“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey Essay

Throughout history, the struggle of wo custody to recognize and sustain g all overnment agency in society has proven to be difficult, and has coexisted with a rivalry a clearst the opposite sex. Women have been denied many passim the course of history. They have been discriminated a procurest, woolly jobs, lost privileges. Womens suffrage had not actual in the United States until the Nineteenth Amendment, which became rough-and-ready in time to exclusivelyow the select by women nationally in the presidential election of August 18, 1920. Stereotypical thought processs of the saint features of women argon muliebrityhood, maternity, gentility, c be, nurture, and dependency. Not matriarchate, independence, nor strength. Women are not generally associated with these features, and society generally expects women to posses the faux feminine toneistics.This is not the case in the novel One Flew Over the echos Nest, in which Ken Kesey shows a cleaning ladyhood set up h s enior a dominating, respect sufficient subprogram in society and be conflicting to the stereotypical muliebrity figure to evince the validity of the societys views close women and their characters using the loser of the matriarchal womanly character to succeed at her image assumed by her occupation.The matriarchal womanly, Mild ruddy monstrous Nurse Ratched, gains see over her ground in the mental hospital, only fails to replete her duties as a flirt with of heal or helping her patients. The sexist translation of her physical appearance provided by her patients are those typically associated with women, however, she spotly contradicts the typical womanish. She is a matriarchal figure, not maternal. She is powerful, not dependent. And she manipulates complete power over the staff and patients of the hospital. However, her matriarchate does not fulfill her duties assumed by her occupation to heal and help the patients. Instead, she worsens the station by diminis hing their strengths and exposing their imperfectnesses which she does to gain jibe in a way which appeals to her senses. abundant Nurse, or Mildred Ratched, attempts, and succeeds, to create her own orb within the confines of the guard single where she is completely in charge of all her subjects. This depicts her laborious matriarchal role. Her desire to gain complete tally over her milieu uses several strategical moves.After persuade her patients to confess their personal secrets, Ratched is understood by the patients to use the disadvantages of her patients to her own advantage in her fulfillment of gaining absolute power. Nurse Ratched is competent to smell out the fear of her patients and puke it to use (17) As the novel progresses, we alike learn that Ratcheds powers within the ward extend to ludicrous measures as she is up to(p) to order harming of the relatively disruptive patients, which contributes to her large amount of power withing the ward. In legion(p redicate) important scenes, we learn the extent of her power to prevent noisome independence she can, in addition to all the little humanistic discipline of prodding the guilty recesses of her patients consciences, order galvanizing shock, even lobotomize the recalcitrant or however disruptive patient. (Boardman )She achieves control over the ward, as her patients, aware of her power, obey willingly or unwillingly. mack, a patient at the hospital, promises to razz the give suck till she comes a realm at those neat little seams (12). However, he learns that he can be institutionalized as long as the nurse sees fit. He immediately becomes cagey, satisfying, temporarily at least (Boardman)Nurse Ratched is suitable to establish complete control in the ward, and her patients recognize her ability economise total control a grapheme of control that is parallel to a monarchy. In her own realm, Ratched is viewed as a in truth powerful individual, and the patients start to abide by h er rules.Harding, a patient, explains, We are victims of a matriarchy here, my friend, and the doctor is just as baffled against it as we are (54). This sentence is remarkably significant. It accredits the nurse as a dominant character in the hospital, and it also establishes the idea that the patients are not the only ones controlled by her, but the doctors as well. At times, Ratched refers to the sexuality of the men in the institute, making them inferior because of their inabilities.Ratcheds strength, and matriarchial character as a woman directly contradict the assumed characteristics associated with women those of femininity and gentility. This contradiction is established in a way many by critics that feel at the surface of the topic as a sexist description. In quaternate occurrences throughout the progression of the novel, Ratcheds effeminate characteristics are exaggeratively described by the patients much(prenominal) as McMurphy. McMurphy describes Ratched as having t oo red lipstick and the toobig boobs. (43) and as a a bitch and a buzzard and a ballcutter. at that placefore, Ratched directly opposes the traditional gentle view of women as a matriarch but is given over-exaggerated female characteristics. Keseys purpose in creating this occupation between a stereotypical woman and and an ideal woman that is independent and strong is to establish the goalless attempt at triumph of the ideal strong woman.The unsuccessful attempts of Ratched are depicted by her trouble to meet the assumed role of world a nurse that consists of helping and mend her patients. Instead of helping, Ratched proceeds to make the reconcile and maculation of her patients worse and worse as she puts them down about their inabilities and maintains total control over them. Ratched is even viewed as evil. McMurphy explains, No, that nurse aint some rather monster chicken, buddy, what she is is a ball-cutter. Ive seen a thousand of em, old and young, men and women.Seen em all over the country and in the homespeople who try to make you weak so that they can get you to walk the line, to follow their rules, to live like they command you to. If youre up against a hombre who wants to win by making you weaker sort of of making himself stronger, then watch for his knee, hes gonna go for your vitals. And thats what that old buzzard is doing. (58) McMurphy also refers to Ratched as invulnerable and this sets her apart from the typical view of a female and the clichd mother/ fancy woman dichotomy (Quinn) is established in the novel.There is an ambiguity that arises in the course of the novel, and the established dichotomy discussed by Quinn is expanded with a relation of the two parts the matriarch and the whore. Whereas Ratched uses power and control to accomplish her role of care and fails, the two whores introduced by McMurphy gain the trust and sympathy of the reader. They are viewed positively and as kind hearted by the patients in the institutio n. An excellent comparison captures the perception of the two figures Strong women are evil and emasculating (Quinn) and The women viewed positively in the novel are the kind-hearted whores whom Mac introduces to the men and the sympathetic and very flyspeck Japanese nurse who works on the Disturbed ward. (Quinn)Through this direct comparison of the strong woman that is apart from a typical figure and the stereotypical woman that performers an actdirectly associated with women, one can see that the typical woman is able to do what the other cannot gain the middle of the male. While Ratched hides her female characteristics by wearing away a white coat, the whores display their female attributes, and gain a positive view from the society made up of the hospital. McMurphys prior comment of Ratched being dependable is linked to this comparison, since sexuality is a trait apparently missing from Ratched.Ken Kesey depicts the failure of a non-typical female figure to accomplish her go als as a dominating powerful figure by describing Ratched as evil, and comparing her to whores, who are viewed as kind hearted. This obstreperous comparison is uncommon since typically whores are viewed as a malignant part of society and nurses are viewed as purgatory. As a complete opposite, the whores are able to help amend the feelings of the patients, whereas Nurse Ratched fails miserably to accomplish her duty and even worsens the situation of her patients. Through the development of the female characters in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Kesey is able to convince the reader that the stereotypical woman is able to successfully help society, musical composition the unusual matriarchal female is ineffective to fulfill her duties by gaining control and physical exercise domination.Works Cited(MLA Format)Boardman, Michael M. One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest Rhetoric and Vision. ledger of Narrative Technique 9. No. 3. reduce 1979. 171-83. Rpt. in contemporaneous Lit erary Criticism.Quinn, Laura. Moby shaft vs. Big Nurse A womens liberationist Defense of a Misogynist textual matter One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Censored Books Critical Viewpoints. Ed. Nicholas J. Karolides. Lee Burress. earth-closet M. Kean. Scarecrow Press, 1993 398-413. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Vol. 2.Zubizarreta, John. The Disparity of maneuver of View in One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest. Literature/ convey Quarterly 22. No 1. 1994 62-9. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism.