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 perspective the decidedly sexist language used in characterizing Nurse Ratched, the reader can begin to see that the power and control she applies to the men on the ward is to preserve a sense of order in a disorderly setting. Although the patients see her as a dictator, readers need to comprehend that her dictating attitude is a very calculated move to establish and sustain order. This, in the right light, can be seen as an extremely positive character trait. 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.
             When Kesey's novel...