Readers have often criticized One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for its portrayal of women. Author Ken Kesey also makes strong comments about men and the importance of masculinity in the novel. While McMurphy values his hyper masculinity, most of the men on the ward have had their masculinity stripped away from them by Nurse Ratched. It is difficult for the men of the word to be in touch with their masculinity while they are being controlled by a woman. Nurse Ratched asserts her power over the entire ward by taking away their power by means of their manhood. Harding does a good job of explaining the forced matriarchy when he tells McMurphy. “All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees, hippity-hopping through our Walt Disney World …show more content…
The patient, also known as the rabbits, “accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as strong”, the wolf being the Big Nurse (Kesey 62). Harding goes on to explain that the rabbit metaphor means they are submissive and powerless compared to the almighty Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched highlights Harding's’ insecurities regarding his femininity due to his sexual orientation and does so in front of the whole ward. This pecking party results in the men feeling ashamed and embarrassed. McMurphy is the only one who makes an effort to maintain his masculinity because it fuels his engine and gives him the power he needs to fight against the combine. He inspires the other men of the ward to fight for their freedom and manhood. Kesey’s message of masculinity is simple: all men value it ands lose their power of it is stripped away from them. With masculinity comes power, and without it men feel powerless and …show more content…
He plays the role of the selfish manipulator who uses the other men on the ward as pawns in his game of life. He uses the weaknesses of the patients for personal gain and by doing so loses the trust of his so called ‘friends’. Nurse Ratched had McMurphy all figured out before he stepped foot on the ward. She explained to a fellow nurse that, “that is exactly what the new patient is planning: to take over. He is what we call a 'manipulator,' Miss Flinn, a man who will use everyone and everything to his own ends” (Kesey 25). Although the patients initially look up to McMurphy as a martyr, as the novel goes on they begin to realize his actual intentions. Everything he does is for the sake of himself. For example, McMurphey begins to build a relationship with Bromden and makes him feel important and cared for. Bromden even feels comfortable enough to end his “deaf and dumb” facade. After this friendship blossomed, McMurphey made it obvious to Bromden that he really just wanted him to lift the control panel so he could trick the men on the ward to fork over their own money. At one point the patients were fed up with being scammed, “Nobody [would] play poker or blackjack with him for money any more - after the patient's wouldn’t vote he got mad and skinned them so bad at cards that they’re all so in debt they’re scared to go any deeper” (Kesey 94). Even though it is obvious to the patients that McMurphy is trying
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores the dysfunctions and struggles of life for the patients in a matriarch ruled mental hospital. As told by a schizophrenic Native American named Chief Bromden, the novel focuses primarily on Randle McMurphy, a boisterous new patient introduced into the ward, and his constant war with the Big Nurse Ratched, the emasculating authoritarian ruler of the ward. Constricted by the austere ward policy and the callous Big Nurse, the patients are intimidated into passivity. Feeling less like patients and more like inmates of a prison, the men surrender themselves to a life of submissiveness-- until McMurphy arrives. With his defiant, fearless and humorous presence, he instills a certain sense of rebellion within all of the other patients. Before long, McMurphy has the majority of the Acutes on the ward following him and looking to him as though he is a hero. His reputation quickly escalates into something Christ-like as he challenges the nurse repeatedly, showing the other men through his battle and his humor that one must never be afraid to go against an authority that favors conformity and efficiency over individual people and their needs. McMurphy’s ruthless behavior and seemingly unwavering will to protest ward policy and exhaust Nurse Ratched’s placidity not only serves to inspire other characters in the novel, but also brings the Kesey’s central theme into focus: the struggle of the individual against the manipulation of authoritarian conformists. The asylum itself is but a microcosm of society in 1950’s America, therefore the patients represent the individuals within a conformist nation and the Big Nurse is a symbol of the authority and the force of the Combine she represents--all...
The novel is narrated by the main character, Chief Bromden, who reveals the two faces of Nurse Ratched, in the opening pages of the novel. He continues sweeping the floor while the nurse assaults three black aides for gossiping in the hallway. Chief chooses to describe the nurse abstractly: “her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger...by the time the patients get there...all they see is the head nurse, smiling and calm and cold as usual” (5). Nurse Ratched runs the psychiatric ward with precision and harsh discipline. When Randle McMurphy arrives to escape time in jail, he immediately sizes the Big Nurse up as manipulative, controlling, and power-hungry. The portrayal that he expresses to the patient's leaves a lasting impact on them: “The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and all go to peckin’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers” (57). McMurphy finds it appalling that the patients are too blindsided to see Nurse Ratched’s conniving scheme, which is to take charge of the patients’ lives. The only person who understands Nurse Ratched’s game is McMurphy, and this motivates him to rebel against the
Nurse Ratched is portrayed as the authority figure in the hospital. The patients see no choice but to follow her regulations that she had laid down for them. Nurse Ratched's appearance is strong and cold. She has womanly features, but hides them “Her Face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive… A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing putting those big, womanly breasts on what would have otherwise been a prefect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.” (11) She kept control over the ward without weakness, until McMurphy came. When McMurphy is introduced into the novel he is laughing a lot, and talking with the patients in the ward, he does not seem intimidated by Miss Ratched. McMurphy constantly challenges the control of Nurse Ratched, while she tries to show she remains in control, He succeeds in some ways and lo...
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey is about a man named Chief Bromden. He is half Indian and is locked up in a mental institute. He has led everyone in the ward to believe that he is deaf and dumb; instead he is just quiet and observant. Big Nurse is the head of the ward and mentally controls every patient she has, not allowing them to become better. McMurphy is a transfer to the ward and loosens up the atmosphere. He is a very relaxed, outgoing, funny guy that loves to joke around and be loud. When he too notices the Big Nurse's mental control on everyone, he sets out to help the patients become sane and not be influenced by the Big Nurse. One of the possible themes for this story is that women, although not physically stronger than men, can mentally be stronger than men and can control them with that alone. In the following paragraphs I will show how Kesey portrays women's control.
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 never equal; it is either in the hands of women, or of men. Nurse Ratched is determined to take power from the men, while McMurphy is determined to win it back. Therefore, a push-pull situation is created, in which each group is attempting to take power from the other. Kesey’s misogynistic tones create the feeling that men and women cannot be equal; for one to rise, the other must fall.
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, there is much controversy and bias present throughout the characters in the Combine. The patients have been rejected and forgotten about by society and left to rot with the antithesis of femininity: Nurse Ratched. But even Ratched isn’t immune to the scrutiny of the outside world, and she has to claw her way into power and constantly fight to keep it. With his own experiences and the societal ideals of the 1960’s, Ken Kesey displays how society isolates and ostracizes those who do not follow the social norms or viewed as inferior to the white american males.
From the moment McMurphy enters the ward it is clear to all that he is different and hard to control. He’s seen as a figure the rest of the patients can look up to and he raises their hopes in taking back power from the big nurse. The other patients identify McMurphy as a leader when he first stands up to the nurse at her group therapy, saying that she has manipulated them all to become “a bunch of chickens at a pecking party”(Kesey 55). He tells the patients that they do not have to listen to Nurse Ratched and he confronts her tactics and motives. The patients see him as a leader at this point, but McMurphy does not see the need for him to be leading alone. McMurphy is a strong willed and opinionated man, so when he arrives at the ward he fails to comprehend why the men live in fear, until Harding explains it to him by
In Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the reader has the experience to understand what it was like to live in an insane asylum during the 1960’s. Kesey shows the reader the world within the asylum of Portland Oregon and all the relationships and social standings that happen within it. The three major characters’ groups, Nurse Ratched, the Black Boys, and McMurphy show how their level of power effects how they are treated in the asylum. Nurse Ratched is the head of the ward and controls everything that goes on in it, as she has the highest authority in the ward and sabotages the patients with her daily rules and rituals. These rituals include her servants, the Black Boys, doing anything she tells them to do with the patients.
In the end, they believe they have control over the other, but they do not realize that they both have lost control until it is too late. They both pay a harsh penalty for their struggle to gain control over the ward. Nurse Ratched forever loses her precious power status and authority over the institution, while McMurphy loses the friends he tired to help, his personality, and eventually his life. Throughout the novel, these two characters relentlessly fight to control each other. They both realize that control can never be absolute.
McMurphy’s evident superiority among the other patients in the hospital immediately establishes his power and authority over the other patients. From the minute he enters the ward, Bromden notes his charismatic and overbearing personality as signs of his power. “Even though I can’t see him, I know he’s no ordinary admission. I don’t hear him slide scared along the wall… he sounds like he’s way above them… he sounds big” (15-16). Instantly, McMurphy radiates power and defiance that the other patients in the ward notably admire. He boldly challenges authority and battles conformity in the ward, determined to eradicate the authoritarian governance of the institution. He proves to be a symbol of defiance and gradually begins to beat out the authority in the ward.
If the patients saw that Ms. Ratched could get angry, and that she was hiding her personality, they would realize that they are not rabbits after all, and that she is not a “good strong wolf”, as they previously believed. When patient R.P McMurphy, the hospital patient that tries to remove all of Ms. Ratched’s power, arrives on the hospital ward, he makes no effort to hide his personality, and the patients begin to recognize how Ms. Ratched hides her personality, in the novel, Chief Bromden says, “He stands looking at us, back in his boots, and he laughs and laughs. In the novel, Ms. Ratched just removed the tub room, which was used as a game room, from the patients, this angered McMurphy, so he decided to do something subtle to get revenge on Ms. Ratched. In the novel, it says, “The Big Nurse’s eyes swelled out as he got close. . .
There were no heroes on the psychiatric ward until McMurphy's arrival. McMurphy gave the patients courage to stand against a truncated concept of masculinity, such as Nurse Ratched. For example, Harding states, "No ones ever dared to come out and say it before, but there is not a man among us that does not think it. That doesn't feel just as you do about her, and the whole business feels it somewhere down deep in his sacred little soul." McMurphy did not only understand his friends/patients, but understood the enemy who portrayed evil, spite, and hatred. McMurphy is the only one who can stand against the Big Nurse's oppressive supreme power. Chief explains this by stating, "To beat her you don't have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as sson as you loose once, she's won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that." McMuprhy's struggle for hte patient's free will is a disruption to Nurse Ratched's social order. Though she holds down her guard she yet is incapable of controlling what McMurphy is incontrollable of , such as his friends well being, to the order of Nurse Ratched and the Combine.
McMurphy is an individual who is challenging and rebelling against the system's rules and practices. He eventually teaches this practice of rebellion to the other patients who begin to realize that their lives are being controlled unfairly by the mental institution. When McMurphy first arrives at the institution, all of the other patients are afraid to express their thoughts to the Big Nurse. They are afraid to exercise their thoughts freely, and they believe that the Big Nurse will punish them if they question her authority. One patient, Harding, says, "All of us in here are rabbits of varying ages and degrees...We need a good strong wolf like the nurse to teach us our place" (Kesey 62).
Initially the ward is run as if it was a prison ward, but from the moment the brawling, gambling McMurphy sets foot on the ward it is identified that he is going to cause havoc and provide change for the patients. McMurphy becomes a leader, a Christ like figure and the other patients are his disciples. The person who is objective to listen to his teachings at first is Chief Bromden (often called Bromden), but then he realizes that he is there to save them and joins McMurphy and the Acutes (meaning that they have possibility for rehabilitation and release) in the protest against Nurse Ratched, a bureaucratic woman who is the protagonist of the story, and the `Combine' (or society).
By bringing in McMurphy, readers can see how truly changing the concept of power can be, but also show that power does not have to be evil and bad. McMurphy’s influence of the patients on the fishing trip shows that good power even has the capabilities of changing the lives of people. On the other hand, Nurse Ratched is also a symbol of power, but the power instilled by Nurse Ratched is very menacing and dark. An example of her power is when she “turns on the fog machine”. Nurse and her assistants are shown instilling their power like during moments “They’re at the fog machine again but they haven’t