Why does Nurse Ratched remember Mr Taber so fondly?

Nurse Ratched remembers Mr. Taber so fondly because supposedly he was a success of one of her controlling and tyrannical experiments. She describes Mr. Taber as an “intolerable Ward Manipulator” (p.
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What happens to Mr Taber under Nurse Ratched's care?

A former patient who stayed in Nurse Ratched's ward before McMurphy arrived. When Maxwell Taber questioned the nurse's authority, she punished him with electroshock therapy. After the treatments made him completely docile, he was allowed to leave the hospital. He is considered a successful cure by the hospital staff.
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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.
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How does Nurse Ratched ensure the rest of the staff is subordinate to her?

By Ken Kesey

Nurse Ratched, the novel's antagonist, maintains her power on the ward by manipulating the men's fears and desires. She uses shame to keep them submissive. She manipulates her staff through insinuation and by carefully stoking their hatred.
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What does Nurse Ratched represent in 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.
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Analyzing Evil: Nurse Ratched



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.
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Is Nurse 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.
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Why does Nurse Ratched remember Mr Taber with warmth?

Nurse Ratched remembers Mr. Taber so fondly because supposedly he was a success of one of her controlling and tyrannical experiments. She describes Mr. Taber as an “intolerable Ward Manipulator” (p.
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Why does Nurse Ratched smile to herself thinking about Mr Taber?

She calls McMurphy a manipulator because he wants to take over so quickly, when in fact she is also quite the manipulator. Actually, her smile at the episode with Mr. Taber is because of how she manipulated that situation to her own ends.
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What was 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.
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What was McMurphy's mental illness?

Each film takes up specific gendered mental illnesses – Susanna is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, seven times more likely in women than men, and McMurphy with Anti-Social Personality Disorder, three times more likely in men than women.
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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.
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Is Nurse Ratched based on a true story?

She is a character, invented for Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. However, Kesey has revealed in interviews that he based Nurse Ratched on a real person, who had been the head nurse of the psychiatric ward where the author had worked as a night-shift orderly.
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Who is Taber in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - Christopher Lloyd as Taber - IMDb.
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Why is Billy bibbit afraid of his mother?

Why is Billy Bibbit afraid of his mother? Billy's mother has controlled him throughout his entire life. By her own design, she is the only person with whom he has a relationship. He is afraid of losing his mother because she is the only woman and family in his life.
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What do geese symbolize in Cuckoo's Nest?

The geese also represent freedom because they are free to do what they want and go about their own business, without noticing the dog, or the patients in the mental institution. The “good fisherman” who “catches hens” represents the nurse and how she “catches” the men in the mental institute.
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What is the combine what is the relationship of Nurse Ratched McMurphy and the chief to the combine?

What is the relationship of Nurse Ratched, McMurphy, and the Chief to the Combine? The Combine exists in Chief Bromden's mind; "Big" Nurse Ratched is an instrument of the Combine. RPM is the rare individual whom the Combine has been unable to fit into a mold.
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Why does Nurse Ratched power?

Nurse Ratched desires order, and she wants complete power, so she manipulates her patients and the staff to fulfill her desires. As the head nurse and as a woman with many connections both inside and outside of the hospital, she is able to maneuver things so that most situations fit her expectations.
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How does Nurse Ratched emasculate patients?

Nurse Ratched emasculates McMurphy by keeping him on the ward and intending to punish him for his actions on the ward.
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Does McMurphy get a 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.
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How does Nurse Ratched contribute to Billy's suicide?

Using her voice and the threat of his mother to shame Billy back to subservience, Nurse Ratched forces him to cower at her feet, begging for mercy. Rather than continue living under her repressive rule, Billy chooses suicide, relinquishing life, while simultaneously making an independent decision.
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Is Billy bibbit a chronic?

Billy Bibbit A 31-year-old man dominated by his mother to the extent that he is still unmarried and a virgin. Bibbit is also a voluntarily committed Acute, despite the fact that his wrists reveal a previous suicide attempt.
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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.
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What do the lights mean in Ratched?

On the show, green lighting often flashes during instances of lust, whether it's for sex or power. We see green spotlight Mildred early on in Ratched when she passes by two hospital employees illicitly having sex. It also washes her out when she has a fantasy about making out with Gwendolyn Briggs (Cynthia Nixon).
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Why is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest called that?

The title comes from a child's rhyme, which also serves as the epigraph. The epigraph reads "One flew east, one flew west, / One flew over the cuckoo's nest." Since the title is only the second half of the epigraph, "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" must be the portion of the rhyme that Kesey felt was most important.
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