Ken Kesey's Nurse Ratched

The writer uses his past experiences as an MK Ultra experimental volunteer to describe the dramatic procedures and environments of the mental ward. Ruckley, a chronic patient, was handicapped when an experimental lobotomy procedure went wrong. Kesey portrayed the patient as “... bald and the front of his face an oily purple bruise and two little button sized plugs stitched one above each eye. You can see by his eyes how they burned him out over there; his eyes are all smoked up and gray and deserted inside like blown fuses.” (Kesey, 16) Another chronic, Ellis, was treated with shock treatments and left in a horrible condition. “Now he’s nailed against the wall in the same shape, arms out, palms cupped, with the same horror on his face.” (Kesey,

Just like the high, middle, and low class of modern society, a similar version parallels this theory throughout the book. Nurse Ratched ranks as the most powerful followed by the black boys and Doctor Spivey who are under her complete control. Next, comes the low class patients. Acutes seem functional and unbelonging while chronics seem disabled and outcasted. The nurse holds a strong ground over both doctors and patients, “Those are the rules we play by. Of course, she always wins my friend, always. She’s impregnable herself and with the element of time working for her she eventually gets inside everyone. Thats why the hospital regards her as its top nurse and grants her so much authority; she’s a master of forcing the trembling libido out into the open.” (Kesey, 73) The black boys are “...in contact on a high-voltage wave length of hate, and the black boys are out there performing her bidding before she even thinks it.” (Kesey, 31) The lower end of the social ladder is illustrated as “Machines with flaws inside that can’t be repaired , flaws born in, or flaws beat over…”(Kesey 16) The victims that fall short of the Big Nurse are stripped of sanity, self esteem and taught they are flawed and dangerous. The characters seem so powerless against the cunning Miss.

Not only is Big Nurse at the “top of the food chain”, she’s also the dictator. She controls when the committed can leave, the patient's daily routine, the switch to the disturbed ward, the discussions in the Therapeutic Community, what they wear and even when they brush their teeth. The toothpaste incident with McMurphy reveals how controlling she can be, “‘ Locked in the cabinet is it? Well well well, now why do you reckon they keep he toothpaste locked up? I mean, it ain’t like it’s dangerous, is it?” (Kesey 93) Nurse Ratched also controls who gets the authority of being a doctor when ironically, the position is commonly ranked above a nurse. “Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff; doctors, all ages and types, come and rise up in front of her with ideas of their own about the way a ward should be run, some with backbone enough to stand behind their ideas and she fixes these doctors with dry-ice eyes day in, day out, until they retreat with unnatural chills.” (Kesey, 29) Big Nurse is so set in her ways, she doesn’t even consider any other patients ideas. McMurphy suggests a quiet game room for the patients and her response; “‘Of course, you take the suggestion up with the rest of the staff at some time, but I’m afraid everyone’s feelings will correspond with mine…There simply isn’t enough personnel.’” (Kesey, 107) Although the characters struggle for their voice to be