Who Is The Antagonist In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Jood Abuali
I.B. English Written Assignment- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Mr. Rader
23 November 2016
Word Count:
In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the author Ken Kesey 1.enthralls the reader’s attention by displaying events of 2.diminished 3.humanity all throughout the book. This book revolves around the idea that women may be a threat to the masculinity of mental ward patients.The 4.diverse types of minority groups become 5.conspicuous as the author reveals the 6.inclement and sadistic character, Nurse Ratched, the stories antagonist, , who runs the ward with morbid intentions to desiccate the courage of the people around her. The power in which she portrays is ample to the point it becomes flagrant. Her choice of words and

background knowledge on the patient's weaknesses engender her ability to control people within the ward using insinuation. Although she claims that her actions are in favor for everyone she has contact with within the ward, they are just facades in which covert her manipulation. Throughout the novel, the power of emasculation was a common implement in which controlled the ward, dismayed the courage of many patients and reinforced the strength of those in authority.
Nurse Ratched enforces a strict system of rules and regulations in which must be followed by everyone in the ward.

To keep the ward from being rowdy, she chronically reminds the patients of their weaknesses. In the story, the Nurse becomes referred to as “Big Nurse” because of her ample power and capabilities. She sets up a logbook in which the patient’s write the secrets they here about one another. Big Nurse claims that this logbook will have therapeutic value and interest to the whole ward. Chief the narrator of the book impugns the Nurse’s theory. Chief states, “Sometimes one man says something about himself that he didn’t aim to let slip, and one of his buddies at the table where he said it yawns and gets up and sidles over to the big log book by the Nurse’s Station and writes down the piece of information he heard--- of therapeutic interest to the whole ward, is what the Big Nurse says the book is for, but I know she is waiting to get enough evidence to have some guy reconditioned at the Main Building, overhauled in the head to straighten out the trouble.” (Kesey- ch3) This quote reveals the fact that Big Nurse uses their secrets as weapons against themselves. She does this to curb the ward in a unified manner. Chief enhances his point about Nurse Ratched’s fictitious intentions by making an allusion to the outcome of the use of the logbook. Chief knows from past experience that if someone’s behavior goes against the conduct, Big Nurse has the ability to call for a

lobotomy on a patient. This is done to weaken the abilities of those who oppose her rules and cause distress among the ward. Big Nurse does all she is capable of to diminish any power or threat a patient might have against her authority.
Nurse Ratched sustains her power among the ward with the use of emasculation of the patients and shames and fears. Not only does she criticize them indirectly but her degree of insinuation on the people around her cause them to have vulnerable personalities. In the story, Billy Bibbit, a patient in ward who has always been the coward who has trouble “fitting” into society. His sense of self have been derived from the people and world around him. Billy is greatly influenced and sensitive to other people’s judgement and opinions. His mother’s intense incubation has damaged his ability to function properly with the world outside the ward. He has been emasculated from his self esteem from both his mother’s discouragement and Nurse Ratched’s authority. This is demonstrated when Nurse Ratched says, “You men are in this hospital...because of your proven inability to adjust to society. (Kesey-pg167) When Billy Bibbit mentions to his mother about his dreams to go to college and get married she simply demoralizes his hopes. She tells him, “Sweetheart, you have scads of time for things like that….you have your whole life ahead of you.”(Kesey-59) Even though he is thirty one years old, his mother is maudlin to a point where she is not mentally stable enough to process the fact that Billy should live a life of an independent middle aged man. In the quote, spoken by Billy Bibbit’s mother, the author uses a hyperbole to emphasize her impotence to understand her son is a grown man. The manner in which his mother responds to his plans makes it see as if Billy has a lavish amount of time ahead of him to make these decisions.
In the novel, Nurse Ratched’s seems to have been the most common character in which revealed the most emasculation through her actions throughout the story.

However, the story's protagonist, Mc Murphy, did not let her bypass the consequences of her flagrant mischief throughout the ward. Rather than wait patiently in hope that karma would get reverted back to her, he took matters into his own hands. Towards the end of the story, the Big Nurse became so assertive to get the ward back under her control, she felt the need to hold Mc Murphy notorious for the rascality occurring in the ward. Eventually, Mc Murphy became so agitated with Nurse Ratched’s knavery, that he breaks through the glass door. He rips her through white, starched uniform down the middle of her chest exposing her large breasts swelling out of her uniform. At this point in the story, this is Mc Murphy's method of emasculating Nurse Ratched of her strength. Her large breasts trsnsusde seuxality and symbolize a malicious mother-like figure. Ever since the beginning of the story, the Big Nurse always attempted to secrete her large breast behind her white, tight and starched uniform.It is as if she was attempting to eliminate the role of sexes in the ward. Nurse Ratched seems to be humiliated of her own sexuality. Mc Murphy takes pleasure in reminding her that she is undeniably a woman. As tensions begins to form between Big Nurse and Mc Murphy, she overcompensates to represent her masculinity. At the end of the

novel Mc Murphy symbolically exposes her piousness and artifice. At this point her power has diminished and she is never able to regain it back. This is elucidated at the end of the novel when Chief states, “She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the meetings and singing in the latrines. She couldn’t rule with her old power any more, not by writing things on pieces of paper. She was losing her patients one after the other. After Harding signed out and was picked up by his wife, and George transferred to a different ward, just three of us were left out of the group that had been on the fishing crew, myself and Martini and Scanlon.” Kessey uses a hyperbole when he mentions “Mc Murphy’s presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud”, to emphasize Mc Murphy’s impact on the environment of the ward. The author uses an allusion to recall Mc Murphy’s past presence among the ward. Although, Mc Murphy is not their physically, the nurse feels him there in spirit. This has mortified her ability to run the ward as strict as she used to, ever since he emasculated her of her authority.
In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey establishes a keen connection between the characters’ sexualities and their liberation to be courageous. Characters including Nurse Ratched, Mc Murphy and Billy’s mother have all insinuated other characters to strip them of their freedom within the ward. The manipulation that occurs within the ward has do with making other characters betray one another and reveal their shame. The manner in which the dominant characters attack the other's’ “manhood” demonstrates their methods for manipulating the inferior characters under control.