What did Nurse Ratched do in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

This puts Nurse Ratched and her power into perspective. However, even with her little amount of power, she is destructive. In the short time frame of the book, she destroys three men—two commit suicide and one is lobotomized.

What does Nurse Ratched represent in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

A former army nurse, Nurse Ratched represents the oppressive mechanization, dehumanization, and emasculation of modern society—in Bromden's words, the Combine. Her nickname is “Big Nurse,” which sounds like Big Brother, the name used in George Orwell's novel 1984 to refer to an oppressive and all-knowing authority.

What did Nurse Ratched do to patients?

Nurse Ratched is the head administrative nurse at the Salem State Hospital, a mental institution where she exercises near-absolute power over the patients' access to medications, privileges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these privileges whenever a patient displeases her.

What is Ratched's goal?

Nurse Ratched, to suppress any evidence of her femininity, wears a stiffly starched uniform. Her goal is to conceal her large breasts, which she views as a symbol of weakness. The glass-encased nurses' station, which she uses as a shield and observation point, is symbolically breached several times by the patients.

What is so evil about Nurse Ratched?

If McMurphy serves as a Christ figure, Nurse Ratched is the Antichrist. She represents authority, conformity, bureaucracy, repression, evil, and death. She enters the ward in the morning wearing a black cape reminiscent of a vampire, as if to suck the lifeblood from the patients.

Nurse Ratched

Is Nurse Ratched the true villain of the story?

Ratched is a gruesome origins story featuring a diabolical performance from Sarah Paulson. But, says critic Luke Buckmaster, the entire premise of the show is wrong—because Nurse Ratched was never a villain.

Is Mildred Ratched a psychopath?

In the book and the film of “One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, Nurse Ratched was not a psychopath, she was an unbelievably mean, sadistic person. The original Nurse Ratched's actions during the story show us that something terrible must have happened in her past to make her this way.

What is Nurse Ratched's one weakness?

When McMurphy attacks her and tears her shirt open in front of the men, he reveals her weakness—she's a woman after all. Big breasts don't lie.

Who betrayed Nurse Ratched?

However, Charlotte isn't Edmund's only company on the road trip to hunt down Ratched. He is also joined by the seemingly nutty motel owner Louise (Amanda Plummer), who was last seen working at the facility before the time jump. This is where it becomes clear that perhaps Louise was the one who gave Ratched away.

What does Mildred Ratched want?

Ratched's desire to have a brother dim her vision of a true darkness inside Edmund. The desire to have a brother dims Mildred's vision of a true darkness hidden within him. He admits to her that she's the only person who doesn't see the real him.

Why does Nurse Ratched keep McMurphy in the ward?

Ratched's actions indicate her clear-thinking, premeditated approach to dealing with McMurphy. She chooses to keep McMurphy on the ward to prevent him from attaining the status of a martyr. Moreover, she realizes that sending him off the ward would be tantamount to declaring defeat.

How is Ratched connected to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's?

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' inspired 'Ratched'

Kesey's Nurse Ratched is the main antagonist in the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest book and film. Fletcher's portrayal of the character became an iconic stereotype for the “battle-ax nurse” in movies and television.

Is Ratched based on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Netflix's Ratched is a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which tells the story of the character before she joined the Oregon psychiatric facility that gives the novel and movie its setting—even though Paulson, 45, is actually four years older than Fletcher was when Cuckoo's Nest was released.

Is Nurse Ratched evil Netflix?

Ratched herself is not evil, rather she is the shining example of the corrupt systems of power. Nurse Ratched in Cuckoo's Nest is more like Nurse Betsy Buckett, in that they both believe in the harmful medical experiments being conducted on patients.

How did Nurse Ratched end?

Ratched ending

He escapes with the deranged Charlotte in Dr Hanover's old car. Ratched catches a glimpse of him on the road and realises he has become a danger to her life. The series then skips three years and now Ratched is living with Gwendolyn who is now on a path to remission.

Is Ratched a true story?

While the storyline of Ratched is fiction, the title character is actually based on a real person. While the dramatic storyline in Ratched isn't true, the character of Nurse Mildred is based on a real person. Kesey drew inspiration for his 1962 novel from working in a psychiatric wing at a large hospital.

Is Edmund Nurse Ratched's brother?

Edmund Tolleson is a main character in the Netflix series Ratched. He is Mildred Ratched's foster brother and a convicted mass murderer.

What does the red lighting mean in Ratched?

Red is often in the darker, more violent scenes of Ratched. Though it's never seen in the character's costumes — “[Ryan Murphy] didn't want red in clothes, other than to see blood at the hospital or lipstick on Mildred,” explained Guzzi — red was used to symbolize a loss of control in several scenes.

How is Nurse Ratched described in the book?

Character Analysis Nurse Ratched

She begins as a scheming, manipulative agent of the Combine and remains so at the novel's conclusion. Her depiction resembles the villains of comic books and one-reel film serials in that she asserts arbitrary control simply because she can.

What is Nurse Ratched's first name?

And the actress playing the ultimate authority figure, Nurse Ratched, was Louise Fletcher. Now, almost half a century later, Nurse Ratched has been given a first name - spoiler alert, it's Mildred - and a backstory.

What mental illness does Mildred Ratched have?

One of those top five categories was Best Actress, which went to Louise Fletcher for her performance as the coolly sadistic psychiatric nurse Mildred Ratched. Ratched's power struggle with Jack Nicholson's Randle McMurphy is the core of the movie, and Fletcher's performance is indelible.

Are the treatments in Ratched real?

Viewers of the show have been left aghast at many of the means of treatment – all of which were tragically real.

What mental illness are in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Mac and Susanna are diagnosed with personality disorders: Anti-Social Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, respectively.

Did McMurphy get lobotomy?

McMurphy is given a lobotomy for his attack on Nurse Ratched. When he is returned to the ward after the operation, he is a vegetable. That same night, Bromden suffocates McMurphy with a pillow. He throws the control panel through a window screen and escapes from the hospital, hitching a ride with a trucker.

How old was Nurse Ratched in Cuckoo's Nest?

She hasn't married, hadn't done this, hadn't done that, and was self-sufficient on her own leading this life, because she dedicated her life, her earlier life, to other people who needed her.” Also, she decided that Nurse Ratched was a 40-year-old virgin, and was “very turned on by this McMurphy guy.”