Nurse Ratched Essay

The majority of the female characters in the novel are portrayed as the antagonists, with the exception of the prostitutes, and could be labelled as having ‘emasculating female authority’. Feminists would argue that Ken Kesey’s portrayal of Nurse Ratched in particular is misogynistic and critics would question why the character is negatively portrayed despite her role as an authority figure in helping patients and keeping order. This negative portrayal of women with power and authority may mirror the general feeling amongst men in 1960s America during the time when the feminist movement focused on workforce inequality such as limited leadership opportunities and lower paid salary. Kesey’s portrayal suggests that women cannot gain authority

over men unless they possess a significant weakness that the women can exploit. This suggests that women are not capable of having a dominant role naturally because they are ‘essentially’ different to men due to biology. Nurse Ratched is often described as attempting to conceal her femininity in order to gain power over a male only institution, however there are other characters such as Harding’s wife who exploits her sexuality in order to make her husband feel inferior. Therefore is Kesey trying to portray a more universal theme of ‘emasculation’ through using female characters that represent the ideals of second-wave feminism or is the writer trying to convey a fear through scapegoating.
In the first reading, it is arguable to say that the character of Nurse Ratched can only gain authority by concealing her femininity in a ‘sexless get up’ and choosing to ‘ignore the way nature had tagged her with those outsized badges of femininity’.

Her bag is described as ‘a bag shape of a tool box’ that had ‘no compact or lipstick or woman stuff’. The phrase ‘toolbox’ supports the notion that genders differ due to biology1 since the character has to resort to using the power that her job title offers, like using ‘tiny pills’, ‘needles’ and ‘forceps’, in order to establish control over a male-only institute. There is a constant reference to the character’s bosom and the writer uses McMurphy, the embodiment of masculinity, to observe how ‘she did her best to conceal but never could’. Kesey also uses Bromden’s view to state that a ‘mistake’ was made on putting those ‘big, womanly breast’ and ‘you can see how bitter she is about it’ thus it highlights that the character’s greatest weakness is her feminine trait, suggesting that women are not capable of authority unless they suppress their femininity to a degree. This is further reinforced at the end of the novel when Mcmurphy tears the nurse’s uniform down the front exposing her breasts that were ‘bigger than anybody had ever even imagined’, therefore enforcing her femininity. Kesey demonstrates how Nurse Ratched loses her power after this because the patients who had voluntarily committed decide to leave and even the Chief escapes. On the other hand, Nurse Ratched is still viewed as one of the most powerful characters in the novel and through a more in-depth analysis it is suggested that she is a microcosm for a universal force of

emasculation.
The symbolism of machinery comes in the form of the ‘Combine’, which Marcia Holly argues is portrayed as the ‘destructive element’ and is symbolized as a woman. Holly states that the novel is concerned with ‘emasculation, the destruction of male energy and vitality’. This view is valid to an extent since emasculation is strongly presented throughout the novel, especially with male characters that are repressed and are referred to as ‘rabbits’. The medication used to repress the patients is described with the lexis of ‘glitter’ and ‘porcelain’ in ‘cogs polished to hard glitter’ and ‘tiny pills that gleam like porcelain’ to create juxtaposition between femininity and machinery. Harding states that the patients are ‘victims of matriarchy’ and through Kesey’s language readers can see how the ‘Combine’ is portrayed in the form of matriarchy. Nevertheless there is much evidence to suggest that the ‘Combine’ is a symbol for a universal form of emasculation, shown briefly to readers in Bromden’s nightmare of the hospital turning into a mechanical slaughterhouse. Kesey constantly uses machinery jargon when Bromden refers to the ward as a ‘factory’ and that it is for ‘fixing up mistakes’ made in the real world. Nurse Ratched states that the patients are in the ward because of their ‘proven inability to adjust to society’, thus disagreeing with the view that the novel deals only with the destruction of ‘male energy’. Readers become aware that the ‘Combine’ can be interpreted as a reference to society at large. Figures such as Nurse Ratched act as agents who are there to regulate and reinforce the rules of society as demonstrated in ‘She’ll go winning’ because she has ‘all the power of the Combine behind her’. Kesey describes Nurse Ratched as machine-like with her gestures being ‘precise, automatic’ and her face is ‘smooth, calculated, and precision-made’. Often she is objectified as a ‘doll’ and is criticized for believing that she is above sex and everything else that is ‘weak’ and of ‘flesh’. Such observation is of great significance as it strips away the human element from the character, allowing readers to view her as an emasculating figure that represents an unfair inhumane system. Feminist would further argue that the constant use of matriarchy to represent the emasculation aspect of society as a whole falls under the negative stereotyping of women.6
The female characters in the novel are presented as ‘Other’2 and feminist critics such as Josephine Donovan agrees with this representation of Nurse Ratched since she is a woman who ‘detracts from the goals of the male protagonist’. This is constantly demonstrated in the battle between the ‘Big Nurse’ and McMurphy, the antagonist, who seeks to escape the constraints of society. Nurse Ratched often disregards her morals and ethics in order to make men conform to her and Mcmurphy describes her as a ‘ball-cutter’ who ‘weaken you by getting’ you where it hurts the worst’. Terence Martin’s analysis is based on the acceptance that Kesey’s work supports the notion that ‘human life problems stem from emasculating female authority’3 which is valid as women in control are constantly portrayed with emasculating features. It is suggested that the demoralization of the Indians had resulted due to women with power. The government woman’s outfit in the flashback is described as ‘armour plate’, a metaphor that clearly indicates the authority that the character holds but can also be linked to the Combine in the sense that she is an agent of the government who seeks to control society. Feminism clearly points out the widespread negative stereotyping of women; those who are independent are disliked and rejected while helplessness in a female character is presented as admirable. The writer portrays characters that suppress and have authority over male characters, such as Billy Bibbit’s mother and Chief Bromden’s white mother, in a negative light. Bromden’s mother, who got ‘bigger all the time’ by using the power that her ethnicity gave, eventually made his father ‘too little to fight any more and he gave up’ thus this is a clear example of how readers are made to sympathise with Bromden’s father while his mother is antagonized. Another example is Harding’s wife’s bosom that gives him ‘a feeling of inferiority’. Here, Kesey is demonstrating how a woman can use her sexuality in order to undermine a male’s power, the opposite of how Nurse Ratched adopts her power. Furthermore, she is decribed as being ‘as tall as he is’ because of her ‘high-heeled shoes’ and carries her purse ‘the way you hold a book’ which once again demonstrates how the writer portrays a universal force, education in this case, as emasculating through the use of matriarchy. The only female characters who are not presented as antagonists are the prostitutes, who also fall under the category of the ‘Other’ female, because they willingly succumb to men’s desires. Consequently, there is much evidence to suggest that the novel deals with the ‘unequal power relations between men and women’4 although this inequality could be because the novel is written through a male gaze.6
Kesey’s overall portrayal of the female characters in his novel conforms to the negative stereotypical portrayal of women that second-wave feminism aimed to expose. Even when demonstrating how education and ethnicity can be emasculating, the writer portrays this through female characters that undermine the male characters. Nurse Ratched is the character that arguably fits the label of ‘emasculating female authority’ the most because she represents all of the elements in society (ethnicity, gender, education, etc) that can be used to emasculate others. However, there is also the argument that the character is simply an opportunist who had taken advantage over the situation that, before McMurphy arrived, there was no strong male character to dominate the ward. Readers must question the credibility of the narrator and the other patient’s observations in the ward as well since they are constantly on medication or also known as ‘the fog’. Nevertheless, there is not doubt that Kesey’s portrayal of women is misogynistic and this notion is used to portray the universal forms of emasculation, mainly society and the government.