Representation Of Female Characters In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, was a magnificent novel, it’s main character is Randle Patrick McMurphy who had an antisocial personality disorder who got sentenced to six months in jail because of statutory rape. He wanted to plead insanity so that he could serve his sentence in a mental institution which he thought would be better than prison. The hospital he was sent to stay in was for male patients only (with some male doctors and orderlies). An important part of the story is the role the females play. There are females nurses who have roles of authority over the male patients and staff and various women who have relations with the patients (wives and prostitutes). Nurse Ratched is the female in charge of the ward that McMurphy is assigned to. McMurphy was expecting a short stay at the hospital but he ends up staying longer due to his rebellious actions against the wards policy and towards Nurse Ratched. The narrator in the novel is Chief Bromden who is a Columbian Indian standing at 6 foot 7 inches but views himself as small due to people overpowering him. Also, he was phycologically and emotionally scarred during his youth which effected him so much that others believed he was physically deaf and dumb. Chief in his silence was a great observer, but this had downsides because he would have hallucinations that made some scenes in the novel unreliable. Nurse Ratched is the person with the most control over the ward and is a former army nurse, so she doesn’t mess around. She gets to know her patients and finds their weak spots then pokes at them mentally, and manipulates them to argue over one another’s problems. Then there’s Billy Bibbit who stutters a lot because his mother's been dominating him all his life, and she controls him making him lack self-confidence. In the book Ken Kesey represents women negatively as being superior, harlots and subservient. Nurse Ratched shows a perfect example of being a controlling manipulator with her power over the ward. Vera Harding uses her body to intimidate the men and get what she wants, Candy and Sandy are both prostitutes who choose to pleasure men for money. The other nurses are subservient because they follow all of Nurse Ratched's orders because they are scared of her like the other orderlies.

There are a few females characters who dominate many of the men. Nurse Ratched takes the throne for being a control freak in the book by being a psychopath by mentally manipulating the patient's fears and wants by using shame to make them subservient. Once McMurphy enters the ward, the games begin and he starts acting like the whole situation is a joke. He starts to embarrass Nurse Ratched by commenting on her boobs that she herself tries to hide in her outfit to be more “presentable” and not get looked at as just a female. Nurse Ratched is a psychopath because she shows zero remorse for her actions and how she disciplines the patients on the ward, as well as being very selfish. Her biggest power is “the combine”, when somebody doesn’t follow the rules she sends them to the stock shop. In there the patients are given Electrical Shock Therapy which Harding explains in detailed in this quote “You are strapped to a table, shaped, ironically, like a cross, with the crown of electric sparks in place of thorns. You are touched on each side of the head with wires. Zap! Five cents’ worth of electricity through the brain and you are jointly administered therapy and a punishment for your hostile go-to-hell behavior, on top of being put out of everyone’s way for six hours to 3 days, depending on the individual. Even when you do regain consciousness you are in a state of disorientation for days. You are unable to think clearly, you don’t recall things. Enough of these treatments and a man could turn out like Mr. Ellis you see over there against the wall. A drooling, paint-wetting idiot at thirty-five. Or turn into a mindless organism that eats and eliminates and yells “F a wife,” like Ruckle. Or look at Chief Broom clutching to his namesake there beside you.”(Harding, 64-65) This explains that Nurse Ratched brainwashes patients that don’t obey her orders, and turns them into an example (this is the patient's biggest fear). Another superior female is Mrs. Bibbit who doesn’t let her son Billy grow up to be independent, plus she rules over him making him scared of her. Nurse Ratched controls Billy by using his greatest fear, his own mother's disapproval and threatening to tattletale if he doesn't obey. Vera Harding wants power like Ms. Ratched, but she uses her body instead to get what she wants, for example one of the male orderlies says, “look here who came to visit you. I told her it wasn’t visiting hours but you know she just sweet-talked me into bringing her right on over here anyhow.”(black boy, 157) This is an example of her getting her way and bending the ward’s policy by talking her way into the ward. She messes with her husband like blowing a kiss to the orderly that brought her into the ward and breaks down his ego by her comments like an example in this quote, “Dale, when are you going to learn to laugh instead of making that mousy little squeak?” (Vera Harding, 158) This shows her comments are negatively impacting her husband and making him more and more self conscious about himself. The men on the ward don’t view women the same as men shown by McMurphy who only talks about Vera Harding’s body, “She’s got one hell of a set of chababobs, as big as Old Lady Ratched’s.” (McMurphy, 159) This is also shown not just towards Vera Harding but also towards Nurse Ratched as well as the 2 prostitutes. The men don’t treat women right, and if they do it’s for the wrong reason like being nice to a prostitute for sex, then calling them whores.

Candy and Sandy both represent being prostitutes, they don’t try to rebel or gain power but they are dedicated to pleasuring men. The men view them as objects more than humans and don’t treat them with the same respect shown in this quote, “ The whores were late.”(McMurphy, 195) He calls the girls whores when they are late when picking up the guys for the fishing trip. This is the sad side of a small group of girls who choose to have sexual interactions with multiple guys, but it’s still not cool to call them Whores because they have just as much feelings as guys do. The men discredit women and use them for their own pleasures. The book shows sexism a lot and shows women being control freaks throughout the ward and are shown to be intimidating by their body as well as dominant.

Nurse Pilbow shows an example of being subservient because she obeys Nurse Ratched and doesn’t judge what she rules, making her Nurse Ratched’s “minion.” She is like the other orderlies, but she does feel remorse and guilt for what they do to the patients. She is a strict catholic woman with a birthmark on her face that she is self-conscious about and shows fear towards McMurphy and some of the other patients. Most of the women were represented badly except for one of the nurses who works with “the disturbed” who was actually really nice and a genuine down to earth person who even herself believed that Nurse Ratched was crazy, “I sometimes think all single nurses should be fired after they reach thirtyfive… at least all single army nurse’s.” (Japanese Nurse, 234.) When she says at least all single army nurse’s it’s a direct target to Nurse Ratched and how she herself is becoming sick from not having someone to comfort her and keep her sane.

In conclusion the book displays females as either domineering, prostitutes, or as underling which is pretty disappointing because they should’ve shown more positive traits for women. It’s important because it’s how people might treat women in real life which is bad because most girls are sweet and not like the women in the novel and people should treat women with more respect. More evidence of negativity is how some of the mens problems on the ward are connected to the way women treat them. The book was great, they could of done a better job with the roles of the women though making them viewed as more positive and not just the enemy. It's good that women can have power and be strong and equal to men in positive ways,but this unfortunately isn’t how the women are shown in this novel.