One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Misogynist Analysis

Misogyny Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a Classic American novel that is filled with correlating events that portray women as monsters through misogynistic actions and language. Throughout time, society advocated that man was the dominate role that was in charge in almost every aspect, while women stayed at home and were inferior figures. However, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest shows how society acts misogynistic, or shows hatred towards women, when there is a reversal of these stereotypical gender roles; women are instantly depicted as monsters and uniformly terrifying. McMurphy’s actions in the ward, Kesey establishing women as over-oppressive, and women being portrayed as terrifying figures all illustrate how society acts …show more content…
When McMurphy is enrolled in the hospital, Nurse Ratched has a set of rules set forth that everyone is to comply to so they can become healthy. However, McMurphy being the misogynistic character that he is, starts a war between the nurse and himself as he finds the rules overbearing. McMurphy then shows a hatred of women as he disrespects the nurse and fails to comply to the rules she set in place. He begins by being loud and obnoxious and disrupting the peace in the ward, and when the nurse asks him to quiet down he only becomes more difficult by showing his naked body. The nurse goes to confront him about being loud and “McMurphy steps out of the latrine door right in front of her holding that towel around his hips” (86). The nurse states that he cannot run around the ward revealing his body, but only laughs in her face and gets a kick out of her being uncomfortable. By lacking the wherewithal to comply to such simple rules that were established by the women work force reveals a sense of misogyny in the novel. He is not only disrespecting and establishing his hatred for the nurse and the women in the hospital, he is teaching the other patients that it is okay to have a hate for women. When McMurphy is forced to attend the meetings that are meant to help each patient get problems off their chest, he states that “she’s a bitch …show more content…
This creates a misogynistic undertone within the text as women are not being portrayed as a nurturing figure, they are these terrifying people that the men are afraid of. Right away the image of the nurse is depicted as this huge monster like an image that punishes for any wrong doing. In the beginning of the novel the aides of the nurse are slacking from their job, and as the nurse sees them mumbling together in a group Chief Bromden indicates that she is going to “tear the black bastards limb from limb” and that she “blows up bigger and bigger, as big as a tractor” (5). The nurse is being portrayed as this beast like figure that takes on this hideous form whenever she is unhappy with people and their actions. Fundamentally, there is a misogynistic setting being set forth as the Chief is indicating that a women in power, such as the nurse, takes on these hideous qualities. Rather then being depicted as upset or annoyed with the aides, any nurturing and loving qualities are instantly stripped as she is described as a creature. In a sense women being terrifying figures is further evident as Harding, a patient in the ward, proclaims, “We are victims or matriarchy here, my friend, and that doctor is just as helpless as we are. He knows all Ratched has to do is pick up that phone you see sitting at her elbow and call the supervisor and mention, oh, say, that the