Imagine living in a state of constant suffering, belittlement, control, and alienation. That is what life is like for the men in the asylum throughout the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. Nurse Ratched runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist. Her emasculating power over the patients forces them into submission and constant unease. The so-called “Big Nurse” controls every aspect of their lives, including what time they wake up, their daily routine, and what pills they have to take, with nefarious intent. When defiant Randle McMurphy enters the ward, the thing that immediately sets him apart, besides his lack of fear, is his jokes. He brings a quality of free will and an ability to stand up for himself, as well as others, not present in the other patients. Randle’s ability to utilize humor as a weapon against Nurse Ratched induces a struggle between them for power and influence over the patients. In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesley utilizes humor and suffering to display the importance of a whole expression of sexuality and that its repression leads directly to insanity.
Nurse Ratched is exorbitantly cruel, manipulative, and oppressive toward the patients. Her nickname “Big Nurse” is an allusion to Big Brother, which is the name used in George Orwell’s book “1984” which referred to an all-knowing and oppressive authority. (7) Much like Big Brother in 1984, the so-called Big Nurse controls every aspect of the ward and her emotions. Only showing her true “hideous self” to Bromden and her aides, she presents herself in a doll-like manner to everyone else. (5) Her ability to present a fictitious self implies that the mechanistic and oppressive forces in society gain ascendance through the duplicity of authority. She is simply the human face of the combine, the inhumane mechanical system that not only governs the asylum but the entire world. She is the scheming and manipulative agent of the machine. Big Nurse will always win against the patients “because she has all the power of
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the Combine behind her”. (88) Just in the short time of the book, she ruins three men's lives, lobotomizing one and causing two to commit suicide. Additionally, she has negative effects on all the other men, emasculating them, forcing them to feel as if they are little boys, and encapsulating them in a constant state of suffering. This is all in a ploy to scare them from ever challenging her authority. Nurse Ratched has no regard for the severity of what has to be done to keep her in complete control. As well as mental means, Nurse Ratched also uses physical means to destroy the men's sense of freedom and self associated with their sexuality. An example, Bromden tells of a patient, Ruckly once a gutsy troublemaker, who after being taken away to be “fixed” with shock treatment came back, “another robot for the Combine, fumbling and drooling”, a catatonic shell of who he once was. (16) Her facade of being an “angel of mercy” is merely a disguise for the horrific desire and intent to completely control the men of the asylum. (46)
Contrary to Nurse Ratched, Randle McMurphy stands firmly against the oppression in the ward. He is constantly rebelling, frequently using laughter to take a stand against Nurse Ratched. Randle “won't let the pain blot out the humor”, on the contrary, “he'll let the humor blot out the pain”. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 193) His humor boosts the morale of the inmates and helps distract them from the harsh realities of the ward. Through making fun of Nurse Ratched, Randle has the power to subvert some of her authority and power held over him. Randle recognizes emasculation as Nurse Ratched's main means of control calling her a “ball cutter”. (54) In light of this, Randle can withstand her manipulation and hold onto his sense of self, unlike the other men. He fights back against the conservative Big Nurse with raunchy jokes and ultimately makes her lose her robot-like composure multiple times. He encouraged his fellow patients to rediscover their sense of self. After coaxing the Nurse into letting them go on a fishing trip with a prostitute, the girl’s breasts are exposed which leads to “...laughing. It started slow and pumped itself full, swelling the men bigger and bigger” (214). The men are all finally able to regain their humanity by regaining their sexuality. The men are no longer worried and fearful, and all join in laughter for the first time. With Randle's help, the men were to overcome the Big Nurse’s manipulation and power.
The use of suffering and humor throughout the entirety of the novel illuminates the theme of the importance of expressing sexuality. The repression of the men’s sexuality by Nurse Ratched leads directly to their insanity. The majority of the men in the asylum have extremely warped sexual identities due to the intense control of the nurse and past damaging relationships with women. The castrating power of Nurse Ratched causes the men to become “comical little creatures who can’t even achieve masculinity in the rabbit world.” (51) The men's natural expression of their sexuality is completely missing from the ward. When a patient in the disturbed ward commits suicide by cutting off his testicles, Bromden states that “all the guy had to do was wait,” implying that in the long run, the institution itself would have castrated him. (101) The hospital, which only takes male patients and is exclusively run by women, shows the power women have to emasculate even the most masculine of men. The repression of sexuality is the main method for control, showing the amount of mental strain and damage its suppression can cause. Kesey draws a concise connection between men's sexuality and their freedom. Their sexual repression hinders their ability to be “men.” Nurse Ratched utilizes emasculating tactics throughout the novel to strip the men in the ward of their freedom. This further reiterates Kesey's outlook on the importance of expressing sexuality.
All in all, the oppression of the patients' sexuality throughout the novel has exorbitantly negative effects. It was the key factor in facilitating control over their minds. Ken Kesey portrays how without a healthy expression of sexuality, a man will become extremely oppressed. McMurphy's humorous attacks destroy Nurse Ratched’s institutionalized sexually repressive mask throughout the novel, as he recognizes the importance of fighting for the men and helping them regain their masculinity. Though he is lobotomized at the end of the novel ending his fight once and for all, his past bravery encourages the men to push on. Ken Kesey’s utilization of Nurse Ratched’s oppression and Randle McMurphy’s humor show how harmful a lack of sexual expression is on men. Randle’s fight for his fellow patients finally freed them from the constant pain and suffering of the dehumanization they faced.
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