When Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) gets transferred for evaluation from a prison to a mental institution, he believes it will be a less prohibitive environment. But the disciplinarian Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, keeping her patients cowed through abuse, medication and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills between the rebellious McMurphy and the inflexible Ratched soon affects all the ward's patients. According to studio production notes, Ken Kesey wrote the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, between midnight and dawn while working as a night aide at the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital. At that time, he was a student graduate at Stanford University’s Creative Writing Center. According to an 18 May 1974 LAT article, published in 1962, the novel’s anti-establishment narrative was accepted by the increase in growth of counterculture and became a cult classic.
Contrast Nurse Ratched with McMurphy. What values do they represent? How does the pairing of these antagonistic characters illuminate major themes in the novel?
In One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched represents the excellence of self-repression and conformity, of conforming society’s rules without inquiry or statement of disagreement. By contrast, McMurphy positions for the moral beliefs of individuality and self-expression. He represents the importance of maintaining one’s thoughts and peculiarity without fear of upsetting a status quo. Several of Kesey’s secondary characters, such as Harding, Pete, and Chief Bromden, experience and struggle conflicts between their intimidation and terror of Nurse Ratched and their admiration for McMurphy with great respect. The competing philosophies of nurse and disobedient patient thus emphasis Kesey’s idea that many people are insecure when to rebel and when to conform, discontented with the world they inhabit yet afraid to state their wishes and advocate change.
Nurse Ratched’s statements and actions suggest that individuality is wrong and that the aristocratic goal is to fit into society’s mainstream. Bromden compares Ratched to an engineer, altering the equipments of her patients until they are fully robotic, compliant, and able to function in the world without causing a scene. In the beginning of the film, the elements that makes Nurse Ratched’s authority over the men evident that she wears a uniform and carries a large set of keys. Nobody dares laugh on Ratched’s watch, because such an declaration of personality would lead to questioning and a harsh oral punishment from the Big Nurse. Ratched has hung a “plaque of cooperation” in her ward, suggesting that her patients’ zombie-like serenity is worthy of a reward. She repeatedly mispronounce McMurphy’s name, calling him “McMurry,” as if to indicate that names and other markers of individuality are irrelevant and negligible. She discipline the patient Taber simply for asking what medications he is being given, and she authorizes surgery to reduce him to an unquestioning drone. Each of these achievements confirms that Nurse Ratched stands for absolute compliance, self-effacement, and an almost dictatorial emphasis on fitting into a thoughtless, well-ordered world.
On the other hand, McMurphy represents the attraction of personal expression, making known one’s thoughts and desires, and refusing to worry about societal norms. McMurphy asserts his vitality by passing out vulgar playing cards on his first day on the ward: He does not care if Ratched or the authorities are disturbed by his enthusiastic and cheerful sense of humor and sexual energy. McMurphy breaks down the accepted barrier between Chronics and Acutes, addressing each Chronic as if he has a robust inner life and well-developed personality, refusing to see another human being as a vegetable without a soul. Eventually, he ignores Bromden’s status as a deaf-mute and speaks to him, becoming the only man in the building to notice that Bromden really can hear and comprehend other people. He laughs and sings loudly in the shower, upsetting the deadly silence of the ward, refusing to fall prey to Ratched’s expectations of quiet, fearful, and self-denying behavior. His actions and attitudes demonstrate the virtues of individuality, pushing aside the urge to conform and acknowledging that every human being has eccentric wishes, thoughts, and idiosyncrasies.
Kesey suggests that the conflict between McMurphy and Ratched is a universal phenomenon by pointing out that it occurs daily within the minds of his minor characters. Harding understands the allure of conformity, accepting Ratched’s cruel schedule of “analytic” sessions and trying to pin down his own freely-moving, expressive hands, but he also succumbs to McMurphy’s rallying cry, muttering that Ratched is cruel and oppressive and allowing his hands to wave “beautifully” in the air.By the same token, Bromden feels torn between the desire to conform and to rebel, silencing his own voice yet admiring McMurphy and men such as his father, who turned away opportunistic government officials from his reservation when Bromden was a child. Pete suppresses most of what is going on in his head, in a way that pleases Ratched, but he also has a moment of self-expression when he attacks an orderly who has tried to pin him down. Each of these characters enacts on a private level the battle that rages between Ratched and McMurphy—the urge to comply versus the desire to be fully and unapologetically unique.
By emphasizing the clash between nurse and free-spirited patient, Kesey thus fortify his idea that people often fall victim to a push-and-pull between societal expectations and personal needs. Ratched demands an unquestioning acceptance of societal standards, punishing patients who challenge the daily flow of activities on her ward. By contrast, McMurphy reminds his peers that they all have personalities and inner lives, encouraging them to laugh in the face of authority whenever possible. between a rock and a hard place of Ratched’s demands and McMurphy’s free-spirited philosophy, Kesey’s minor characters illustrate how difficult it is to be oneself in a rough-bitter, homogenous world. McMurphy’s spirit rejuvenates and restore them, but Ratched’s rising presence frequently crushes their ambitions.