husband’s manor, the lady of the manor (Butterfield 9). Her husband had a higher ranking than her and had more rights than she did. St. Augustine, a famous philosopher of the Christian church wrote “The husband should give orders to the wife, parents to the children and masters should give orders to servants” (Howarth 25). Her husband also owned everything on the estate. The law stated that everything that she owned belonged to him and she was ranked second after husband on the estate (Butterfield 9). The lady and her husband have their own servants to dress them, look after their clothes and their well being (Butterfield 15). Marriage was important for the lady. It linked two important families together and was a way to increase wealth or prestige of each family. It was not for love between two people (Howarth 25). At seven years old, she would know who her husband was going to be (Butterfield 9) and soon enough she would be married off to a husband of a much older age (Howarth 25). Her husband was chosen from a suitable background (Howarth 25) and the lady would have married the knight at around 13 years old and would have left her family’s estate or manor for her husband's manor which was not far from her old home (Butterfield

Marriage was desirable for both men and women, men to have a maid, and women to be taken cared of.