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 KeseyhoVyhoďme 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 20th 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.

6 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

8 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

10 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

12 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

13 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

15 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

16 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.

17 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

19 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

20 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.

21 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)

22 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.

23 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,

24 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).

25 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)

26 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

27 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

28 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

31 lobotomy and induces them to secretly inform her on one another by writing down any new information they have obtained into the logbook. She claims that the logbook exists for their good, but the ones who write into it are awarded with benefits such as being let sleep in. Despite promoting the ward as democratic and run completely by the patients and their votes, she dismisses any idea that does not go hand in hand with her own ideas.

The pecking, ball-cutting, and castration of men

At the beginning of his stay, McMurphy remarks that the patients at the group meetings are like a bunch of chickens at a pecking party and Harding pretends to be confused by his analogy. McMurphy explains the patients are like a flock that gets sight of a spot of blood on one chicken and they all go to pecking at it until they rip the chicken to shreds, blood, bones, and feathers (55). He also pinpoints that the first one to peck is the nurse. Throughout the book, the reader can see that the Big Nurse is quite smart and cunning as she does not have to try hard for the patients to obey her. At the group meetings, all she has to do is to ask the patient a question and suggest the others ask as well. And they do ask because they are relieved it is not them who has to answer.

Harding opposes McMurphy, more likely because he does not want to admit the truth than from conviction. He belittles him by saying he noticed his “primitive brutality” (57) and accuses him of being a “psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an unreasoning egomania” (57). In addition, he mocks him that he is in no position of criticizing

Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure and ironically remarks: “You could probably bring about a cure for the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months, ladies and gentlemen or your money back” (57).

After McMurphy inquires whether Harding truly believes the hospital staff is trying to help him, Harding replies he does: “They aren’t monsters. Miss Ratched may be a strict middle-

32 aged lady, but she’s not some kind of giant monster of the poultry clan, bent on sadistically pecking out our eyes” (57). However, the place of pecking is not eyes, as McMurphy has noticed. It is a place where it hurts the patients the most, place that is significant for their confidence, masculinity, and sexuality, and he realizes it: “No, buddy, not that. She ain’t peckin’ at your eyes. That’s not what she’s peckin’ at. [She pecks] At your balls, buddy, at your everlovin’ balls” (57).

He also illustrates: “If you’re up against a guy who wants to win by making you weaker instead of making himself stronger, then watch for his knee, he’s gonna go for your vitals. And that’s what that old buzzard is doing, going for your vitals” (58). McMurphy is saying that Miss

Ratched is unable to make herself stronger to command the patients on her ward, therefore she has to belittle, humiliate and “castrate” the men in order to be in control. She tries to make the men weak so they will follow her rules and behave the way she wants them to.

McMurphy compares Miss Ratched to a “buzzard”, which is a term that stands for

“turkey vulture” in American English (Collinsdictionary.com). In his essay, Michael Meloy explains that by comparing the nurse to a buzzard, McMurphy “subtly besmirches feminine power as something degrading and shameful – residing at the bottom of the food chain, feeding off of dead carcasses (…) under the guise of this feminine power, masculine identity can only exist in a decayed and rotting state” (8). All of the patients, except for the newcomer

McMurphy, have their sexuality repressed – “decayed and rotting”. It is not caused merely by the Big Nurse but rather by the other women from their lives (mothers, wives); however, Miss

Ratched contributes to the patients’ repression by repressing her own sexuality as well.

It follows that we can possibly distinguish between the nurse’s “intentional repression” and the “unintentional repression” represented by the patients who are unable to “unlock” their sexuality themselves and need the help of the unrestrained McMurphy. The patients are aware of the difference between theirs and the nurse’s repression – while it weakens them, it empowers

33 her. Harding describes the situation on the ward as follows: “The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. (…) The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong” (62). He likens himself and the patients to rabbits and the nurse to a wolf who only grows stronger by “devouring the weak” – by repressing and weakening the patients. At the beginning of the novel, Harding tries to persuade McMurphy that under all of his swagger even he must be a rabbit, but McMurphy is so secure with his sexuality he only sees the rabbit’s ability to procreate, not its vulnerability: “Just what is it makes me a rabbit, Harding? (…) Is it my fightin’ tendencies, or my fuckin’ tendencies? Must be the fuckin’, mustn’t it? All that whambam-thank-you-ma’am. Yeah, that whambam, that’s probably what makes me a rabbit” (64). The point about reproducing McMurphy has brought up results in Harding’s acknowledgment that “most of us in here even lack the sexual ability to make the grade as adequate rabbits. Failures, we are - feeble, stunted, weak little creatures in a weak little race. Rabbits, sans whambam; a pathetic notion” (64).

The nurse as a machine

Miss Ratched is described as a very precise person with an almost obsessive-compulsive disorder behavior; she needs a tight schedule, every activity has to take place at a set time and there is a set of rules that need to be followed so the ward runs smoothly, “I’m sorry to interrupt you and Mr. Bromden, but you do understand: everyone…must follow the rules” (24). Only with the mind-numbing medication, strict routines and intimidation she is able to run the ward.

Her biggest weapon is the use of shock shop (electroshock therapy) and lobotomy. The threat of lobotomy also carries a certain symbolism as it is mentioned in the novel that “if she can’t cut below the belt she’ll do it above the eyes” (180). The patients in her ward are divided into two groups – the Acutes that can be “fixed” and the Chronics who cannot. She can easily make any Acute become a Chronic if she recognizes it desirable – she has the upper hand: “You boys

34 be good boys and cooperate with the staff policy which is engineered for your cure, or you’ll end up over on that side” (17).

To highlight her machine-like personality, she always wears her snow-white uniform starched so stiff “it don’t exactly bend any place; it cracks sharp at the joints with a sound like a frozen canvas being folded” (40). She is in control not only of the patients but also herself – she has to conceal her emotions to stay the authority, “The patients start coming out of the dorms (…) she has to change back before she’s caught in the shape of her hideous real self”

(6), “she has the ability to turn her smile into whatever expression she wants to use on somebody” (45). Bromden sometimes sees her mad, but she can quickly hide her anger behind a fake smile, “all they see is the head nurse, smiling and calm and cold as usual” (ibid). When she reveals her humanity after getting upset with McMurphy’s behavior, she weakens herself in the eyes of the patients on the ward.

In addition, as orderly as she is, she demonstrates her inability to improvise – she despises McMurphy because he disrupts the perfect schedule that has worked for her for over

20 years and encourages the patients to join him in his rebellion. In that sense, McMurphy is

Ratched’s worst enemy as he is free-spirited and spontaneous, the exact opposite of her.

The narrator, Chief Bromden, likens her to some sort of robotic spider: “I see her sit in the center of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend her network with mechanical insect skill, know every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants” (26). The Big Nurse, similarly to the Big Brother, observes the patients quietly all the time, sitting in the Nurse Station. Usually, the patients avert their eyes so as not to meet with hers. To be able to observe even beyond the frontiers of her own physical body, she uses the help of a logbook, in which the patients are encouraged to write about their inmates and the secrets they have not shared yet at the group meetings.

35 The male gaze and sexual harassment

Looking at the novel from a feminist perspective, the reader may notice the omnipresent male gaze. Dictionary.com defines the “male gaze” as “the assumption in visual and creative arts that the default or desired audience consists of heterosexual males, and inclusion of women in narrative or art should seek to please this audience with the objectification or sexualization of these depicted women”. The narrator, Chief Bromden, criticizes the nurse for always observing the men and making them feel trapped and small. However, from his description, it is evident that the patients watch Miss Ratched as well, possibly more than she watches them.

Despite trying to conceal her body so as not to be objectified, the patients comment on her figure, “in spite of all her attempts to conceal them, in that sexless get-up, you can still make out the evidence of some rather extraordinary breasts” (69), “nature had tagged her with those outsized badges of femininity” (151), “she’s got one hell of a set of chabobs… big as Old Lady

Ratched’s” (174).

It is apparent that the patients realize why she hides her breasts behind the heavily starched uniform, yet decide to comment on it to make her uncomfortable and undermine her authority. McMurphy does not only tease her behind her back but also confronts her in front of everyone: “[McMurphy asks] if she didn’t mind tellin’, just what was the actual inch-by-inch measurement on them great big ol’ breasts that she did her best to conceal but never could”

(150) or “She would reprimand him, without heat at all, and he would stand and listen till she was finished and then destroy her whole effect by asking something like did she wear a B cup, he wondered, or a C cup, or any ol’ cup at all?” (196)

This sort of behavior is not only inappropriate but is also a form of sexual harassment.

Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘sexual harassment’ as “unwanted or offensive sexual attention, suggestions, or talk, especially from an employer or other person in a position of power”. It is noteworthy to mention that sexual harassment usually comes from a person who is superior to

36 another since, in our case, McMurphy should be inferior to Miss Ratched as he is the patient and she is the professional who makes all the important decisions. Nonetheless, McMurphy is confident enough to provoke the Nurse with sexual remarks and he does not hesitate to touch her too: “Once, as she turned to walk away, he got hold of her through the back of her uniform, gave her a pinch that turned her face red as his hair. I think if the doctor hadn’t been there, hiding a grin himself, she would’ve slapped McMurphy’s face” (276). Despite his lower position, McMurphy exhibits his power by harassing the nurse. Moreover, the male doctor,

Ratched’s colleague, seems to approve of McMurphy’s behavior as he finds the situation humorous rather than inappropriate and unacceptable.

By showing such a lack of respect, McMurphy incites the patients to follow his lead and behave similarly, demonstrating that since the nurse has not punished him yet she is not as terrifying as they all thought. Furthermore, he is putting the nurse into a difficult situation – if she responded to him in any way it would make her seem more humane and vulnerable, therefore weakening her position; but since she does not want to risk the loss of her superiority, she is unable to react at all. In addition, the inability to react to McMurphy’s teasing and provoking leaves her, to some extent, powerless.

Sexual frustration

Meanwhile, McMurphy recognizes the roots of the male patients’ mental issues in the repressed sexuality caused by women, consecutively leading to the insecurity about their masculinity, the patients believe that the Big Nurse also needs to copulate in order to be less uptight and machine-like. McMurphy disagrees with them: “But if it was no more’n you say, if it was, say, just this old nurse and her sex worries, then the solution to all your problems would be to just throw her down and solve her worries, wouldn’t it?” (181) Even though he realizes that the problem within the Big Nurse and her approach to the patients lies somewhere else than

37 in her repressed sexuality, his logic seems faulty as he believes that if the nurse was sexually frustrated, all he had to do would be raping her.

It is intriguing that the unnamed Japanese nurse from the Disturbed ward came to a similar conclusion as the patients: “I sometimes think all single nurses should be fired after they reach thirty-five” (266). We can conclude from this statement that she also believes the reason why Miss Ratched is so cold is that she is single and, therefore, sexually frustrated. If the nurse omitted the word ‘single’, one could assume she is referring to a burnout syndrome or a similar disorder; with the use of ‘single’, her idea becomes unambiguous. Moreover, her statement is supported by a previously expressed idea that “It’s not all like her ward (…) a lot of it is, but not all. Army nurses, trying to run an Army hospital. They are a little sick themselves” (266). The Japanese nurse disapproves of the way the Big Nurse governs her ward and treats her patients; she even confesses: “Sometimes I’d like to keep men here instead of sending them back, but she [Miss Ratched] has seniority” (266). Compared to the Big Nurse, the Japanese nurse lives up to expectation what a nurse should be like – a fragile, petite, sweet woman who wants to protect the men from the tyrannical Big Nurse but unfortunately has no power to do so. She also undermines Ratched’s authority by admitting she disapproves of the way Ratched takes care of her patients and that she thinks she should be dismissed because she is single and thus frustrated.

McMurphy’s sexual assault

The story climaxes when McMurphy assaults the Big Nurse in reaction to Billy Bibbit’s suicide. The Big Nurse accuses McMurphy of “playing with human lives - gambling with human lives - as if you thought yourself to be a God” (304); the patients blame the Big Nurse because she blackmails Billy into feeling guilty by expressing her disappointment in his behavior and by warning him she will have to inform his mother about his sexual encounter.

38 Rather than facing the consequences by confronting his manipulative mother, Billy decides to take his own life.

Bromden describes McMurphy to rise from his chair “like one of those moving-picture zombies” (304), when he walks across the floor “you could hear the iron in his bare heels ring sparks out of the tile” (305). Bromden also admits that for a moment he thought of stopping

McMurphy, but then realized that “neither I nor any of the half-score of us could stop him. (…)

We couldn’t stop him because we were the ones making him do it” (304) and that McMurphy was “obeying orders beamed at him from forty masters” (304). Throughout the novel, it is the

Big Nurse who is repeatedly compared to anything inhuman – wolf, buzzard, machine, but this time, McMurphy is also portrayed as an inhuman being – a zombie without its own will. When he walks, his heels create sparks, which likens him to some sort of a machine. When he attacks the Big Nurse, it is as if the roles switched – he becomes the monster, and she turns into a human:

After he’d smashed through that glass door, her face swinging around, with terror forever ruining any other look she might ever try to use again, screaming when he grabbed for her and ripped her uniform all the way down the front, screaming again when the two nippled circles started from her chest and swelled out and out, bigger than anybody had ever even imagined, warm and pink in the light. (…) Doctors and supervisors and nurses prying those heavy red fingers out of the white flesh of her throat as if they were her neck bones, jerking him backward off of her with a loud heave of breath. (305)

The reader expects the assault of the Big Nurse as it is foreshadowed earlier in the novel. While reading, one could almost physically feel the story heading towards this one specific moment – the climactic assault, the final confrontation between McMurphy and the Big Nurse; after days, weeks, months or even years of living under the cruel, oppressive power in the form of the Big

Nurse, McMurphy is going to avenge the patients. Muñoz explains that the assault has

“narrative weight as the inevitable, culminating event in a battle that had always teetered toward sexual violence” (670).

39 We can notice the foreshadowing in the scene when McMurphy smashes the glass of the Nurses’ Station to seize a pack of cigarettes. Bromden describes how McMurphy “walked with long steps, too long, and (…) the iron in his boot heels cracked lightning out of the tile”

(189). Before the final assault, McMurphy walks the same resolute way “his bare heels ring sparks out of the tile” (305), both the scenes indicate the energy generated by rage that escapes his body in the form of lightning and sparks. When he approaches the Big Nurse, she shows a human reaction – fear: her eyes “swelled out white as he got close” (189), she started “popping her mouth and looking for her black boys, scared to death” (189), when McMurphy shatters the glass, she throws her hands to her ears. After McMurphy took his cigarettes, he “turned to where the Big Nurse was sitting like a chalk statue and very tenderly went to brushing the slivers of glass off her hat and shoulders” (190). The Big Nurse was so paralyzed with fear she even let

McMurphy touch her. Despite McMurphy claiming he did not notice the glass as it was “so spick and span” (190) it is obvious he smashed the glass to demonstrate that although she is the one who is in control and who can psychologically castrate the patients, he has the raw physical power she will never obtain. The incident also serves as an example of what McMurphy is capable of if Ratched provokes him. However, the Big Nurse is not “provoking” him; she is simply doing her job, as the head of the ward it is her duty to keep the place in order.

Earlier in the novel, McMurphy promises to his inmates to put “a bee in her [Ratched’s] butt, a burr in her bloomers. Get her goat. Bug her till she comes apart at those neat seams”

(72). Although McMurphy does not put “a bee in her butt”, the assault has purely sexual and domineering character. By tearing her uniform, he tears those metaphorical seams and exposes her body, her weakness, the one thing she has tried so hard to hide to protect herself. Moreover, if he wanted to simply avenge Billy’s death, he would start strangling her; instead, he chose to first rip her stiff uniform – her only means of defense – to weaken her.

40 Ratched’s breasts are described as “warm and pink” and are contrasting with her cold robot-like personality. For a moment, she becomes the woman and mother she was expected to be – warm, fragile, womanly. In this passage, she is very human, she expresses fear, she screams when McMurphy attacks her and starts choking her. The act of the assault has the symbolic of rape not only because McMurphy exposes the Big Nurse’s body but also because he physically hurts her; Waxler explains that “McMurphy’s ‘red fingers’ penetrate ‘the white flesh of her throat’ in an act equivalent to rape” (157).

Although the reader may initially cheer for the heroic McMurphy avenging his friend’s death and fulfilling his inmates’ will, the scene itself is rather disturbing. Darbyshire informs that “during theatrical performances and film screenings of OFOTCN, audiences have been reported to cheer loudly at this point [the sexual assault]” (199). However, the second reading of the story reveals that there is nothing to cheer for – unless one wants to celebrate “sexual violence and enforced power” (Darbyshire 201).

Darbyshire believes that the sexual attack is significant also as it is “used to reinforce what is possibly the most offensive aspect of the rape fantasy – that ‘secretly’ maybe, Nurse

Ratched is gaining some sexual pleasure from being forcefully ‘mastered’ by McMurphy”

(201). To support his argument the author points out to imagery of the nurse’s erect nipples, which he does not consider accidental. Similarly, he proposes that due to her nipples being

“warm and pink” we could “assume that this is a pleasurable sexual response from Nurse

Ratched. And this, readers and audiences applaud” (201). This paper does not search for symbolism in Ratched’s “swelled out nippled circles” (305); the most likely explanation for

Ratched’s erect nipples are psychological reasons such as shock, surprise, or fear, or the sudden change of temperature rather than the sexual arousal. The “warm and pink” nipples are contrasted with the nurse’s cold stiff personality, they are a sign of Ratched’s humanity and vulnerability.

41 Muñoz offers an explanation that the Big Nurse is “exposed as a gargantuan monster, a concealed threat who was always capable of a terrifying enormity” (670). However, that is hardly true, the only aspect of her that seems gargantuan are her breasts – Chief Bromden’s focal point, the rest of the Big Nurse stays the same size. Moreover, she does not resemble

“a concealed threat” – she is a semi-naked woman being strangled.

Bromden describes the act of violence as “a hard duty that finally just had to be done, like it or not” (305). He probably believes that it was the only way to destroy “the juggernaut of matriarchy” and that McMurphy was fated to do so. By adding “like it or not” he is possibly admitting that he realizes there is something deeply disturbing about the assault.

The final confrontation between McMurphy and Miss Ratched results in McMurphy’s lobotomy and Ratched’s loss of respect and authority due to the exposition of her humanness.

Géfin suggests that “it is her humanity that is violated and destroyed – the humanity that attempted to preserve itself by refusing the role her breasts, in accordance with society’s dominant male expectations, would automatically have condemned her to play” (100). When she finally returns to the ward, the patients are not afraid of her anymore, the roles are reversed:

“She jumped back two steps when we approached, and I thought for a second she might run”

(306). The Big Nurse is unable to regain her authority nor can she hide her feminine body from the patients since they saw her bare figure: “[about her new uniform] in spite of its being smaller and tighter and more starched than her old uniforms, it could no longer conceal the fact that she was a woman” (306).

Since McMurphy demonstrated that the Big Nurse is just a regular human being, furthermore, a woman, the patients ceased to fear her and obey her. Despite wearing the same kind of a starched uniform that has protected her so far, she has been sexualized, reduced to a mere object and therefore she does not appear frightening anymore. Her physical appearance is not intimidating either as it displays her vulnerability: “Her face was bloated blue and out of

42 shape on one side, closing one eye completely, and she had a heavy bandage around her throat”

(306). Although McMurphy is missing from the ward, his presence is constantly reminded by

Ratched’s wounds.

After the strangling, Ratched’s throat is damaged, leaving her unable to speak and therefore dependable on a little pad with a pencil. Bromden comments on her loss of control:

“She couldn’t rule with her old power anymore, not by writing things on pieces of paper. She was losing her patients one after the other” (307). The inmates who once listened to her are establishing their dominance and newly found sense of masculinity by talking back to her, disrespecting her and even bullying her. Harding substituting McMurphy acts tough and mercilessly: “Harding read the paper, then tore it up and threw the pieces at her. She flinched and raised her hand to protect the bruised side of her face from the paper” (307). Finally, the once obedient “rabbit of the rabbit world” (65) presents his transition into a man by directly confronting her: “Lady, I think you’re full of so much bullshit” (307). Although she punished

McMurphy, she lost the fearful respect of her old patients, who one after one left her ward.

43 6. Other women in the novel

Following the previous chapter focused on the character of the Big Nurse, this chapter is aiming to analyze a few of the other female characters mentioned in the story.

6.1. Vera Harding

One of the “ball-cutters” presented in the novel is Harding’s wife Vera. Martin Terence describes her as a “bitch of the first order, whose visit to the hospital shows us all that Harding must overcome himself as a prerequisite to overcoming something in her” (44). In comparison with the Big Nurse, she does not conceal her body but uses it to her advantage, which frustrates her husband who consequently feels “inadequate”. When she comes to the hospital to visit

Harding, she flirts with one of the Black Boys to let her on the ward despite the fact she did not come during the visiting hours: “Look here who come to visit you. I tole her it wun’t visitin’ hours but you know she jus’ sweet-talk me into bringin’ her right on over here anyhow” (171).

After the Black Boy leads her to her husband, “she blows the black boy a kiss, then turns to

Harding, slinging her hips forward” (171). Unlike Miss Ratched or the woman from the government, she acts nonchalantly, and even her movement, such as slinging her hips or blowing kisses, is suggesting her sexuality.

The way she dresses is provocative as well: “She’s got on high-heeled shoes and is carrying a black purse, not by the strap, but holding it the way you hold a book. Her fingernails are red as drops of blood against the shiny black patent-leather purse” (172) and “she leans so far forward to his [McMurphy’s] match that even clear across the room I could see down her blouse” (173). Considering she visits during the daytime in the 1950s and is wearing high-heels, red nail polish and has a deep cleavage, she probably seems more like a prostitute than a housewife.

44 During one of the group meetings, Harding states that “his wife’s ample bosom at times gives him a feeling of inferiority” (41). It is evident that it is not only her breasts that make him feel inferior. Bromden claims that “She’s as tall as he is” (172) suggesting that not even his height could make Harding manlier, and when Harding introduces Vera to McMurphy he says:

“I’ll introduce you to my counterpart and Nemesis; I would be trite and say, ‘to my better half,’ but I think that phrase indicates some kind of basically equal division, don’t you?” (172) Not only he openly admits that he struggles in the relationship with his wife, thus the Nemesis, but he also describes the character of their married life and the feeling of inequality he fells.

As mentioned previously, the cold emasculating females are characterized by a certain degree of stiffness and the prostitutes are contrasting with them by their looseness. When

Harding fails to offer his wife a cigarette since the patients have been rationed, Vera Harding emasculates her husband as she reminds him that he is not manly enough: “you don’t have enough of nothing period!” (173) but her behavior corresponds more with Candy’s, for instance, when she flirtatiously turns to McMurphy and asks: “You, Mack, what about you.

Can you handle a simple little thing like offering a girl a cigarette?” (173). Vera points out to

Harding’s lack of masculinity by referring to his inability to offer her a cigarette as she addresses the task “a simple little thing”.

Although she is a married woman, she refers to herself as a “girl”, probably to symbolize her looseness. She corrects McMurphy when he addresses her Mrs. Harding: “I hate Mrs.

Harding, Mack; why don’t you call me Vera?” (172). It is not exactly clear if she only hates being called Mrs. Harding as it seems too impersonal to her, or if she also does not relish the fact she is married to Harding.

The relationship between Vera and Dale seems more like a power struggle than a loving relationship. Meanwhile, Harding feels emasculated by his wife, Vera hints she is not satisfied with her husband either. When she visits Harding, he does not seem visibly pleased, they do

45 not kiss or embrace each other it takes them some time to even move toward each other, and her presence makes Harding visibly nervous: “He tries to laugh, and his two slim ivory fingers dip into his shirt pocket for cigarettes, fidget around getting the last one from the package. The cigarette shakes as he places it between his lips” (172). Just as McMurphy used humor against the Big Nurse at the beginning, Harding tries to use humor to overcome his insecurity and nervousness; however, the humor is based on pointing out to the lack of education on the behalf of his wife, and it also serves as his means of defense against her biting remarks. Vera starts a sentence by saying “I didn’t intend nothing by it except what I said, Dale -” (173), but Harding interrupts her to correct her grammar: “You didn’t intend anything by it, sweetest; your use of

‘didn’t’ and ‘nothing’ constitutes a double negative. McMurphy, Vera’s English rivals yours for illiteracy. Look, honey, you understand that between ‘no’ and ‘any’ there is -” (173).

Although he addresses his wife as “sweetest” or “honey”, it is usually in the context of belittling her. Harding does not correct his wife to improve her English but to establish his dominance since he is confident in his education – “He’s a president of the Patient’s Council on account of he has a paper that says he graduated from college” (19). When she accuses him of not having “enough of nothing”, he replies to her: “Enough of anything, my bright little child” (173). It is obvious he wants to save his dignity and therefore uses her bad grammar to belittle her, but calling his wife “my bright little child” comes off as rather patronizing – she is not a little child, she is a grown-up woman; furthermore, the use of “bright” to describe someone who has just made a mistake, seems like a mockery at its best.

Throughout the novel, it is mentioned that Harding has quite a petite build for a man and it causes him his lack of confidence. Bromden describes him as “too pretty to just be a guy on the street” (18), moreover, he is a nervous, insecure man who has “wide, thin shoulders and he curves them in around his chest when he’s trying to hide inside himself” (18). His hands are

“long and white and dainty” as if they “carved each other out of soap”, Bromden compares

46 them to “two white birds” and “two beautiful ballet women in white”. Just as the Big Nurse is bothered by her big breasts, Harding despises his pretty hands, the symbol of his “inadequacy” and “unmanliness”.

He is aware of his feminine side, and so is Vera who emasculates him for it: “Dale, when are you going to learn to laugh instead of making that mousy little squeak?” (172). He most likely feels inferior since he does not represent the masculine man he believes she wants him to be: “My dear sweet but illiterate wife thinks any word or gesture that does not smack of brickyard brawn and brutality is a word or gesture of weak dandyism” (41). Furthermore, he is not fond of all the attention she gains as it is mentioned during one of the group meetings that

“Mr. Harding has been heard to say that she [Vera] ‘damn well gives the bastards reason to stare’” (41).

There is an irony in stating that it is the woman’s fault that men are staring as if the men could not control where they gaze. Also, meanwhile he wishes his wife would dress up more, he and the other patients still gawk at the Big Nurse who is actively concealing her body.

Moreover, although Harding suggests to McMurphy that the “one truly effective weapon against the juggernaut of modern matriarchy” is man’s penis and the use of rape, he never thinks of using those “weapons” himself to conquer his wife.

Finally, the novel claims that Harding “has also been heard to say that he may give her

[Vera] reason to seek further sexual attention” (41), but at the same time “Harding brags a lot about having such a woman for a wife, says she’s the sexiest woman in the world and she can’t get enough of him nights” (19). Normally, one would understand that “she can’t get enough of him nights” means he is sexually very active, but in the context of Harding giving Vera “reason to seek further sexual attention” and Vera stating he does not “have enough of nothing” it seems that the statement has to be understood literally – it possibly suggests Vera’s inability to “get enough of him” as he does not provide enough to her.

47 During her visit, she complains to Harding that his friends are constantly dropping around the house to see him: “You know the type, don’t you, Mack? (…) The hoity-toity boys with the nice long hair combed so perfectly and the limp little wrists that flip so nice” (174).

Although she is complaining to her husband about his friends, she describes them as handsome and well-groomed. Being asked if it was only him that they were dropping around to see, she answers that “any man that drops around to see her flips more than his damned limp wrists”

(174). That statement would also correspond with Harding’s feelings of inadequacy and his giving her reasons to seek further sexual attention as it seems Vera openly admits she cheats on

Harding with his friends who come to visit. We can either assume that it is the truth and Vera indeed satisfies her sexual needs with others when her husband is not available, or she just responds to Harding’s constant jealousy by teasing him.

Vera Harding is being sexualized just as the Big Nurse and her breasts are center of men’s attention: “across the room I could see down her blouse” (173), “his wife’s ample bosom at times gives him a feeling of inferiority” (41), “she’s got very big breasts” (19), “she’s got one hell of a set of chabobs, (…) big as Old Lady Ratched’s” (174). Ruth Sullivan states that

Vera not only castrates Harding and beats him in a power struggle but also “denies him the emotional support and tenderness he needs, a failure symbolized for her as for Nurse Ratched by her outsized breasts” (21). Although Harding uses his wife to boast about his sexuality via marrying “the sexiest woman in the world”, the reader knows he does not fulfill his marital obligations – does it not make Harding a failure as well?

Moreover, Sullivan explains that “Mrs. Harding’s breasts signal for Harding her especially active sexuality and sex appeal but unconsciously such breasts likely stir remembrance of motherly giving, a quality in which Mrs. Harding is deficient” (21). Harding most likely sees himself as a victim; however, the novel fails to deliver the perspective of the other side, in this case, of Mrs. Harding. When Vera finally leaves, Harding asks McMurphy

48 about his opinion on his wife, to which McMurphy replies: “You want me to feel sorry for you, to think she’s a real bitch. Well, you didn’t make her feel like any queen either” (174). Even the misogynistic McMurphy manages to see the character of their relationship and that the situation is not simply black-and-white.

6.2. The mothers

Mothers play quite an important role in the novel as they hold power over the men in their lives, and they appear to be a reoccurring theme of the novel as well. They are noticeable for their lack of compassion and similarly to the Big Nurse, who does not correspond with the stereotypical image of a kind, caring nurse, the mothers also stand in opposition to the stereotype. Instead of being kind, supporting figures granting security, they are cold, powerful, and the ones who wear the pants in their families instead of men. The novel seems to disapprove of women in control as the story suggests that such women are bad, unnatural, and have to be dominated by men.

The theme of a mother figure is present throughout the novel; however, some of the women are expected to act like mothers despite not being ones. When they decline to nurture the men or sexually empower them, they are perceived as bad characters that need to be conquered to care about the needs of the men. For instance, Géfin claims that “archetypal and psychoanalytic criticism have variously interpreted Big Nurse’s big breasts as signs of the

Destructive Mother or the Bad Mother” (98). Similarly, Foley states that the Big Nurse “seems to be a deliberate inversion of the archetypal mother-figure, the characteristic life-giving and nurturing love transmuted into a destructive and paralyzing oppressiveness” (45). However, the

Big Nurse is not a mother of the patients nor a mother in general; they only expect her to act motherly due to her gender and the size of her breasts. Ruth Sullivan explains that the inmates

49 yearn “the Big Nurse’s actions should answer the promise of her anatomy, the promise of softness and abundant giving one can associate with a mother’s breasts” (21).

As already mentioned, the patients observe the feminine body of the Big Nurse despite her trying to conceal her figure. Sullivan points out that Bromden fixates on the parts of her body that a child would fixate on: “He is captured by the quality of the whole body in its stiff uniform, then by her breasts, face, mouth, eyes and hands; not the hips, say, or the belly or shoulders but all those portions of anatomy that a child fastens on in relating to his mother”

(21). When he observes those body parts it is in order to determinate her mood: “she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl” (4), “she’s calm, smiling, lost in the work of loading the needles” (25), “she walks around with that same doll smile crimped between her chin and her nose and that same calm whir coming from her eyes, but down inside of her she’s tense as steel” (26), “she darted the eyes out with every word, stabbing at the men’s faces” (299).

The only time the Big Nurse actually behaves like a mother is when she discovers Billy

Bibbit together with Candy after their sexual encounter. As Billy feels threatened by Miss

Ratched and her telling on him: “what worries me, Billy, (…) is how your poor mother is going to take this” (301), he blames both McMurphy and Candy for forcing him into the intercourse.

Bromden describes how the Big Nurse “put a hand on his neck and drew his cheek to her starched breast, stroking his shoulder while she turned a slow, contemptuous look across the bunch of us” (302). Even when acting motherly, she seems more like a caricature of a mother, for instance, the “starched breast” suggests the distance between her and Billy. When comforting him, she uses a different voice than usual; however, her expression does not change with the voice: “it was strange to hear that voice, soft and soothing and warm as a pillow, coming out of a face hard as porcelain” (302).

50 Similarly, Harding expects his childless wife to support and nurture him the way a mother would, all that based on her anatomy: “such breasts likely stir remembrances of motherly giving, a quality in which Mrs. Harding is deficient” (Sullivan 21). Instead of taking care of her adult husband, Vera focuses on her own life and is criticized for that.

Finally, even the real mothers fail in their motherly obligations as they ruin or have already ruined the lives of their sons. Patricia Reis claims that “the picture presented is one of mother as malicious perpetrator of pathology for the unsuspecting and innocent child” (86).

6.2.1. Mrs. Bibbit

The reader does not know Mrs. Bibbit’s first name and there is not much information about her in the novel, except for her being a mother of Billy Bibbit, working as a receptionist in the mental hospital and being “a neighbor of the Big Nurse’s (…) and a dear personal friend

[of hers]” (281). Visually, she is described as a “solid, well-packed lady with hair revolving from blond to blue to black and back to blond again every few months” (ibid).

She has a dependent relationship with her son, and while she is overprotective and manipulative, Billy is obsessed with her which prevents him from having relationships with other women. Moreover, Mrs. Bibbit is described as “overbearing” and the novel seems to suggest that she is the cause of Billy’s stutter and timidity around women. When the Big Nurse inquires Billy at one of the group meetings, whether he recalls when the stutter began, he replies: “Fir-first stutter? First stutter? The first word I said I st-stut-tered: m-m-m-m-mamma”

(128). Reis states that “the inference is plain. The first instance of the affliction comes in direct relationship with the ‘momma’. The first independent speech is already tainted with pathology”

(86).

Despite Billy not living with his mother, he is constantly reminded of her by Miss

Ratched: “Mrs. Bibbit’s always been so proud of your discretion. I know she has. This is going

51 to disturb her terribly. You know how she is when she gets disturbed, Billy; you know how ill the poor woman can become. She’s very sensitive. Especially concerning her son. She always spoke so proudly of you” (301). The Big Nurse emotionally blackmails Billy to ensure he will remain obedient and will not behave in any way his mother would not approve of. “Big Nurse as an extension of his mother is his mother surrogate. She has connections with his mother on the ‘outside’, is on friendly terms with her. Big Nurse upholds Bibbit’s mother complex, keeps it activated” (Reis 86). Mrs. Bibbit does not seem to be mentally fit as Miss Ratched highlights that she gets disturbed easily to the point it makes her very ill. The supposed sickness concerning her son is usually used against her timid son to make sure he will behave in the asylum.

Another thing the reader learns about Mrs. Bibbit is that she appears not to accept her role as a mother and it seems she wishes she could stay young forever. This desire, just as the inability to let Billy go and support him in his decisions, is illustrated when she spends an afternoon with him outside the building:

She sat stiff there on the grass (…) and Billy lay beside her and put his head in her lap and let her tease at his ear with a dandelion fluff. Billy was talking about looking for a wife and going to college someday. His mother tickled him with the fluff and laughed at such foolishness. “Sweetheart, you still have scads of time for things like that. Your whole life is ahead of you.” “Mother, I’m th-th-thirty-one years old!” She laughed and twiddled his ear with the weed. “Sweetheart, do I look like the mother of a middle-aged man?” (281)

Mrs. Bibbit may deny Billy the normal life he wants to lead because if he attended college or found himself a wife she would have to admit her real age to herself. Another possibility is that she does not want Billy to grow up and so she does not let him. However, it is interesting that she does not entirely dismiss Billy’s wishes, but rather postpones them by claiming he still has

“scads of time for things like that”. If she is indeed trying to deny her age, one of the means of

52 doing so is by frequently changing her hair color. Her behavior also does not correspond with her age, for instance, when she “opened her lips at him [Billy] and made a kind of wet kissing sound in the air with her tongue” (281) it does not make her look like an adult woman. Similarly, there is no point in asking her son whether she looks like the mother of a middle-aged man, because despite her looking younger, she is the mother of a middle-aged man. Throughout the novel, the reader meets with the criticism of females who reject the roles typically assigned to them and Mrs. Bibbit is one of them as she seems to be rejecting the traditional role of a mother.

She does not entirely reject the role since she did not abandon her child, but she is in no way a representative of a mother figure.

Finally, Mrs. Bibbit’s obsessive behavior humiliates Billy, for instance, Bromden reports that whenever the patients go on some activity “Billy would always be obliged to stop and lean a scarlet cheek over that desk for her to dab a kiss on. It embarrassed the rest of us as much as it did Billy, and for that reason nobody ever teased him about it, not even McMurphy”

(281). Although there is nothing embarrassing about kissing one’s child, from the masculinist point of view it seems especially humiliating because it is happening to a grown-up man in public.

53 6.2.2. Mary Louise Bromden

Mrs. Bromden represents one of the cold, castrating female characters. She did not castrate Bromden directly, but through emasculating his father, her husband, which affected

Bromden and the rest of the tribe. She is a proud Christian townswoman and it is not very clear why she married the Chief of the Injuns in the first place since she does not understand the

Indian traditions and considers them uncivilized: “Teachin’ a kid to eat bugs! (…) We ain’t

Indians. We’re civilized and you remember it” (272).

One of the ways she emasculated her husband was that she did not give up her maiden surname and did not take her husband’s name, but instead made him take hers: “You’re the biggest by God fool if you think that a good Christian woman takes on a name like Tee Ah

Millatoona” (272). Bromden explains that his father’s name ‘Tee Ah Millatoona’ stands for

‘the Pine-That-Stands-Tallest-on-the-Mountain’. By removing his Indian name representing his size, confidence, and capacity of a man, Mrs. Bromden reduced him of not only his strength and manliness but also a part of his identity. She also emasculated him by forcing him to take her maiden surname as opposed to the tradition when a woman takes her husband’s name.

Bromden describes the imbalance in his parent’s relationship that only intensified with time: “He was real big when I was a kid. My mother got twice his size (…) She got bigger all the time (…) Bigger than Papa and me together” (207). The depiction of his mother growing bigger connotes with the portrayal of Big Nurse’s inhuman qualities. While Mary Louise

Bromden’s size did not change, her influence on her husband grew, which finally manifested in the Chief selling his land to the American government.

To be fair, Bromden admits it was not only his mother who emasculated his father: “It wasn’t just her that made him little. Everybody worked on him because he was big, and wouldn’t give in, and did like he pleased” (209). What he blames his mother for is that she

“made him too little to fight any more and he gave up” (ibid).

54 When the people from the government came to negotiate with the Chief, the government lady noticed “[Bromden’s] mamma’s dresses hung so careful on the line” (202) and came up with a plan she knew would work:

“You recall the record we have shows the wife is not Indian but white? White. A woman from town. Her name is Bromden. He took her name, not she his. Oh, yes, I think if we just leave now and go back into town, and, of course, spread the word with the townspeople about the government’s plans so they understand the advantages of having a hydroelectric dam and a lake instead of a cluster of shacks beside a falls, then type up an offer - and mail it to the wife, you see, by mistake? I feel our job will be a great deal easier.” (202)

Just as the government lady whose eyes “spring up like the numbers in a cash register” (202) expected, Mrs. Bromden came to believe in the advantages of the dam and probably also wanted the money. She was one of the “civilized” people and as she could not share some of the core values with her husband and his tribe, she persuaded the Chief to sell the land. “By overmanagement, Mrs. Bromden ruined her husband and her son, too” (Sullivan 19). Although the tribe received the payment, Chief Bromden was devastated, “What can you pay for the way a man lives?” (208), and turned to alcoholism. Without his lead, the tribe decayed as well.

Mary Louise Bromden perhaps realized her wrongdoing after the decline of the tribe, if ever. It would not be exactly fair to judge her decisions as she had a different upbringing than her Indian husband and most likely believed that what she is doing is right. She did not understand the traditions and values of the Indians, nor did she attempt to. When Bromden’s grandmother died, his father and uncle dug her body up after the funeral so they could hang her in a tree. Mrs. Bromden, a Christian woman, simply could not understand the ritual: “Hanging a corpse in a tree! It’s enough to make a person sick” (274). It is not exactly peculiar that she did not understand; just as it was normal for the Indians to dig her up, it is normal for the white people to keep the corpse buried.

55 Mrs. Bromden could have possibly feel alienated as well. She lived with the Indians in a “hovel” (199), she did not understand Bromden’s men and they did not understand her. The

Indians were constantly aware of her race, the race that oppressed them. When asking about the dead grandma’s corpse, one of the Indians told her: “Ah go fuck yourself, paleface” (274).

Therefore, it is not very surprising that she chose to work with her own, “civilized” people.

6.3. Candy

Candy is McMurphy’s friend, “the ideally willing and cheerful young prostitute who accompanies McMurphy and a group of inmates on a deep-sea fishing expedition” (Géfin 100), and the one who is supposed to “cure” Billy Bibbit by deflowering him. We do not know her exact age, but by the way Bromden describes her, the reader can tell she is very young: “When she blushed she didn’t look more than sixteen or seventeen, I swear she didn’t” (220).

Considering the history McMurphy has with young women, it is possible that she truly is underage; as we know, the reason why McMurphy went to prison in the first place was the rape, albeit statutory, of a fifteen-year-old girl. However, it is evident from the novel that McMurphy does not exactly distinguish between the ages as his defense for the rape is the following: “She said she was seventeen, Doc, and she was plenty willin’ (…) So willin’, in fact, I took to sewing my pants shut” (43). In McMurphy’s point of view, it is the girl’s fault that the sex even happened as she claimed she is older, although still underage, and because she initiated the intercourse. He continues by saying: “Hoo boy, I had to leave (…) that little hustler would of actually burnt me to frazzle by the time she reached legal sixteen” (43). By asserting the girl’s overly active sexuality, he is sort of distancing himself from the incident, but at the same time, he is bragging about his own sexuality that lured the girl.

In the novel, Candy is depicted as a kind, expressive, submissive, easy-going, and sexual, the exact opposite of the Big Nurse. She is a “sweet, pacifying, non-nutritious treat”

56 (Reis 91), who “exists only to please and satisfy the man’s sexual desires” (ibid). Her role as a restorator of male potency and power is visible even before her arrival to the asylum, for instance, when the orderlies are discussing how Bromden managed to write his name on the

Fishing Trip’s attendance list and are making fun of his presumed illiteracy, Bromden thinks to himself: “The hell with that. A man goin’ fishing with two whores from Portland don’t have to take that crap” (213). When she visits the asylum, she becomes the object of male desire as all the patients and even the doctor gawk at her: “she had to stand there a minute while she looked around to find McMurphy, so everybody got a long look at her” (219), “the doctor was eying the blond girl’s T-shirt like nothing else existed” (221). She is, just as the Big Nurse, subjected to the male gaze, but in comparison with Ratched, she does not mind and enjoys the attention, which makes her a positive character. Although the patients welcome her, the female staff of the hospital reacts differently: “the girl came jouncing up the hall past the Nurses’ Station, where all the nurses were trying to freeze her bounce with a united icy look” (219).

Candy is the supposed cure for male impotence and repressed sexuality. She empowers the patients just by being in their presence, and they enjoy gawking at her hardly covered body.

Reis explains her role in the novel:

When a male lives in the myth of matriarchy, all of his relationships with the feminine are distorted, destructive and unfulfilling. When a male worships in the temple of this matriarchy, he is cut off from real women and is not capable of having a real sexual life. In the patriarchal myth of matriarchy, however, an imagined sexualized aspect of the feminine appears – “the whore with a heart of gold” (…) in the novel, her name is Candy.” (91)

Her role as the savior of the patients’ hidden masculinity is foreshadowed a few times in the novel, for instance, when the fishermen speculate about Candy’s role in the rather odd group:

“Tell me, Blondie, what’ve they got you committed for?” “Ahr, she ain’t committed, Perce, she’s part of the cure!” “Is that right, Blondie? You hired as part of the cure? Hey you, Blondie.”

57 She lifted her head and gave us a look that asked where was that hard-boiled bunch she’d seen and why weren’t they saying something to defend her? Nobody would answer the look. (230)

However, as the reader learns later in the novel, Candy does not and cannot stand for the cure.

As Patricia Reis explains, “Candy offers a soporific, a momentary, illusionary escape from life in the matriarchy. She is brought in as a potential healer, one with the magical powers to break down mother rule. But, she, too is part of the myth, not separate from it. There is only the illusion of cure” (91). Although Billy seemingly recovers from his stuttering after the sexual intercourse with Candy, when he is confronted by the Big Nurse who expresses her disappointment and threatens to inform his mother, Billy’s stutter quickly returns. Candy could work as a temporary solution to the sexual problems of the men, but she is not capable of

“fixing” them.

The novel seems to suggest that the only solution to the patients’ sexual problems is the domination of the women who emasculate them, therefore the prostitutes cannot suffice.

Michael Meloy clarifies that the sexual acts with the prostitutes cannot help the men since

“these [the prostitutes] are not the female figures that terrorize McMurphy and the ward. Rather,

McMurphy must retain his masculinity by confronting the female figure of power. McMurphy must rape Nurse Ratched” (11).

Similar to the Big Nurse, Candy’s breasts are also exposed in the novel. At the fishing expedition, she decides to try fishing herself, and as she fights with the rod, the reel unzips her jacket and reveals she is not wearing anything under it: “the T-shirt she had on is gone – everybody gawking, trying to play his own fish (…) with the crank of that reel fluttering her breast at such speed the nipple’s just a red blur” (237). Even when Candy becomes exposed and injured, she does not cease to be objectified; the attention is directed to her breasts even more:

“her breasts look so firm I think she and Billy could both turn loose with their hands and arms and she’d still keep hold of that pole” (ibid). Bromden fantasizes about Candy’s breasts rather

58 than helping her, the same as the other patients who are “yammering and struggling and cussing and trying to tend their poles while watching the girl” (ibid).

What differentiates Candy from Miss Ratched is also her reaction to the exposure.

Meanwhile, the Big Nurse is sexually assaulted, therefore horrified and possibly traumatized,

Candy is exposed accidentally and with no sexual subtext and despite her breast hurting it is no big deal for her – she even laughs at the absurdity of the situation: “the girl, with her eyes still smarting as she looks from her white breast to her red one, she starts laughing” (238).

59 Conclusion

The thesis aimed to explore the way the female characters are depicted in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and examine why the majority of the women are perceived negatively. Besides the portrayal of women, it dealt with the archetypes of female characters and their sexual roles in relationship to male characters in the novel. The main focus was placed on the character of Miss Ratched, the dominant antagonist of the story; however, a few selected female characters were analyzed as well.

The double standard of perceiving the sexuality of men and women is quite evident in the novel. Any woman that does not provide men access to her body is a cold “bitch”, any woman that is not interested into being objectified and sexualized is a “castrator” as she fails to empower the men. It seems the only satisfying role for women is pleasing the men around them, being submissive and obedient. McMurphy is celebrated as a hero who helps his friends to liberate their repressed sexuality at the expense of the Big Nurse who ends up sexually assaulted. The others admire him for his open sexuality, and it seems none of his friends and followers minds he is a rapist.

The dominant, powerful women are seemingly disapproved of because they do not conform to the “traditional” female roles – they have their own careers, put themselves in the first place instead of their husbands or sons, and are not sexually available, which appears to emasculate the men around them. Compared to them, the novel celebrates the characters of prostitutes as they empower the men, are loose and cheerful and seem to exist purely to please the men in their surroundings. The Indian grandmother and Japanese nurse are also portrayed positively as they are not perceived as sexual objects, and as they sympathize with the men.

The thesis presented another perspective of the novel – the perspective of women. Kesey omits the experience of the women, the female characters are flat, and they have no personal background. They are judged based on the male perspective; therefore, this paper attempted to

60 present a more objective picture. Ken Kesey portrays the majority of women in the novel as

“ball-cutters” and “castrators” and directs his readers to root for the oppressed patients who need to fight the injustice to liberate themselves. However, some of the means of fighting are rather disturbing, namely the belief that in order to destroy the “juggernaut of matriarchy”, one has to rape the domineering woman to conquer and defeat her. Although the Big Nurse is not an entirely positive character, after rereading the novel from a feminist point of view, one has to feel sorry for her.

Finally, the real problem in the relationship between a man and a woman in the novel is the power struggle. Meanwhile, the people in the position of power are women, men feel oppressed and demand to be the ones in control; they consider the powerful females unnatural and evil. The portrayal of women as the people in power probably stems from the period after

WWII and the second feminist wave when women refused to go back to being only housewives.

Kesey seems to criticize such an approach via the characters of Big Nurse, Vera Harding, Mrs.

Bibbit, or Mary Louise Bromden.

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