Women as Authority Figures in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

But did you ever have people l-l-laughing at you? No, because you're so b-big and so tough! Well, I'm not big and tough." (Kesey 168) Billy was not actually crazy, he convinced himself of it for those two reasons. However, Billy was depressed, but did not want to admit he was because instead he convinced himself of insanity. In the end not only Billy convince himself of insanity due to that but he also convinced the people around him, until he discovered it was only in his head. The final character in the novel who demonstrates this is Harding. He bottles up his insanity and claims that all his problems come from his wife until one day he lets his feelings go. "I'm not just talking about my wife, I'm talking about my life! I can't seem to get that through to you. I'm not just talking about one person, I'm talking about everybody! I'm talking about form! I'm talking about content! I'm talking about interrelationships! I'm talking about God, the Devil, Hell, Heaven! Do you understand? FINALLY?" (Kesey 54) This proves to the reader that he is not infect insane because he deals with problems and emotions like any other sane human being. Hardings problem is smily that he keeps too bottled up and gives off the idea that he is insane. Through McMurphy proving sanity in the ward, Billy using insanity to cover up depression and Harding using insanity to cover up his true emotions, this proves to the reader that the patients are not insane,

The oppressor, or antagonist, of the story is Nurse Ratched, or the Big Nurse. Her methods of oppression, including attempts to emasculating the men in the medical ward, is the foundation of the work. The nurse uses her power to manipulate the patients as well as members of the staff in the hospital. Since she is in charge of the entire ward, she runs it with an iron fist while concealing her feminism and humanity behind a patronizing façade. As the story progresses, Nurse Ratched loses some power over the patients with the introduction of a new patient on the ward, Randle McMurphy. As McMurphy continues to fight her oppression, her façade breaks down and falls apart as she loses control.

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;

Both Taber and the men view Nurse Ratched as a counselor of their decisions, a mother. In fact, he tells the others, “This is Miss Ratched. I chose this ward because it’s her ward. She’s, girls, just like a mother. Not that I mean age but you girls understand” (37). The way that Nurse Ratched’s ward functions is by her manipulation of the men through the use of pills and lobotomy as demonstrated on Taber. Thus, why he was dismissed, the men are set up to believe in conforming or are dehumanized enough to conform to Nurse Ratched’s authority in order to be prepared for the real world. However, Taber previously rejected her pills, “He still isn’t ready to swallow some-thing, he don’t know what is, not even just for her” (34). This action-made decision influences the progress the patients make as individuals as they follow his footsteps. The men realize they can follow their own decisions and although few are afraid of her authority some chose to rise against her along with McMurphy, “ dragging them out of the fog till there they stand, all twenty of them, raising not just for watching tv, but against the Big Nurse, against her trying to send McMurphy to Disturbed…” This is parallel to the attitude presented by Taber, when he refused to take the pills, and ignored the Nurse’s request, making him metaphorically influential of the

Nurse Ratchet held in place an extensive system of rules and regulations, as well as an ordered routine. McMurphy taught the patients that sometimes it is acceptable to rebel against the rules and that they do not have to rely on their schedule to keep their minds together. For example, McMurphy states “Is that what your schedule does for you?” (Forman One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Film). The schedule is a part of the institutionalization of power that Nurse Ratched employs to maintain control and keep the patients compliant to her sense of order. McMurphy points out that it is in fact a sham that cannot cover the messiness of real life. Obviously, they all realize that the schedule is only a made up method for arranging time. Be that as it may, none of them have ever been able to admit it.

Nurse Ratched, the ward supervisor, personifies the forces that seek to control the individual by subduing their right to think and act for themselves. She acts as a dictator who is constantly manipulating her patients to gain an advantage over them. Because Nurse Ratched supervises a mental hospital, she is expected to tell her patients what to do, but “the novel suggests that Nurse Ratched goes beyond mere supervision and instead seeks to rule all elements of the patients lives” (“Oppression in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”). Nurse Ratched and her staff dehumanize the patients, and this eventually causes the patients to become broken inside.

The nurse, Miss Ratched is undoubtedly a villain from most reader’s perspective, but there is much more to being a villain that simply being a “ball-cutter” on the surface. In fiction, typically a villain is someone who follows a certain set of motives in order to gain what they are trying to achieve. Whether this is money, power, or something they just do for the sake of the act, all villains possess a motive. Though the reasons behind her actions are not explicitly clear in the novel, it is obvious that one of Nurse Ratched’s main motives is the implied fact that she wants to break down the men in her ward. The reason behind this is that she wants to degrade and force them into the mould of not only society’s, but her own twisted imagery of the way a person should look and act as well. The nurse is an established authoritarian figure in the novel, and presents herself in such a way that her patients not only fear what she may do to them on any given day, but merely her presence as well. She keeps the men sedated with drugs they may not ask about, abuses them and manipulates them with her words and the power of suggestion, and makes self-admitted patients feel as though they are too “sick” to sign themselves out. Out of all the heinous acts she commits in the novel, one of the most villainous is probably the group “therapy” sessions she holds. The men

There are many situations in which Nurse Ratched exhibits control over her patients, by treating them as subordinates, humiliating them and de-masculinizing them without concern for their well-being. She uses control to withhold simple privileges, such as being able to watch a baseball game on the television, tub privileges and their right to have possession of cigarettes. It seems she actually derives satisfaction from this through hints of smiles, which are so seldom seen. This only brings about anger and hostility in the patients because of the way she treats them: like children instead of men. This is put best when one patient, Charlie Cheswick (Sydney Lassick) says, “Rules? Piss on your fucking rules, Miss Ratched! ... I ain’t no little kid! When you’re gonna have cigarettes kept from me like

about his dealings with Candy. In doing so, the nurse is able to get Billy to turn on the other

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

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.

He waltzed into the ward and introduced himself to every patient as a gambling man with a zest for women and cards. Randle P. McMurphy, a swaggering, gambling, boisterous redheaded con man, arrived at the ward from the Pendleton Work Farm. He was sentenced to six months at the prison work farm, but pretended to be insane in order to obtain a transfer to the hospital because he thought it would be more comfortable than the work farm. Bromden senses that there was something different about this new patient. After his first experience with the excruciating routine of the Group Meeting, McMurphy tells the patients that Nurse Ratchet is a genuine “ball-cutter.” The other patients tell him that

Nurse Ratched and Big Brother have many similarities in their deeds - they are able to constantly monitor others and execute their powers. The actions of the nurse towards her patients are crude and inhumane. The big difference, however, between these two leaders lie in the achieving of their goals. While Big Brother manages to get his aims realized, Nurse Ratched is deprived of it, by the brave actions of the patients. The patients try to deprive her of feeling of being a dominant dictator. Both, Big Brother and Nurse Ratched seem to be powerful leaders, and integral part of a system, their unconditional control causes a negative impact on a person’s mind.

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.

Along with other features, the actions of a character play a significant role in shaping their personality as it provides the audience with a clear idea of how the character thinks. The actions Ratched takes has a more psychological approach, rather than physical. For example, she manipulates the patients into revealing theirs, and inmates’ secrets by “merely insinuating”, simulating reactions from the patients. During the group therapy, which McMurphy refers to as “a peckin’ party”, he notes that Ratched “pecks [the] first peck” which demonstrates McMurphy’s understanding of the way Ratched works, which could also be understood that he also understands how society functions. However, despite it being clear to the readers that Ratched is manipulative, and controlling, the patients, specifically Harding believes the group therapy is “done solely for therapeutic reasons”. This shows the extent to which Ratched as power over Harding, as he quickly defends her, bringing up the fact that she is a “highly regarded psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field”. However, it also shows how Bromden may be treating Ratched unfairly, as he fails to attempt to understand from Ratched’s perspective, like Harding. On the other hand, it can be understood that Harding is easily manipulated, and therefore cannot be trusted.