Gender Roles, the ‘Dominant Leader’ and the ‘Submissive Servant’ in Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Gender roles drastically changed in the 1960s in America, which not everybody approved of. American author Ken Kesey never liked the idea of a society in which women have equal power to men, and his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is his testament to that (Meloy 10). ‘[Kesey] uses the mental ward in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a microcosm for a contemporary society that he believes feminizes men’ (Meloy 1). When men are feminised, they are restricted from sexual performance and are thus restricted to practise their dominance over women, making them seem more submissive. In Kesey’s novel, the female characters can be classified into two categories, namely ‘the dominant leader’ and ‘the submissive servant’, and all the important female characters subscribe to either one of these two categories. It is the way in which Kesey depicted the female characters that shows he wanted to reinforce traditional gender roles as we know them from the 1950s in America: the woman is the housewife who takes care of the children and the household, and the husband goes to work and provides an income (Basow 7). Kesey’s work is a direct response to the changes happening during the two decades after World War II, and therefore, I will begin to develop my argument by providing relevant historical background. Following this, I will explore and describe the two types of women Kesey classified his female characters into and which character represents each type. Lastly, I will explain how the depiction of women this way proves that Kesey wanted to reinforce traditional gender roles. Investigating whether Kesey wanted to change gender roles as to how they were during the 1950s is significant because it tells us something about women’s agency of that time. Evidently, some men disagreed that women should have equal power to men, which shows that although women were given the opportunity to work in the 1960s, they were still fighting a battle against all males who thought of them as inferior. Kesey advocated for reinforcing traditional gender roles in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by portraying dominant female characters negatively and unfit for a position of power and portraying submissive female characters positively and as perfect servers to the male patients.
In the 1950s, men and women had established specific gender roles to take care of the household: women were housewives who took care of the children, and men went to work to provide an income. With the end of World War two and the surge of men returning from the war in need of employment, it became a cultural necessity that women left factory jobs to make room for the male workforce. Cultural representations encouraged women to work in the private, domestic sphere; in other words, they were expected to take care of the children and the household. Therefore, in the 1950s in the United States, the image of the ideal family consisted of a wife doing the housework, and a husband with a successful job (Lamb 17). Basow also sees this division between gender roles: ‘there appear to be at least four identifiable components of gender stereotypes (…) including masculine and feminine roles (such as head of the household and caretaker of children, respectively)’ (7). So, specific gender roles were assigned to men and women during the 1950s, and men and women agreed to live this way for many years.
Nevertheless, women started to realise that something was missing, and this was often described as a lack of a sense of personality: a life outside of the family and the household. Many women were so used to ‘eating what their families wanted to eat, wearing what all their neighbours were wearing and doing what all other families were doing’ (Lamb 31), that they experienced an identity crisis. Subsequently, women started going back to work. Having their own workplace to go to would give many women a sense of direction and helped them with fulfilling their newly discovered aspirations (Lamb 34): ‘In the 1960s, (…) career women were becoming mobilised’ (Basow 294). So, in the 1960s, housewives started to regard housework as a secondary pastime, coming after work, studies or classes. Because so many women who did not have any interest in having a job at first, or who did not appear to have any interest, started to work at the beginning of the 1960s, it brought attention to higher authorities. For example, right at the start of the decade in 1961, President Kennedy created a Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), who brought out a report that brought awareness to the problems women were facing as housewives (Lamb 51), as well as started the initiative to undertake action in urging women to work and thereby realising their full potential, as this would ‘greatly enhance the quality of American Life’ (PCSW 1). Along with this report, the Equal Pay Act (EPA) was installed in 1963 and Congress added a section to the Civil Right Act from 1964, banning all discrimination based on sex in the work field. (Lamb 52). In summary, progress was made towards encouraging women to work, and consequently, gender roles changed: men and women were now both responsible for providing an income.
Not everybody agreed with this change of gender roles, including several authors who responded to the change through writing; one of these authors is Ken Kesey, with his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. As mentioned before, Kesey never liked the idea of a society in which women would have equal power to men (Meloy 10), and Meloy states that ‘Kesey confessed to having been disturbed by lesbian feminist Robin Morgan’ who once held a lecture in which she ridiculed Kesey’s work and took issue with his virility (10). Kesey did not feel comfortable with women as figures of authority or fighting for their rights: ‘in that sense, the terror of the male patients in the Cuckoo’s Nest ward seems to parallel Kesey’s own struggle to confront a new postwar feminist force’ (Meloy 10). Kesey did not want women to become powerful. As a result of feeling threatened by the female sex, Kesey wrote a novel in which he created female characters that would subscribe to either one of the categories ‘dominant leader’ and ‘submissive servant’.
The first character who represents the category ‘dominant leader’ is Nurse Ratched.
Nurse Ratched is the main figure of authority in this book and she functions as the supervisor of the psychiatric ward: “This is Miss Ratched. I chose this ward because it’s her ward” (Kesey 33); ‘She takes another sip and sets the cup on the table; the wack of it sounds like a gavel; all three residents sit bold uptight’ (Kesey 136). The former emphasises the word ‘her’, which shows that everyone knows Ratched is in charge. The latter quotation shows Ratched’s power metaphorically because she represents a judge who has power over a courtroom. There is no way around it, and all the patients know it: Nurse Ratched is the leader. In other words, the first character who can be classified into the category ‘dominant leader’, is Nurse Ratched.
Throughout the novel, Ratched is depicted as an unrealistically crazy person, thereby showing she is unqualified to be in a position of authority. The male characters in the book use phrases that make Ratched seem like a monster: ‘[Ratched] swells till her back’s splitting out the white uniform and she’s let her arms section out long enough to wrap around the three of them five, six times’ (Kesey 5). Of course, Ratched is not capable of growing her arms and wrapping them around three grown people, and this excerpt perfectly shows the unrealistic way in which Ratched is portrayed; it seems as though she has qualities that normal humans do not have. Another example occurs when Ratched is made to lose control by McMurphy; this is his only goal from the minute he stepped into the ward, and he succeeds:
‘If somebody’s come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty-year old woman [Ratched] hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order and recriminations, they’d of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons’ (Kesey 126).
In this scene, it seems as though the patients are doing nothing wrong, and Ratched is behaving irrationally. Ratched is not adhering to traditional gender roles, as she is ‘hollering’ and ‘squealing’ and is still feminised as ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational’, and that is why she should not be in charge.
Furthermore, Ratched also contradicts traditional gender roles by emasculating the male patients. McMurphy explains to patient Harding that she is a ‘ball-cutter’ (Kesey 54) because she has constant supervision over the men and thereby prevents them from performing sexually. Harding does not believe she is a ball-cutter, because he thinks her a ‘sweet, smiling, tender angel of mercy’ (Kesey 54); apparently, Ratched has set up an act to come across as caring and considerate, resembling, for example, the male patients’ mothers. But, McMurphy sees through this: ‘don’t give me that tender little mother crap. She may be a mother, but she’s big as a damn barn and tough as a knife metal’ (Kesey 54). McMurphy then says: ‘she’s a bitch and a buzzard and a ball-cutter, and don’t kid me, you know what I’m talking about’ (Kesey 54). This phrase makes Harding realise that Ratched has set up an act which has made him a submissive character, which results in a bodily response: ‘Harding’s face and hands are moving faster than ever now (…) the more he tries to stop it, the faster it goes’ (Kesey 54). In conclusion, Nurse Ratched is depicted as an irrational character who emasculates the men, showing that she is not fit to be in a position of power.
Another female figure who can be classified into the category ‘dominant leader’ is Bibbit’s mother. Bibbit’s mother worked at the ward as a receptionist, and ‘whenever we’d go on some activity Billy would always be obliged to stop and lean a scarlet cheek over that desk for her to dab a kiss on’ (Kesey 254). This excerpt illustrates that Bibbit’s mother was constantly looking after him because she was always present at the ward, and she practised her dominance by forcing his son to greet her whenever the patients leave the ward, showing that she dominates him, in front of the other male patients. Thus, Bibbit’s mother is another powerful female character in this novel.
Bibbit’s mother is depicted in such a way that she is seen as a negative influence on Bibbit, as her behaviour resembles that of a gaslighter, and this negative image is paired with her disapproving of him finding a woman and performing sexually. Bibbit and his mother are outside, and Bibbit is excitedly talking about his future once he leaves the ward: ‘Billy was talking about looking for a wife and going to college someday’ (Kesey 254). His mother ignores his excitement and plainly tells him that he is still very young and has ages ahead of him to think about those things; she does not want him to bond to another female just yet. In response, Bibbit says: ‘“Mother, I’m th-th-thirty-one years old!”’ (Kesey 254), to which his mother responds: ‘“Sweetheart, do I look like the mother of a middle-aged man?”’ (Kesey 254). In this excerpt, Bibbit’s mother psychologically manipulates her son because she makes him question his memory and perception. Later on in the novel, when Bibbit has sexual intercourse with Candy, he is so ashamed of his mother finding out he had sex, ‘that he would rather die than have his mother disapprove of him’ (Napierski-Prancl 228). This illustrates that Bibbit’s mother is depicted as having a bad influence on Bibbit, because she manipulates him and, like Ratched, emasculates him by not approving of him behaving sexually. In summary, Ratched and Bibbit’s mother both emasculate the male patients, and as a result, they become more submissive; thus, in his novel, Kesey portrayed these powerful women negatively.
The other category in which Kesey classified his female characters is the ‘submissive servant’, represented by Candy and Sandy, and these characters are, in turn, depicted positively because they empower the male patients with their sexuality and their characters serve as assistants to the male patients. Firstly, the prostitutes empower the male patients because they help them regain their masculinity, which stands in stark contrast to Ratched and Bibbit’s mother who, as mentioned before, emasculate them. Meloy states: ‘the prostitutes of the novel exist in a purely sexual way, and (…) their sexual availability encourages the men to release their innate sexuality’ (10). The novel favours this display of sexuality because it empowers the men and makes them realise they can be dominant figures who have power over women. This becomes apparent from how the prostitutes are depicted in the novel, as their value is solely measured by their appearance: ‘Her shoulders and breasts and hips were too wide and her grin too big and open for her to ever be called beautiful’ (Kesey 257). In this excerpt, the men objectify the women. Moreover, a ‘grin too big and open’ depicts them as smiling and thus sexually available. This phrase illustrates that the men feel entitled enough to describe women in such a condescending manner, thus showing their dominance over the women. Every time a phrase such as this one recurs in the novel, it increases the idea that the prostitutes are merely present to help the men release their overtly sexual tendencies and portray their dominance.
Furthermore, the prostitutes are depicted as attendants to the men, further encouraging the idea that women should be submissive to their male counterparts. Candy’s first appearance in the novel is during the fishing trip, and in this scene, it becomes immediately apparent that she is there as a submissive figure whose task it is to please the men: ‘“Tell me, Blondie, what’ve they got you committed for?” “Ahr, she ain’t committed, Perce, she’s part of the cure!”’ (Kesey 208). The men see her as an object that will help them get rid of whatever kind of disease they have, showing that Kesey saw women as people who should always assist men and fix their problems. In other words, the prostitutes Candy and Sandy are portrayed positively, because they are depicted as submissive characters who are displayed very sexually, so the men can perform their innate dominant behaviour over them.
To conclude, the dominant female characters in his novel are portrayed and received negatively, and the submissive female characters are portrayed and received positively. Thus, Kesey does not feel as though women should have positions of power, and are better suited as servants to men. This is in complete accordance with the gender roles as they were during the 1950s in America, and thus, with his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey advocated for reinforcing traditional gender roles. Writing a novel such as this one at a time when women started going back to work, shows the position women had in society at that time. While women were trying to make their mental health better by finding something that would give them satisfaction in life, men were constantly trying to prove that they were not fit to be leaders. This behaviour of men has had severe consequences for women throughout time, because as of today, women are still seen as ‘the lesser sex’ in the workplace.
Works Cited
Basow, Susan A. Gender Stereotypes: Traditions and Alternatives. 2nd ed., Brooks/Cole Pub, 1986.
Kesey, K. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Penguin, 1962.
Lamb, Vanessa M. The 19650’s and the 1960’s and the American Woman: The Transition from The ‘housewife’ to The Feminist. History. 2011. Dumas-00680821.
Meloy, M. Fixing Men: Castration, Impotence, and Masculinity in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Journal of Men’s Studies, vol. 17, No. 1, Men’s Studies Press, 2009.
Napierski-Prancl, M. Role Traps in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Ed. Jerilyn Fisher & Ellen S. Silber. Greenwood Press, 2003.
PCSW. Report of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. U.S. Dept of Labor,1963.
Iris Elske 