Cuckoo's Nest

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In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the author describes an all-male mental ward in the 1960s, that has been under the longtime dictatorship of a controlling nurse. Throughout the book, Kesey paints a misogynistic image of women through extensive description in which women are in a constant power struggle with masculinity. As a member of the counterculture movement in the 1960s, one could expect that in his novels Kesey would write about items like sexuality, hallucinogenic drugs, women’s rights, authority, and quite simply anything against conventional ideals. However, Kesey’s novel speaks for itself through the representation of women, especially through that of the ever present Nurse Ratched. It is radically apparent …show more content…
At the beginning of the book when Chief is initially describing Nurse Ratched, he mentions, “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” (#). This begins Kesey’s motif of breasts and how they relate to power by describing the nurse’s disdain for her breasts, as well as the fact that she must cover them up, striving for a more masculine appeal as masculinity is the equivalent of individual power. Furthering this, toward the end of the novel, this facade the nurse lives under is torn away with her uniform when McMurphy attacks Nurse Ratched and exposes her large, feminine, and sexualized breasts to the ward, resulting in her demise. When she reappears in the ward after this conflict, Nurse Ratched is wearing a new uniform described as, “...smaller and tighter and more starched than her old uniforms, it could no longer conceal the fact that she was a woman” (#). Ultimately taking away her masculine appearance and not only forcing her to be presented as a woman, but taking away her voice and forcing her to communicate through written word. This stripping of her power caused the ward to
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