Nurse Ratched

History will show that women who procured stature and power in society have always struggled to keep their position, and those who tried to topple these women from their lofty perch were, more than likely, always men. It is the same in Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in which the character, Nurse Ratched, struggles to keep her self-constructed domain together after an opposing enemy, named McMurphy, fights to pull power from her by causing a revolt. In the end, Nurse Ratched wins the battle between her and McMurphy by having him lobotomized, but does she really win the age-old battle of male versus female by suppressing him? Another question is: Why do readers see Nurse Ratched as an evil and conniving woman for trying to save her own self-constructed domain? Feminist critics point out that Kesey’s portrayal of Nurse Ratched is degrading because they truly believe she represents the negative personification of the female struggle for power. However, there is a need to look at Nurse Ratched from a different point of view and reveal the positive qualities that Kesey is trying to portray in women through Nurse Ratched. If we analyze the sexist language used to describe Nurse Ratched from a positive female perspective, we would notice that the control and power she uses is to maintain order in a chaotic environment that the men have created in her self-constructed domain. Though the men on the ward see her as a dominating dictator, as readers, we need to take a leap of faith in order to understand that her dominating attitude is a calculated move to maintain order, which in turn, can be considered a positive character trait. Our goal is to look at Nurse Ratched from a female perspective but examine her in a positive light, while interpreting Kesey’s intentions as to why he uses sexist stereotypes to characterize a woman’s struggle to keep her domain. When Kesey released his novel in 1962, America was in the midst of a civil