One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Improved Essays
In the book One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy the main character and Nurse Ratched also known as the “Big Nurse” have had their differences, but there’s a reason why the power between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy differ from each other. McMurphy and Nurse Ratched butthead a lot throughout the story. McMurphy represents freedom and joy meanwhile Nurse Ratched represents authority, evil, and death showing the different characteristics making them unique to their character and how their power also affects their actions towards each other and patients. This book consists of a Nurse Ratched dominating, emasculating and belittling men by shaming the patients and eventually causing some men to commit suicide. McMurphy has a crucial part in the …show more content…
Ratched often picks on men making them feel uncomfortable and awkward. By doing this, she ensures that control and power will demean and diminish the men in the ward. Nurse Ratched fears that McMurphy is potentially taking her power and ability from the ward. Her title is a head nurse which she takes as giving self-empowerment. When the Public Relation man is walking around giving a tour he explains, “[he] chose this ward because it’s [Nurse Ratched’s] ward” (Kesey 37). He interprets it as if Ratched has ownership of the ward due to her assertive attitude. He sees Nurse Ratched as the women who possesses the men and has the potential to do what she pleases, giving her reassurance that she is well-liked by others giving her more power. Nurse Ratched is also liked by Billy Bibbit’s mother, therefore giving her control and bullies him. When Nurse Ratched finds Candy, the prostitute, in his bed she becomes angry when she walks in to both of them in bed. He gets embarrassed when he realizes that Big Nurse had just seen them. Nurse Ratched, given that she is an old friend of his mother, threatens Billy that she will tell his mother of his

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