Sexuality has always been a powerful tool for writers: it can make heroes or break them, build relationships or destroy them , suggest total misery or heavenly happiness. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey offers a unique take on this theme: there is not a single long-standing relationship in the entire novel, and yet sexuality is one of the themes the most important in terms of plot development.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Before looking at the details, one must first focus on the broader issues at stake in this work. The Oregon State Mental Hospital, where the novel is set, immediately suggests the importance of this theme to the plot. The institute is run almost entirely by women and all patients are men. The radical division of the two sexes affirms from the beginning the role of each gender in the story. Women are the ones in charge, the ones who dictate the rules and enforce them (if they choose to do so). Men, on the other hand, must be calm, submissive and obedient. As Harding says in one of the book's most memorable quotes: "We are victims of a matriarchy here." Given that the book was written in the 1950s, a time when decidedly concrete gender roles were widely recognized, it is likely that this reversal was intended to shock readers. Much of the scandal caused by the book came from the silent implication that women could control men. The matriarch of the novel is Nurse Ratched: a once attractive 50-year-old woman and head of the ward. She exercises her power over patients and other staff without any remorse. The metaphors used in his initial description are decidedly unnatural: “Precise and automatic gestures. Her face is smooth, calculated and precisely made, like an expensive doll, her skin is like flesh-colored enamel. » The implication is that she is the tool of a machine-like society and as such she has assumed its characteristics. She is devoid of feelings such as compassion, empathy and regret: all that remains is a plastic smile of practiced sympathy that hides completely opposite intentions. The dehumanization of his character extends beyond his personality. The “Big Nurse” wears a uniform that is too starched and tight in order to hide her large breasts, a symbol of her femininity, and therefore of carnal weakness. “A mistake was made during manufacturing, putting these big female breasts on what would have otherwise been a perfect job, and you can see how bitter she is about it.” The result is a ruler as impenetrable as a fortress: put simply, she has no weaknesses to exploit. Insinuation and guilt are his main weapons, used to crush any rebellious behavior and make patients believe they are doing wrong. "She doesn't need to accuse. She has a genius for insinuating." The intentions behind Nurse Ratched's cold, sexless outfit are explained by Harding: "Man has but one weapon against [women] but it is certainly not laughter. Only one weapon, and every year that passes in this... society, more and more people figure out how to make this weapon useless." Harding talks about the male phallus – a tool that men use to subvert women. Nurse Ratched's staid dress and icy demeanor, however, repel the human feelings a man would feel toward a beautiful (albeit old) woman like her. Thisin doing so, she is able to undermine men, thus turning the situation around. McMurphy is forced to agree: "I couldn't get up from an old, frozen face if it had the beauty of Marilyn Monroe." Nurse Ratched's nemesis is Randle McMurphy. He is the newest admitted to the ward and he is different from anyone Nurse Ratched and the other patients have seen. He is a conman, a prankster, a gambler and, above all, a playboy, so much so that his sexual relations are one of the reasons he was sent to the hospital: "'Psychopath' means I bats and fuh - forgive me, ladies - means I'm overzealous in my sexual relations." The novel describes him as emotionally strong because he possesses two qualities that no one else in the room has: sexual freedom and the ability to laugh. For these reasons, he is also the only truly "sane" character in the novel. McMurphy can, in a way, be seen as a beacon of light in a world of darkness: amidst the madness of the patients and the institution, he reminds the reader what true mental health looks like. McMurphy is the most sexually accomplished patient, but does not openly brag about his conquests because he knows that would only discourage his comrades. Instead, he puts his skills to use against Nurse Ratched. McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are opposites and inevitably have to clash. One likes controlled order, while the other revels in total chaos. One is a ruthless megalomaniac, while the other is a fun-loving trickster. One is asexual, while the other can't get enough. This last difference is the most powerful weapon in McMurphy's arsenal: by moving away from sex, Nurse Ratched has forgotten that she herself can be subjected to sexual examination and humiliation. Throughout the book, McMurphy and Nurse Ratched remain locked in a power struggle over the patients. . However, McMurphy fights for the patients' physical and mental freedom, while Nurse Ratched seeks to imprison them in the name of her own ego. The weapons they use are as different as their goals. Nurse Ratched uses innuendo and divide-and-conquer tactics to overthrow McMurphy, while he uses what comes most naturally to him: his sexuality. Patients see Nurse Ratched as more than a woman, more than a human, even. Her asexual nature helps create this illusion, but by distancing herself from her own sexual instincts, she makes herself vulnerable. McMurphy constantly harangues Nurse Ratched, asking her "if she wouldn't mind saying it, what was the actual measurement, inch by inch, on those big tits that she did her best to hide but never could." Later, "through the back of his uniform, [he] gave her a pinch that made her face red like her hair." As a result of McMurphy's jokes, the patients' notion of Nurse Ratched as impregnable ceases to exist, and with each of McMurphy's snide comments, the power structure shifts slightly. By the end of the novel, this power is completely dissipated by McMurphy's final, desperate sacrifice for the sake of his friends: "he grabbed [Nurse Ratched] and tore her uniform all down the front, screaming again when both touched nipples. circles started from her chest and swelled larger and larger." This gesture not only exposes Nurse Ratched as a human being, but also negates her power: patients will never again see her as the superhuman being she they once thought. Much of the evidence for this theme is hidden in symbolism. A clear symbol of sexuality in the novel is the underpants.McMurphy. In one of their many confrontations, McMurphy encounters Nurse Ratched wearing only boxer shorts, "coal black satin covered with large white bonings with red eyes" and curiously similar to the figure of Moby Dick. This is important because Moby Dick has often been interpreted as a phallic symbol, and here it is representative of McMurphy's sexuality. The Moby Dick shorts also symbolize McMurphy's struggle with Nurse Ratched, which mirrors Ahab's struggle with the whale. Finally, many have interpreted Moby Dick as a sacred figure, much as McMurphy imitates Christ in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The shorts were originally given to McMurphy as a gift "from a student at Oregon State, majoring in literature... She gave them to me because she said I was a symbol." » Another important symbol is the card game that McMurphy plays. with throughout the novel. The deck is the first object he presents to patients, and the cards represent “fifty-two positions.” Exactly what these cards do is made clear by Cheswick's reaction: he is "already wide-eyed... what he sees on these cards is not helping his condition." Besides being an obvious representation of McMurphy's open sexuality, the cards also reveal something about his character. This is not a normal card game; the pack thus reveals McMurphy's non-conformist nature and his need to shock, to be the center of attention. McMurphy's association with symbols does not end there. As he and the patients return from their fishing trip, he notices a little dress hanging from a tree, "a yellow and black rag." The dress inspires him to tell the story of how he first lost his virginity to a nine-year-old girl, whose dress ended up in the branches of a tree after McMurphy threw it into the wind . McMurphy wears her sexuality like a dress in the wind, waving it proudly for all to see. Symbolism aside, this part of the novel is extremely important to both the theme of sexuality and the development of McMurphy's character. This glimpse into McMurphy's youth helps the reader understand where her unique personality comes from, as McMurphy himself stated: "[she] taught me to love, to bless her pretty ass." He reminds the reader how important healthy sexuality is for a man's growth: the other patients had difficult sex lives and are now considered crazy. The situation is therefore imbued with a strong dose of irony: the other patients were interned because of an underactive or unhealthy sex life, while McMurphy because of his overly active sexuality. Billy Bibbit is an insecure 34-year-old virgin. with a speech impediment. The root of his problems is his non-existent sex life, which has prevented him from becoming a man. The fault lies not with Billy, but with his mother. Having been treated like a baby his entire life, Billy was overwhelmed by the complexity of the world, creating the basis for his insecurity. In the scene where his mother comes to visit, it becomes clear that Billy's mental state was due to his mother's oppression: "Billy was talking about looking for a wife and going to college one day. His mother laughed...at so much nonsense” If Billy were younger, such a conversation might have seemed rational, but Billy is “thirty-one” and clearly not meant for college anymore. Later in the novel, McMurphy helps Billy lose his virginity to Candy, a prostitute who breaks into the hospital, eradicating the stutter and insecurity from his life. This beautiful moment is short-lived, however: after Nurse Ratched finds out what happened, she threatens to tell Billy's mother, causing a nervous breakdown: "He shook his head like a child who has been promised to be whipped just as soon as a willow is cut down. Shortly after his kidnapping, the others learn that he "slit his throat." Billy's suicide isn't entirely surprising. He behaves a bit like a child faced with punishment, blindly trying to escape guilt and fear. Indeed, all the patients in the hospital have had a powerful and emasculating female figure in their lives. In Harding's case, it was his wife. Harding was interned because he is gay. Although no one explicitly reveals this information, the reader can infer it from his first conversation with McMurphy ("I have been accused... of having affairs with male friends, of holding my cigarette in an affected manner. ..") and the description of his wife's visit ("She talks about some of Harding's friends who she wishes would stop wandering around the house looking for him... The hoity-toity with the nice long hair so perfectly coiffed and soft little wrists this flip is so nice"). What is not known is whether he was gay before or after his marriage, although there is strong evidence suggesting the latter. Harding claims to have been intimidated by his wife, who is indeed a very beautiful woman who attracts a lot of attention. Harding also states that he was afraid he would not be able to satisfy her. Clearly, his fears overwhelmed any love he might have had for her or any other woman, causing his interests to wander elsewhere. For Harding, there is no quick fix like there was with Billy, but he states in the final pages of the novel that he wants to accept his sexuality before confronting society again. The novel's narrator, Chief Bromden, also had a traumatic experience with a woman: his mother. She managed to slowly undermine all trust and power from him and his proud father and tribal leader, Tee-Ah-Millatoona ("The-Pine-That-Rises-Highest-On-The- mountain"). Only his last name is mentioned in the book, Bromden, a sign that the leader is trying to forget his stifling presence. She imposes her family name on the Chief's father and himself: a symbol of the permanent influence she exercises on their lives and a direct usurpation of Tee-Ah-Millatoona's role as head of the family. His fall to the point of becoming a sorry drunkard was a consequence of the mother's oppressive harassments, which, according to the chief, "made him too small to fight any more" and eventually persuaded him to sell the valley that sheltered him and his ancestors. The Chief's mother can be seen as a tool of a mechanistic society, infiltrating one of nature's last refuges with the aim of conquering and exploiting it. We know that the leader eventually went insane while fighting in World War II, as he was interned shortly after the war. the war ended, but his perceptive abilities had already been significantly stunted by his mother. When McMurphy asks the chief how tall his mother was, he replies that although a carnival worker once told him she was "five feet nine hundred and thirty pounds," he imagines her taller than his father, “twice its size”. "Sexual abuse is yet another theme present in the book. When Nurse Ratched pretends to get McMurphy's name wrong and calls him "McMurry," he delves into the story of an "uncle who was called Hallahan...he once went with a woman who acted like she didn't remember his name correctly and kept calling him Hooligan just to get his goat back. This went on for months before. When the doctor asks him how he stopped it, McMurphy replies: "I keep Unk Hallahan's method strictly.secret, you see, in case I have to use it myself one day." He is obviously referring to rape. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, rape is depicted as the last resort of men who wish to assert their "natural" authority over women The first time this theme appears in the novel is during Chief Bromden's memories of Taber Without warning, Nurse Ratched's friends "catch Taber." into the latrine and drag him to the mattress room,” where Nurse Ratched waits, “smearing vaseline on a long needle.” Soon after, she reappears, “wiping the needle on a flap of pants.” of Taber". Significantly, she "[leaves] the jar of Vaseline in the room" for the guards to use on Maxwell. Symbolically, it is as if she had raped Not only Nurse Ratched. is able to nullify men's last weapon against women, but she is even able to use it against them. The last time this theme appears in the novel is during McMurphy's final sacrifice. Before his internment at the hospital, he had never been violent in his sexual relations, contrary to what the hospital believed. However, the atmosphere of the hospital, with its twisted absence of sexuality and horribly cruel psychological ordeals, forces McMurphy to turn to sexual violence as a last resort. He rebels against the cruel matriarch, ripping off Nurse Ratched's uniform. Somehow, McMurphy must resort to the method of "Unk Hallahan" to bring about change - in the end, the strange prophecy turns out to be true. Another major theme of the novel is castration. The most memorable use of this theme occurs during Rawler's suicide: he bleeds out after cutting his testicles. Particularly striking is the sentence with which the chef concludes the anecdote: "What makes people so impatient is what I can't understand, all the guy had to do was to wait for. » The phrase can be interpreted in different ways. First, the chief might suggest that the institution itself would have killed him in the long run: being classified as "disturbed," Rawler would have been subjected to electroshock therapy and other operations that would most likely have resulted in his death . However, the chief could also have meant that Rawler would have ultimately been castrated by the institution. The sexless nature of the hospital would lead any man to mental, if not physical, castration. This theme becomes even more important towards the end of the novel, after McMurphy has been subjected to three electroshock treatments. Nurse Ratched, seeing no change in McMurphy's behavior, suggests "that we consider an operation" – by which she means a lobotomy. However, before he can continue, McMurphy retorts that "there would be no point in cutting them off; I have another pair in my nightstand." As usual, he jokes about the nurse's serious announcement, pretending to believe that they want to castrate him. But these two operations rid man of his individuality, his freedom of choice and his pride. Kesey's implication is that the two operations are symbolically identical. There is much debate about the function of this theme in the novel. Many have simply called the novel offensive to women, but the truth is actually much more complex. Kesey's negative portrayal of women is not intended to undermine the female gender. In order to effectively convey the extreme differences between nurses and patients, Kesey had to not only separate them morally, but also physically. By dividing them by gender, Kesey creates a world in which women can immediately be,.