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MASARYK UNIVERSITY
                    Faculty of Education

          Department of English Language and Literature

 The Roles of Women in Ken Kesey's One Flew
            Over the Cuckoo's Nest
                          Bachelor Thesis

                            Brno 2020

Supervisor                                    Author
Mgr. Barbora Kašpárková                       Hana Machalová

Declaration

I hereby declare that I worked on the following thesis on my own and that I used only the

sources listed in the bibliography.

Prohlášení

Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze

citovaných literárních zdrojů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro

studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy university a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb. o právu

autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský

zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů.

 V Brně dne ……………..                                                    …………..……………….

                                                                                   Hana Machalová

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to Mgr. Barbora Kašpárková for her supervision over my

bachelor thesis, her kind support, useful comments, and helpful advice.

Abstract

       This bachelor thesis deals with the portrayal of women, the archetypes of female

characters, and their sexual roles in relationship to male characters in Ken Kesey’s novel One

Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The aim of the thesis is to explore the way the female characters

are depicted and examine why the majority of the women are perceived negatively. The main

focus of the thesis is placed on Miss Ratched who is the dominant antagonist of the story;

however, few selected female characters are analyzed as well.

Keywords

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, women, Big Nurse, Miss Ratched, sexual roles,

stereotypes, sexism

Anotace

       Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá vyobrazením žen, archetypy ženských postav a jejich

sexuálními rolemi ve vztahu k mužským postavám v románu Kena Keseyho Vyhoďme ho z kola

ven. Cílem této práce je prozkoumat jakým způsobem jsou ženské postavy znázorněny, a také

zjistit, proč je většina žen vykreslena negativně. Hlavním středem zájmu této práce je postava

Slečny Ratchedové, která je hlavní antagonistkou příběhu; kromě ní však bude rozebráno i pár

dalších vybraných ženských postav.

Klíčová slova

Ken Kesey, Vyhoďme ho z kola ven, ženy, Velká sestra, Slečna Ratchedová, sexuální role,

stereotypy, sexismus

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 6

2. Brief Biography of Ken Kesey ............................................................................................... 8

   2.1. Synopsis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest .............................................................. 9

3. The social and political background of the 1960s ................................................................ 12

   3.1. The Sexual Revolution .................................................................................................. 15

4. Women ................................................................................................................................. 18

   4.1 Portrayal of women in the novel .................................................................................... 18

   4.2. Archetypes of women and their sexual roles................................................................. 20

5. Miss Ratched or the Big Nurse............................................................................................. 26

6. Other women in the novel .................................................................................................... 44

   6.1. Vera Harding ................................................................................................................. 44

   6.2. The mothers ................................................................................................................... 49

       6.2.1. Mrs. Bibbit.............................................................................................................. 51

       6.2.2. Mary Louise Bromden............................................................................................ 54

   6.3. Candy............................................................................................................................. 56

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 60

List of references ...................................................................................................................... 62

1. Introduction

Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is undoubtedly a classic and is

considered a gem of the American literature of the 20 th century. This bachelor thesis deals with

the portrayal of women, the archetypes of female characters, and their sexual roles in

relationship to male characters in the novel. The aim of the thesis is to explore the way the

female characters are depicted and examine why the majority of the women are perceived

negatively.

Besides the introduction, the thesis is divided into five chapters – the first one

familiarizes the reader with the life and work of Ken Kesey, mentions the major events that

influenced his writing, and briefly outlines the plot of his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s

Nest.

The second chapter introduces the social and political background of the 1960s, that is,

the period when the novel was written, as well as demonstrates how some of the events

happening in the America of 1960s influenced the story or its origin. The chapter also contains

a subchapter about the sexual revolution, explaining how the roles of women in society, and

their attitudes to sex were changing.

The third chapter deals with the depiction of women in the novel, describes the female

archetypes the reader may recognize while reading, and examines the sexual roles of women in

relation to the male characters.

The fourth chapter is focused on the character of Miss Ratched, the tyrannical nurse

controlling everything and everyone in the psychiatric ward, doctor included. The main focus

of this paper is placed on her as she represents the main antagonist of the story and the patients

yearn to defeat her to liberate themselves.

The final chapter is dedicated to an analysis of few more selected female characters in

the story, namely Harding’s wife Vera, mothers Mrs. Bibbit and Mary Louise Bromden, and

McMurphy’s prostitute friend Candy.

                                                                                           7

2. Brief Biography of Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey, considered one of the most important and influential American writers of

the 20th century, was born on 17th September 1935 as Kenneth Elton Kesey in La Junta,

Colorado. In 1946, he and his family moved to Oregon, where Kesey remained for most of his

life, with the exception of the period between the late 1950s and early 1960s when he lived in

California. He spent his childhood with his brother hunting, swimming, and fishing (Lehmann-

Haupt).

During his years at Springfield High School and the University of Oregon, he was

a football player and a champion wrestler (he almost qualified for the US Olympic team in

1960, but injured his shoulder), which only shaped and highlighted his already pugnacious

character (Heltzel). For a time, he also tried to become an actor and worked in Hollywood on

film sets. In 1956, he married Faye Haxby, whom he had known since childhood, and a year

later, he graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in speech and communications

and entered Stanford University’s graduate creative writing program on a Woodrow Wilson

scholarship. There he met his lifelong friend and writer Ken Babbs and started to get influenced

by the Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac (ibid).

While attending Stanford, Kesey volunteered in the government’s medical experiment

as a subject and was given mind-altering drugs, mainly lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and

mescaline. Afterward, he also worked as a night shift attendant in a hospital's psychiatric ward.

Both those experiences served as the basis for his first successful novel One Flew Over the

Cuckoo's Nest published in 1962, transformed into a successful Broadway theatre play by Dale

Wasserman in 1963, and filmed in 1975 by Miloš Forman. Even after the experiment, Kesey

often worked under the influence of LSD.

He wrote his second and more ambitious novel Sometimes a Great Nation, which he

considered his magnum opus, in 1964 and just as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest it focused

on the question of conformity and individuality (Fried). His other works include a collection of

essays Kesey’s Garage Sale (1973), short stories Demon Box (1986), children’s book Little

Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear (1990) or novels Caverns (1990), which he

wrote together with his creative writing students in Oregon, Sailor Song (1992), Last Go Round

(1994) and Kesey's Jail Journal: Cut the M************ Loose (2003).

       Described as “the Pied Piper of the psychedelic era” (Lehmann-Haupt) or “a hero of the

countercultural revolution and the hippie movement” (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Kesey was

closely tied to the counterculture movement of the 1960s and is sometimes even considered to

be its founding father. Collinsdictionary.com defines counterculture as “a set of values, ideas,

and ways of behaving that are completely different from those of the rest of society”. He

established Merry Pranksters – a group of his like-minded friends – with whom he toured

America in 1964 and enjoyed LSD-enhanced adventures, expanding the horizons of his

creativity, changing perspective of his life and enabling him liberation.

       He spent his final years with his family in Pleasant Hill, Oregon and died

on 10th November 2001 at the age of 66 due to complications following his surgery for liver

cancer (Lehmann-Haupt).

2.1. Synopsis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

       The seemingly calm psychiatric ward under the control of Miss Ratched, also known as

the Big Nurse, becomes quite lively when a new patient, Randle Patrick McMurphy, arrives.

This free-spirited, loud, grinning, and gambling Irishman transfers from the Pendleton Work

Farm, hoping to enjoy the last six months of his sentence in the hospital instead of the prison.

       The ward is divided into two groups of patients – the Acutes, who are aware of their

surroundings and can be cured, and the Chronics, who are supposedly incurable. After seeing

the cold and sterile head nurse handle the patients with a “ball-cutting” demeanor, making them

                                                                                               9

extensively uncomfortable during group meetings, forcing them to secretly inform her on each

other and intimidating them with shock therapy, McMurphy makes a bet that he will make her

lose her temper within a week. That being said, he commences to provoke and challenge her,

disrupting the group meetings and slowly turning the patients against her. He wins the bet when

he makes the Big Nurse yell as he breaks the strict schedule and instead of cleaning pretends to

watch baseball on a turned-off TV together with his new friends.

However, soon McMurphy learns from another patient that once he has been committed

to the hospital, he can be released only when the head nurse allows it, meaning he is at Ratched’s

mercy. From that moment, he attempts to watch his manners around her. Nevertheless, he has

already been accepted as the unofficial leader of the patients and their rebellion, and his sudden

obedient behavior leaves them perplexed. When one of the patients, Charles Cheswick, stands

against the Big Nurse, McMurphy does not support him, leading to Cheswick’s suicide. Shaken

by that experience, he returns to his rebellion acts.

As time passes, McMurphy learns that half-Native American patient ‘Chief’ Bromden

feigns his hearing impairment and muteness. They manage to get into a fistfight with the

orderlies to defend George Sorenson and are moved together to the Disturbed ward, where they

undergo shock therapy. The abstinence of McMurphy on the ward does not make the patients

calmer, quite the opposite, with each day he grows bigger in their eyes. Worried he might

become a martyr figure for them, the Big Nurse decides to bring McMurphy back.

Realizing that Ratched will harass McMurphy, his inmates urge him to escape.

He agrees, but leaving cowardly is not his style, thus he decides to host a goodbye party. He

invites two of his prostitute friends, Candy and Sandy, who bring alcohol and marijuana, then

he persuades Turkle, the nighttime orderly, to open window for the company. All of the patients

get intoxicated, and as the morning approaches, Candy and timid virgin patient Billy Bibbit

retreat to the Seclusion Room. Meanwhile, McMurphy and Sandy decide to take a nap before

escaping and ask Turkle to wake them up. Unfortunately, Turkle falls asleep as well, and all of

them get woken up only when the Big Nurse and the aides arrive.

       At first, the patients enjoy the genuine confusion of Miss Ratched and keep giggling

when she interrogates them to figure out what happened. However, when she notices Billy is

missing and finds him sleeping naked with Candy, the patients finally realize the seriousness

of the situation. Ratched expresses her disappointment to make Billy feel guilty and threatens

to tell his overprotective manipulative mother, resulting in his consequent suicide. The Big

Nurse tries to blame McMurphy, who rips open the front of her uniform and tries to strangle

her. He is separated from her and lobotomized for his savage outburst of rage.

       In the aftermath, most of McMurphy’s old inmates move to other wards or check

themselves out. Finally, McMurphy returns to the ward as a dull, stolid person, changed forever.

During the night, Chief Bromden asphyxiates him with a pillow to liberate him and escapes the

asylum himself.

                                                                                             11

3. The social and political background of the 1960s

The 1960s in the United States were a tumultuous period of dramatic social changes in

plausibly all aspects of human life possible. After WW2, geopolitical tension between the

Soviet Union and the USA called the Cold War posed a threat to the whole world, and the

possibility of the nuclear annihilation lingered in the air. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Consecutively, the Vietnam War influenced the lives of all American citizens. As the war

dragged on and more and more soldiers kept dying, people all over America started to protest

against the conflict until finally, peace was concluded, and American soldiers were withdrawn

from Vietnam.

It was also a period of the countercultural movement loudly represented by the Hippies

or “flower children” who “rejected the mores of mainstream American life” (Encyclopaedia

Britannica). They felt alienated from the middle-class society dominated by materialism and

repression in the form of social norms. They developed their distinctive lifestyle and advocated

for nonviolence, love, and freedom. They also promoted openness and tolerance, qualities

necessary to lead the countercultural life. Many of them practiced open sexual relationships as

they believed in sexual liberty, lived in various types of family groups, converted to Buddhism

and other Eastern religions, experimented with their diets, traveled across the nation, threw

parties, and embraced the recreational use of hallucinogenic drugs, mostly marijuana and LSD.

The practice of using drugs was justified as a way of expanding consciousness and reflected in

the frequent experiments, may it be in art, writings, music, or fashion. The Hippies enjoyed

long hair, beads, sandals, and women often wore flowy colorful dresses with flowers or stripes.

Another important event of the period was the Civil Rights Movement – a mass protest

against racial segregation, discrimination, and gender inequality in the southern United States,

coming to national prominence during the mid-1950s (Carson). The movement had its roots in

the efforts of African slaves and their descendants to abolish slavery and resist racial

oppression. Although slavery was abolished in 1865, the former slaves still were not considered

equal and lacked some of the rights that American men had. As an instance serves the case of

Rosa Parks who was arrested because she refused to yield her seat to a white passenger (Ware).

Following her example, black students arranged marches, nonviolent protests and attended so-

called “sit-ins”, meaning they would sit in the white section of restaurants and decline to leave.

However, the Civil Rights Movement was not only about race; another group of

Americans faced discrimination, oppression, and inequality – those people were women.

The women’s rights movement coincided with and is recognized as part of the “second wave”

of feminism (Burkett). While during the “first wave”, women were focused on their legal rights,

such as the right to vote, the “second wave” concerned women’s everyday experience – they

wanted equal pay, protection against employment discrimination, equal and unsegregated

education, and maternity leave pay.

Overall, the 1960s are best known for its great diversity and contrasts, for example,

serious topics such as wars and inequality on one hand and pop culture or space race on the

other. During the period, multiple social norms were broken in order to gain individual freedom,

and many Americans had to redefine what “normal” means to them and act on it. It was a time

of significant changes, experiments in music, fashion or literature, bravery, solidarity, hope,

and belief in a better tomorrow.

~~~~

It is no wonder that such a turbulent period left its imprint in Kesey’s novel One Flew

Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The novel explores or at least reflects all of those topics and some of

their subtopics. The experience of war is present as both McMurphy and the Big Nurse were

involved – McMurphy as a Korean War veteran who was also a prisoner of war and was

awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for leading a breakout out of a Chinese camp; the Big

Nurse as a former army nurse during the WWII. The life of Chief Bromden has been

dramatically influenced by war as well – he has been hospitalized in a mental hospital since the

end of WWII.

       The novel also examines the experience of people of color – the central character Chief

Bromden is half white and half a Native American, which makes him struggle with his own

identity and causes a sense of not belonging. The Black Boys were specifically selected by the

Big Nurse not based on their skills, education or compassion, but based on their hate: “When

she finally gets the three she wants - gets them one at a time over a number of years, weaving

them into her plan and her network - she’s damn positive they hate enough to be capable” (27-

28). The novel also suggests that although the Black Boys obey the nurse, they hate her as well

as her “chalk doll whiteness” (27).

       In a sense, the book can also be perceived as antifeminist as the majority of women

depicted in the novel, are portrayed negatively – the tyrannical Nurse Ratched, the white woman

who came to negotiate with the Indians, the excessively girly and naïve nurses under the Big

Nurse, the receptionist who is a good friend of the Big Nurse and is overprotective of her son

Billy Bibbit, which slowly ruins his life. However, some female characters are not negative at

all, for instance, Bromden’s kind Indian grandma who shares her wisdom with him or the

likable Japanese nurse at the Disturbed ward.

       Furthermore, some critics consider the novel misogynist and sexist. Darbyshire argues

that “Kesey’s vision of her [Ratched’s] ultimate ‘conquest’ is not a progressive allegory of

‘individual freedom’, but a reactionary misogyny which would deny women any function than

that of a sexual trophy” (198). Fick claims that “Nurse Ratched, Billy Bibbit’s mother, and Vera

Harding embody the dual threats of regiment society and family and are the focus of

a conventionally ghoulish misogyny” (23) and McMahan admits that Kesey’s One Flew Over

the Cuckoo’s Nest is a good novel but “despite these positive qualities [of the novel], Cuckoo’s

Nest is a sexist novel” (25).

                                                                                             14

The countercultural movement had a major influence on Kesey’s life as he was one of

the central figures of the movement. The countercultural philosophy reflects in McMurphy’s

character – he is free-spirited, fun-loving, sexual, loud, raw, and nonconventional. When his

interests clash with the interests of the Big Nurse, he does not react with violence but rather

with humor, and he nonchalantly, yet carefully, chooses his words to outsmart the nurse. It is

not until the second half of the novel when he converts to violence as his frustration grows, and

he realizes there may never be a change in the ward, let alone in the whole flawed system, no

matter how hard he tries.

Finally, the counterculture was about breaking the rules when it came to sexuality. The

counter culturists defied the premarital sex or the rules of monogamy; they wanted sexual

liberation; be free to experiment however they liked and with whomever they liked.

Consecutively, sexual roles could be used as a way to conform to the society or to defy it, and

to establish power or to deprive someone of it. The sexual freedom desired by the

countercultural movement went hand in hand with the sexual revolution.

3.1. The Sexual Revolution

The term “sexual revolution” was discovered by mass media and commonly used by

magazines such as Time, America, and Mademoiselle, and it referred to the changes in sexual

attitudes and behaviors during the 1960s. Tom W. Smith suggests that the term is intertwined

with “communes and cohabitation, free love and easy sex, wife swapping and swinging, coming

out of closet and living out of wedlock, X-rated movies and full-frontal foldouts” (Smith 416).

As the period was intertwined with the civil rights movement and the feminist movement, it is

no surprise that the question of sexuality arose in the public space. As the times were changing,

the roles and attitudes towards sex were changing accordingly. The main change during the

period could be seen in female sexuality as it was more accepted (although it often met with

male disapproval) than the sexuality of the people with same-sex orientation. Women felt they

were not as equal as men in many areas, and the approach to sexuality was one of them. They

revolted against the double standard of men being able to enjoy sexual intercourse before or

outside the marriage, while women would be considered immoral, easy, and irresponsible.

Another disadvantage the females were facing was an unwanted pregnancy. The latter problem

was solved during the 1960s when President Lyndon B. Johnson implemented the birth control

pill (Bailey). Although the pill was not originally introduced to the public as a way to enjoy sex

without having to worry about unplanned conception, it could be used that way, and many

women took the pill to finally gain sexual freedom without having to worry about the child-

bearing consequences.

The original reason for the implementation of the pill was to prevent overpopulation and

poverty in America by reducing the number of children being born every year, especially in

families that could not afford to raise the children properly. In America of the 1960s, abortion

was still illegal, and its home practices were not very safe for women, so on their side, the pill

was given a warm welcome. It improved the lives of many females as it gave them a chance to

plan for themselves what they want their life to look like. Before the pill, women often did not

look for a long-term job since they knew that once they get pregnant, they will have to leave.

Usually, they managed to reenter only after their child had begun to attend elementary school.

With the pill, women could enter colleges and finish them or have some sort of a career. That

would enable them to challenge the exclusion from politics or workplace – since now they

would be equal to men health-wise.

At the core of the sexual revolution was the question of morality. While for many

feminists the sexual revolution was a celebration of female sexual empowerment, many social

conservatives considered it an attack on traditional values, namely family, and an invitation for

promiscuity. The conservatives feared that since the pill was implemented, they would lose

control over women, their bodies, reproductive rights, and lives. The risk of pregnancy and the

stigma that went along with it were factors supposed to prevent single women from having sex

and married women from having affairs. With the birth control pill, women were in control of

their fertility and could have sex anytime with anyone without the risk of pregnancy, no matter

whether they were single or married (The Pill and the Sexual Revolution).

Among the conservatives, many blamed the pill for the “degraded morale” of women.

However, the pill was not a direct cause of the sexual revolution, those two events simply

collided and the pill assisted the liberation of female sexuality. As one of the arguments why

the pill did not cause the revolution could serve “the first sexual revolution” that took place in

the 1910-20s during the Jazz Age (Stanton). Another argument could be that the USA was not

the only state allowing the use of the birth control – Saudi Arabia and India had the pill as well

and did not experience sexual revolution like the one in America.

Tightly connected to both the revolution and the second wave of feminism was Betty

Friedan’s Feminine Mystique. The book tackled the issue of the domestic role of women in the

post-WWII period and the pervasive dissatisfaction with it. The term “feminine mystique” was

coined by Friedan to describe “the societal assumption that women could find fulfillment

through housework, marriage, sexual passivity, and child rearing alone” (Churchill). Moreover,

the book suggested that women should not conform to the popularized view that the truly

feminine woman had no desire for higher education, a career of her own, or a political voice.

To conclude, the sexual revolution was an important period for the USA as it meant

letting the old rules go. The new generation of young people rejected the social norms of their

parents, women refused to be controlled by their bodies and wanted to be in control instead.

The sexual revolution did not happen because of the birth control pill, but both the events went

hand in hand. The most probable factors for the revolution were the liberal government, general

economic prosperity and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation.

4. Women

       This chapter deals with the portrayal of women in the novel, the archetypes of female

characters, and their sexual roles in the relationship to men. The main focus of the thesis is

placed on Miss Ratched who is the dominant antagonist of the story; however, few selected

female characters are analyzed as well.

4.1 Portrayal of women in the novel

       The majority of women in the novel are depicted in quite an unflattering light, being

portrayed as “bitches”, “ball-cutters”, and overall cruel characters that psychologically castrate

the male protagonists and therefore ruin their lives. Moreover, those women are perceived

negatively especially since they defy their “traditionally female” roles and stand in the position

of power instead of men, making all the important decisions for them. In her essay, Roshanak

Pashaee paraphrases Helene Cixous’s Sorties, in which the author discusses the place and

position given to women throughout the history according to the traditional patriarchal point of

view, and explains that “in the dual hierarchized oppositions of Man/Woman, a woman is

always on the side of passivity, passion, heart, and submission, whereas the man is on the side

of activity, action, head and mastery” (212).

       As we can see, the roles are switched in the novel as the powerful female characters are

active, unafraid to use their head, and are definitely not submissive, meanwhile, the male

patients, except for McMurphy, are the passive and submissive ones. Instead of being

celebrated for their leading and decision-making skills, those women are demonized and

perceived as something unnatural that has to be overthrown, for example, by rape. Naturally,

we can argue about the rightness of some of the decisions, for instance, when Mary Bromden

convinces her husband, the Chief of the tribe, to sell their land to the American government,

which leads to the disintegration and decay of the tribe.

                                                                                               18

The reader may notice that women in power are characterized by a certain stiffness.

It is mentioned on multiple occasions that Miss Ratched likes to wear her uniform starched stiff;

while spending time outside with her son, Billy Bibbit’s mother is described to sit “stiff there

on the grass” (281); the woman from the government is portrayed as “an old white-haired

woman in an outfit so stiff and heavy it must be armor plate” (199).

In contrast to the cold, powerful women stand the prostitutes Candy and Sandy, who

empower, instead of emasculate, the men and their sexuality, and two women of color –

Bromden’s Indian grandma and the Japanese nurse working at the Disturbed ward. Those

women are perceived as “loose” and natural, contrasting with the unnatural stiffness of the

powerful cold females.

Compared to the depiction of the male characters, the female characters are introduced

with no background information, therefore being left as one-dimensional and flat. E. M. Forster

in his work Aspects of the Novel distinguishes between two types of literary characters – flat

and round. According to Literarydevices.net paraphrasing Forster’s theory, a flat character “is

a type of character in fiction that does not change too much from the start of the narrative to its

end”. Moreover, such character is often said to lack emotional depth and substance. Typical

signs of this kind of character are simplicity, lack of growth or transformation throughout the

story, recognizable characteristics that make the characters seem stereotypical, and their

supporting role of the protagonist. Despite the fact that the Big Nurse is not McMurphy’s

“sidekick” and her role in the narrative is rather significant, she fits into the category of a flat

character as Kesey does not provide enough information about her (nor the other female

characters).

It is noteworthy that even in the childhood rhyme that has been recited to Bromden by

his Indian grandma, the woman is a bad character: “Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she’s

a good fisherman, catches hens, puts ’em inna pens ... wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna

flock ... one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest ... O-U-T spells out ...

goose swoops down and plucks you out” (272).

She may be skillful – a good fisherman, but Bromden thinks of her as a bad person

because she catches the hens and imprisons them. He explains: “I don’t like Mrs. Tingle Tangle

Toes, catching hens. I don’t like her. I do like that goose flying over the cuckoo’s nest. I like

him, and I like Grandma, dust in her wrinkles” (272). The reader may find it intriguing that

Bromden considers the goose male, therefore him, although there is no reference to the goose’s

gender (as there is no need for its specification). It appears his own set of preconceptions turn

the goose, the one character he likes, into a man, because seemingly only men could be the

positive characters and heroes. Moreover, the term ‘goose’ refers to the female type, whereas

‘gander’ refers to the male type of the bird.

4.2. Archetypes of women and their sexual roles

Generally, the female characters in the novel could be divided into three categories:

• the cold powerful “ball-cutters”

• the warm and kind prostitutes

• the neutral Indian grandmother and a Japanese nurse

The first category consists of the Big Nurse, Billy Bibbit’s mother, Mary Louise

Bromden, Vera Harding, and the white-haired woman from the government. All of those

characters are portrayed as powerful; however, they are detested for their power. There are two

possible reasons – they reject the “traditional” gender roles and focus on their careers or

themselves instead of only being housewives, or they emasculate the men around them and

sexually frustrate them to ensure their dominance. Ruth Sullivan points out that “almost every

woman who stands in an explicitly sexual relationship to men in the novel poses a threat to her

man’s virility” (18). Billy Bibbit’s manipulative mother would not let her son attend college

nor date a girl and gain the same experience as his peers, Vera Harding intimidates her husband

with her sexuality – she flirts with other men, wears provocative clothes and constantly reminds

her husband that he does not “have enough of nothing” (173).

When the men talk about those women, they address them as “women” in comparison

to the warm and submissive female characters who are simply being called “girls”. For instance,

when the Public Relation tours a ladies’ club on the ward, he instructs them: “look around, girls;

isn’t it clean, so bright? This is Miss Ratched. (…) She’s, girls, just like a mother. Not that

I mean age, but you girls understand” (35). Even in such a short utterance he manages to

patronizingly call the ladies “girls” three times as if to remind them their position of inferiority.

Besides “women”, the cold women are often referred to as “bitches”, “I’ve seen some

bitches in my time, but she takes the cake” (58), or “ball-cutters”, “that nurse ain’t some kinda

monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter” (58).

Martin claims that “they [women] represent a sinister contemporary version of

a feminist tradition in American literature that goes back, at least, to Dame Van Winkle” and

that the “female authority becomes non-domestic, hard, insistently emasculating” (4).

According to Meloy, Nurse Ratched represents “Kesey’s fears of a cold war era that fosters an

impotent, feminine American masculinity through a climate of fear and conformity” (3).

Throughout the novel, the patients struggle with their repressed sexuality and they adopt

behavior that would be traditionally classified as feminine – they snicker into their fists, gossip,

and act submissively. Seemingly, their problems which are tightly connected to sexuality are

always invoked by women – correspondingly, the women are always the topic of the group

meetings.

The prostitutes Candy and Sandy are depicted as joyful and warm companions to the

men, and could be considered the feminine ideals in the novel. McMahan describes Candy as

a “whore with a heart of gold” and Sandy as “equally charitable with her body”, explaining that

they “ask nothing of the men – not even money for their sexual performances” (26); she believes

that “Kesey fantasizes that they come willingly to this insane asylum to service the inmates for

the sheer joy of it” (ibid). It almost seems as if their only role is to empower the patients and

support their sexual awakening by flirting with them and complimenting them, which is

precisely what they do. Sullivan explains that thanks to them the patients learn that: “the only

women who are fun and harmless are not mature women but girls, sisterly girls who are easily

controlled and undemanding” (19). They make the patients feel confident and comfortable next

to them as they are submissive and aim to please the men – they are prostitutes after all. If the

Big Nurse is a “ball-cutter” and a “bitch”, Candy is a “sweetheart” (218), “honeybun” (221),

and “honey” (231).

       Both the prostitutes are referred to as “girls” and despite their developed bodies, they

remind Bromden of children: “I could see McMurphy and the girl snuggled into each other’s

shoulders, getting comfortable, more like two tired kids than a grown man and a grown woman

in bed together to make love” (296). Moreover, there is a possibility that the women are still

underage as Bromden describes Candy: “When she blushed she didn’t look more than sixteen

or seventeen, I swear she didn’t” (220).

       Their appearance differs from the cold women as well. They do not hide behind starched

armor-like clothes, quite the opposite, Bromden comments on how little fabric they wear:

   She had on a white T-shirt like McMurphy’s only a lot smaller, white tennis shoes and
   Levi pants snipped off above her knees (…) it didn’t look like that was near enough
   material to go around, considering what it had to cover. (…) Martini did whisper that you
   could read the dates of the coins in her Levi pockets, they were so tight. (220-221)

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While Miss Ratched and the government woman attempt to conceal their bodies to hide their

humanity and to be taken seriously, the prostitutes wear their clothes small and tight to show

off and attract the attention of the men. They do not need and are not taken seriously by the

men, for instance, when Candy comes to the asylum to pick up McMurphy and the others to go

on the fishing trip, Billy Bibbit whistles at her to let her know “how she looked better than

anybody else could have” (220). Moreover, Candy’s reaction does not make her appear very

bright – she laughs and thanks to Billy, considering his whistle a compliment. She either does

not realize she is being objectified by the men around her, or she does not care. Similarly, when

Bromden refers to the prostitutes, he does not use their names but calls them “whores”.

Meloy suggests that the prostitutes “exist in a purely sexual way, making them less

terrifying, and, in that sense, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest seems to privilege Candy and

Ginger (sic!) because they are prostitutes” (10). Their sexual availability appears to be their

chief virtue; it is the main quality that makes them perceived so differently from the unavailable

Big Nurse and they are celebrated for that. The novel almost seems to claim that their behavior

and lifestyle is the preferred way of existing as a woman – to be submissive and readily

available to men. In contrast, Nurse Ratched who represses her sexuality and conceals her

breasts seems to be disapproved of.

Also, the choice of names in the novel is unlikely to be random. Kesey probably chose

the gentle easygoing names of the prostitutes to contrast with the harsh-sounding and traditional

names of the cold powerful women. Miss Ratched’s first name is Mildred, Bromden’s mother

is called Mary Louise and Harding’s wife’s name is Vera, meanwhile the prostitutes use cute

nicknames – Candy and Sandy, not only rhyming together, but also evoking sweetness, joy,

and pleasure.

Finally, Bromden’s Indian grandmother and the Japanese nurse do not fit into either of

the previously mentioned groups. They are the only positive and simultaneously non-sexually

perceived female characters in the novel and interestingly, both of them are women of

a different race and religion. Bromden’s grandma is depicted as a wise, kind woman,

representing the stereotypical image of an old Indian female. She is resolute, keen on traditions

and Bromden likes her, “dust in her wrinkles” (272). She represents the healthy balance

between the submissive woman who is expected to be primarily a housewife and between the

powerful castrating female. The grandma does not reject her role as a grandmother and she

plays with her grandson and teaches him, but she also remains strong and powerful. Moreover,

she could be understood as a positive mother figure, more than Mrs. Bromden whose strict and

cold behavior only alienates Bromden from his culture. As Sullivan explains “she is a loving

woman associated with all that is healthy in the Chief’s background – his Indian heritage, the

natural order, and the warm bond his people felt for one another” (20). In conclusion, the

grandmother is not perceived as a positive character only because she is a part of Bromden’s

family – as we know, Bromden’s mother is portrayed as a bad character – but also because she

represents the key to his Indian identity.

The Japanese nurse working at the Disturbed ward is also supposed to symbolize the

balance between the submissive and the cold woman. When McMurphy and Bromden end up

on her ward after assaulting the orderlies, she takes care of them and acts kind towards them.

Compared with the Big Nurse, she is the embodiment of the stereotype of what a nurse should

be like – the reader learns she is kind and charitable as she “undid our cuffs and gave McMurphy

a cigarette and gave me a stick of gum” (265), and also that she is quite petite: “[she is] about

as big as the small end of nothing whittled to a fine point” (ibid), “she dipped her hand full of

pink birthday candles into a jar” (ibid), “I could see the little bird bones in her face” (ibid). Due

to her small figure, Fick likens her to a child: “[the Japanese nurse] is also clearly a child,

physically if not emotionally” (32). He also describes her as a “sympathetic woman” (ibid),

which is a description corresponding with Sullivan’s suggestion that the nurse “has more

sensitivity than any other woman in that institution”. (20) Moreover, Sullivan continues, she

understands why everyone hates Ratched and she “wants to help McMurphy and Chief

Bromden after their fight with Washington” (20). However, the Japanese nurse could be

perceived as a sympathetic woman mainly because she “accepts woman’s time-honored role as

nurturer of men and agrees with McMurphy that sexual starvation prompts Miss Ratched’s

perversity” (McMahan 26).

       Compared to the Big Nurse, she is liked by the patients but does not have the power

Miss Ratched possesses. She has no say in the operation of the mental hospital, she has no

means to protect McMurphy and Bromden: “I’d like to keep men here sometimes instead of

sending them back, but she [the Big Nurse] has seniority” (266).

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5. Miss Ratched or the Big Nurse

One of the central characters in the novel is Miss Ratched, the head nurse of the

psychiatric ward, who is secretly called the Big Nurse by the patients. Despite being only a head

nurse, Miss Ratched has authority over the whole ward, including the doctor. She is the main

antagonist of the story, making life on the ward almost unbearable for the patients by

manipulating, blackmailing and humiliating them. She is the most notorious for her cold robot-

like demeanor, precise movements and an emotionless smile.

In his essay, Laszlo K. Géfin shares what most of the critics have noted and that are the

multiple meanings behind the nurse’s name. The name Ratched could refer to ratchet to

symbolize the nurse’s strikingly machine-like nature; Kesey himself plays a pun on her name

when McMurphy calls the Big Nurse “Miss Rat-shed” (93), suggesting that she personalizes

a giant cage in which the mentally ill patients are imprisoned like rats. Finally, the most

conspicuous allusion might point to George Orwell’s 1984 as the Big Nurse reminds the reader

of the authoritarian Big Brother. There is a possibility that the rat shed is pointing to Orwell’s

novel as well – in 1984, rat sheds were strapped to the heads of the dissidents to torture them

(Géfin 97).

The nurse is around fifty years old and the reader does not know anything about her life

outside the asylum nor does he know much about her as a person. Visually, she is described as

a sexless being with quite a nice face:

Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll,
skin like flesh-colored enamel, blend of white and cream and baby-blue eyes, small
nose, pink little nostrils - everything working together except the color on her lips
and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A mistake was made somehow in
manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise
been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it. (6)

Despite her feminine figure, the nurse manages to stay as inhuman as possible. She is said to

despise her womanly breasts and does her best to conceal them under her stiff, starched uniform.

There can be multiple reasons for her hiding her body: she needs to be frigid in order to remain

the authority of the ward where all the patients are male – if she were not frigid, she could quite

easily become the subject of objectification and disrespect; another likely reason may be that

by concealing her chest, the only humanlike feature on herself, she simply protects herself. By

hiding her womanhood, she becomes powerful – almost equal to men. Géfin proposes that the

reason why Miss Ratched is so bitter about her breasts is that they prove she is “an inadequate,

in fact phoney authority figure, and her undeniable womanhood means undeniable

vulnerability, inferiority, and eventual defeat” (98). Although one could dispute about the Big

Nurse being “inferior” or a “phoney authority figure” as she has the full authority over her ward

(and she has had it for over 20 years), the fact that her womanhood signifies undeniable

vulnerability stays true.

       Furthermore, there could be other reasons underlying the previously stated explanations.

Since working in the “all-male” environment, hiding her feminine body could be a reaction to

all the gawking and even touching she has had to endure. Bromden’s description of her shows

that even he spends time looking at her and objectifying her, repeatedly talking about her

breasts. Géfin names other possible reasons as well – perhaps the nurse had been shamed so

many times, she herself came to be ashamed of them. He also pinpoints the possibility that sex

with men, and consecutively all men, and even motherhood became unbearable to her (99).

       The reader may find peculiar that although Miss Ratched conceals her body to be

perceived as a powerful authority, she does not hide all traces of her femininity, but as a matter

of fact, enhances them. Throughout the novel Bromden comments on her wearing lipstick

and nail polish: “tip of each finger the same color as her lips, funny orange” (4), “old mother

there with the too-red lipstick” (46), “she’s holding up a fist, all those red-orange fingernails

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burning into her palm” (138), “she takes a sip of her coffee; the cup comes away from her mouth

with that red-orange color on it” (149). The actuality of her not hiding, but rather highlighting

some elements of her womanhood – her lips and nails – would correspond with the idea that

she conceals her body so as not to be objectified by men but still wears makeup to remind her

surrounding (or even herself) that she is, in fact, a woman. Another possibility may be that the

Big Nurse has a life of her own outside the ward, but the reader does not know since the narrator

cannot leave the asylum.

Ken Kesey portrays the Big Nurse as an asexual being, punishing the patients for her

sexual frustrations. She is the opposite of the ideal of both a woman and a nurse. In his essay,

Philip Darbyshire points out that the Big Nurse, in comparison to the nurses from other fiction,

does not represent an angel on earth, a helpful, smiling, concerned woman with motherly

presence. He suggests that Miss Ratched has become synonymous with “all that is bad in nurses

and nursing” (198) and explains that she is rigid, authoritarian, malevolent, controlling,

uncaring and that she manages to make ‘professional’ seem like a term of abuse. She does not

correspond to the stereotypical appearance of a nurse as well – she is neither petite nor

physically vulnerable. On the opposite, in Bromden’s narration the Big Nurse appears huge,

almost colossal, and she has the ability to grow even bigger if she wants to: “She’s swelling up,

swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long

enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times.” (4), “she blows up bigger and bigger,

big as a tractor” (5), and “she looks around with a swivel of her huge head” (5). In all those

descriptions, she is not only big but also monstrous and bizarre, inhuman, and unwomanly.

Many critics have highlighted the significance of Nurse Ratched’s big breasts as a means

of creating her “translocated ideal” (Darbyshire 199). The Big Nurse is described as a mother

or a motherly figure by different characters throughout the novel. For instance, the Public

Relation shows the ward to a ladies’ club and declares: “This is Miss Ratched. She’s, girls, just

like a mother. Not that I mean age, but you girls understand...” (35). Similarly, when McMurphy

arrives at the ward, he thinks to himself that “there’s something strange about a place where the

men won’t let themselves loose and laugh, something strange about the way they all knuckle

under to that smiling flour-faced old mother there with the too-red lipstick and the too-big

boobs” (46). However, Darbyshire also states that the ideal mother must have ample breasts to

indicate both nurturance and sexuality. Despite the novel describing her “extraordinary breasts”

(69), she fails to deliver on both of those aspects as she refuses to “nurture” the patients on the

ward and also refuses to express her sexuality or even show a hint of it.

       In the context of the novel, the fact that Miss Ratched is titled ‘mother’ on multiple

occasions does not indicate anything good about her character and it is most definitely not

a compliment. Let us not forget the nature of other mothers in the story – Billy Bibbit’s

overprotective mother is ruining her son’s life by lowering his confidence and reminding him

all the time not to disappoint her, Chief’s mother Mary Bromden contributed to the

disintegration of his father’s tribe, turned his father into an alcoholic and ruined the lives of

both Bromden and his father.

       Ruth Sullivan uses the Freudian model of family to explain the interpersonal

relationships on the ward, situating the Big Nurse into the position of a “mother”, McMurphy

into the position of “father”, and finally, the patients represent their “sons”. She explains that

we can find some typical oedipal conflicts, such as the sons witnessing (often sexual)

encounters between the mother and father figures. Moreover, Sullivan suggests that the crucial

emotional issue for the sons is “how to define their manliness in relation to the mother figure

and with the help of and ability to identify with the father” (15). Harding tells McMurphy that

they are all victims of matriarchy on the ward, that “man has but one truly effective weapon

against the juggernaut of modern matriarchy” and that “more and more people are discovering

                                                                                                29

how to render that weapon useless and conquer those who have hitherto been the conquerors”

(68). The one truly effective weapon Harding refers to is man’s penis and his sexuality,

suggesting that to defeat matriarchy the Big Nurse, as a representative of it, needs to be raped

to be conquered and deprived of her power. Consecutively, Harding asks McMurphy, whether

he thinks he could ever use his weapon against “the champion”, Miss Ratched. To which

McMurphy replies he “couldn’t get it up over old frozen face in there even if she had the beauty

of Marilyn Monroe” (69), but since the question of power is out there, he remarks: “I’ve never

seen a woman I thought was more man than me, I don’t care whether I can get it up for her or

not” (71), admitting that although he is not sexually attracted to her, he will rape her if it has to

be done to dominate her. In the end, the Big Nurse does not get raped in its original sense as

there is no intercourse involved, but the effect and impact it has on everyone stay the same as

if she was.

       When McMurphy discusses the rape with his inmates, he turns it into a bet, which makes

the situation seem a lot lighter than it actually is. “I’m saying five bucks to each of you that

wants it if I can’t put a betsy bug up that nurse’s butt within a week” (72). If the rape is supposed

to be a life-saving experience for the men, restoration of potency and power, it should not be

turned into a bet. It is even more disturbing that McMurphy talks about anal rape. Possible

reasons are that McMurphy wants to “settle the debt” with the Big Nurse as her Black Boys,

the orderlies, rape the patients when no one’s watching; another explanation could be that due

her asexuality he cannot imagine her as an actual woman; the third reason could be

a punishment via more painful and shocking experience. As stated in Sullivan’s essay, the use

of “anal” is symbolic as Ratched herself is “a caricature of the anal personality” (19).

       According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, in the classical psychoanalytic theory

of Sigmund Freud, there is a pattern of personality traits “believed to stem from the anal stage

of psychosexual development, when defecation is a primary source of pleasure”. It is explained

                                                                                                  30

that “special satisfaction from retention of the feces will result in an adult anal-retentive

personality, marked by frugality, obstinacy, and orderliness”. Those features correspond with

Ratched’s behavior as she is obsessed with order, cleanliness, smoothness, schedules, and

power.

         When portraying the act of raping, McMurphy uses the term “betsy bug” to describe his

penis. The Old Farmer's Almanac provides clarification that “betsy bug” is another term for

“bedbug”, a tiny, biting insect which “leaves nasty bites and can be extremely hard to get rid

of”. Kesey probably chose this insect to illustrate that McMurphy decided to act the same way

as the bug. He plans to leave a nasty bite on the nurse to help his inmates win back their

masculinity. The last part of the definition states that “bedbugs tend to zigzag across a surface,

perhaps giving rise to the idea that they behave crazily”, therefore doing the same thing as

McMurphy, who pretends to be insane and acts like a psychopath despite the fact he is not one.

         As Harding calls Miss Ratched “the champion”, he pinpoints her ability to

psychologically castrate the men and render them impotent. She uses not only her asexuality to

frustrate them and to establish her position of power, but also exercises other means of

emasculating them. Such means include the obstruction of the “traditionally male” activities

and hobbies – she controls how many cigarettes a day the patients smoke, and prevents them

from drinking, playing poker, reading pornography, watching the World Series baseball on

television, or attempts to stop them from going on the Fishing trip. Moreover, she forces them

to do some of the “traditionally female” activities such as cleaning the ward: “the Big Nurse

gave in to the black boy’s frustrated pleading and came in to check McMurphy’s cleaning

assignment personally” (151).

         She also makes her patients extensively uncomfortable during group meetings, forcing

them to share every single experience or thought openly and be judged by their inmates;

furthermore, she intimidates the patients with electroshock therapy and even the possibility of

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