Feminist Perspective, One Flew
History shows us that females who procure power and stature in society always enter conflict to maintain their role, and those who try to overturn these women from their perches are almost always male. Nothing is changed in Ken Kesey's, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a novel in which the central character, Nurse Ratched fights to hold on to her self-assembled realm together after her opponent, Randle P. McMurphy, battles to extract control from her by inciting a revolution. At last, Ratched triumphs over McMurphy by having him lobotomized, but one must ask oneself if she truly does win the aged struggle of men versus women by quelling him. It should also be questioned why readers view Nurse Ratched as a conniving and evil woman simply for attempting to maintain her self-constructed order and control in her job. Feminist critics cite that the depiction of Nurse Ratched is debasing, for they really believe she portrays an unfavorable personification of women's fight for power and control. There is, however, an obligation to observe Nurse Ratched from the opposite angle and expose the positive attributes that Kesey was attempting to illustrate in women through the character of Nurse Ratched. By analyzing from a feminist perspect
It could be argued that he is describing her strengths, not her weaknesses, in giving this account. The goal here can be stated as analyzing Big Nurse from a positive feminist perspective, while also interpreting Kesey's intentions for using sexist stereotypes to depict a woman's battle to preserve her order. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 1995. In 1962, When Kesey wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, he wanted his readers to understand the male point of view of how all women were treated at the time. He recognizes that, at best, Chief Bromden's account of Nurse Ratched is theory and that his ideas concerning her true motives may not be reliable. The two women "were Army nurses together in the thirties"(59). In building her trio of aides, she was sure that the men she employed passed her strict requirements:Her three daytime black boys she acquires after more years of testing and rejecting thousands. One of many prevalent efforts at the time was the movement for Women's Liberation, which was "petitioning for equal opportunities and rewards for women" (Porter 5). In his book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Rising to Heroism, he argues that Chief Bromden's depiction of Big Nurse is a "hyperbolic magnification" of a "distorted sense of her power," going on to say that the "descriptions of her dehumanized nature are supported by the assessments Bromden reports from others" (50). Oftentimes, if a woman rose to any level of power in her job, men would watch her very closely, as it was commonplace for men to make all the decisions and for the women to carry out those orders or follow them. Is Nurse Ratched really a scheming boss for wanting to be sure her job is done with as much precision and efficiency as possible? It should be questioned how much of what the inmates say can be believed. When Kesey wrote this story, he applied a very unconventional approach by placing a female in control of an entirely male ward of a mental asylum. The patients describe Nurse Ratched as a "veritable angel of mercy" toiling "thanklessly for the good of all, day after day, five long days a week". At that time, America was a struggling young nation, trying to define itself as its people fought with their diversities.
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Acceptance Essays
