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Heather K. Thein
Dr. Anna M. Jones
ENG 6007
4 December 2013
Rabbits and Wolves: Masculinity and Institutional Othering in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
When Ken Keseys first full-length novel, titled One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, was
published in 1962, it was met with reviews that endeavored to situate his story about life in a
loony bin within the ideologically chaotic context of Americaa nation that had emerged from
two wars and was unwittingly about to enter into another (Time). Calling Keseys inaugural
work a brilliant first novel, a Time magazine reviewer observes that the sanitarium seems to
appeal to many modern writers as a comparable microcosm of the timesa comment that no
doubt alluded to the bizarre control and paranoia by which the McCarthy era would come to be
known. This same reviewer mentions Keseys own time spent working as an aide in a
psychiatric institution, claiming that by incorporating personal perspective into his textual work,
Kesey made his book a roar of protest against middlebrow societys Rules and the invisible
Rulers who enforce them (Time). This verdict on the impetus, or the goal, or both, as they
existed in Keseys mind and within the text, seems somewhat hollow, however. To be sure, the
content of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest undeniably addresses power structures: the Chiefs
persistent and pressing concerns about the wires, machines, and fog of the Combine are
proof enough of that (Kesey 85). Identifying that the focus of Keseys text is power was the
apparent purpose of its reviewers; determining the locus of that power and the circumstances
that surrounded it wasand isthe endeavor of its analysts.
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In the fifty years that have passed since One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nests publication,
literary scholars have dissected the text from a variety of perspectives and theoretical
standpoints. Despite their differences, the majority of these analyses seem to invariably
revolve around the concept of the power structure. Most prevalent among early discussions of
power within the text are those rooted in psychoanalysisan unsurprising trend, considering
the grossly Oedipal overtones of the dynamic between Nurse Ratched and Randall P.
McMurphy; Billy Bibbit and his mother; and even Harding and his wife. Castration anxiety runs
rampant indeed through the halls of Keseys Oregon mental institution, but such discussions
should are only preliminary. Michael Meloys twenty-first century more expansive contribution
to the psychoanalytic discussion, for instance, incorporates notes of historicism and gender
theory: how masculinities are constructed within Keseys text and within the context of Cold
War-era America (4). However, Meloythough never nominally invoking Freud to support the
argument itselfmaintains the focus on castration that has, for the most part, heretofore
dominated considerations of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (12).
The psychoanalytic focusespecially the concept of castrationin the arguments of
Meloy and others is self-limiting in the sense that it arrests discussion of masculinity within the
gender binary. If masculinity is a construct that is restricted or even defeated by merit of Nurse
Ratcheds position as the castrating dominatrix, then masculinity within the text cannot, in
effect, exist outside a juxtaposition of male and female. Such implications stand in opposition
to more contemporary statements about gender and masculinity, such as Judith Butlers
argument that gender is a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience,
including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform the mode of belief (Butler
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402). In other words, if we are to move with the flow of progressive contemporary dialogue,
we must accept the assertion that masculinity is a voluntary act constructed outside of
biological attributes like the possession of a penis, or the possession of a vagina, or Nurse
Ratcheds breasts (Gfin 39). The castration of which Meloy and others speak is, in some
regards, more semiotic in natureMeloy contends that castration is equivalent with lobotomy
in the textbut it is nonetheless firmly situated in the fact that Nurse Ratched is a female and
those she castrates are male. The mere use of the term castration, in fact, is immutably
etymologically rooted in biological sex. In order to move beyond these rigidities, which create a
theoretical stalemate that is contrary to the canon of twenty-first century analysis, it is
imperative that we make our best attempt to be post-gender in any further discussion of
masculinity within Keseys text.
In attempting to analyze masculinity outside of the binary, we cannot, however, depart
entirely from the body itself, as it is the body that exacts the gender performance of the
individuala fact that is particularly inescapable in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, in which
bodies occupy such an important discursive space. Furthermore, if gender and its
performances can be included beneath an overarching heading of sexuality; if we concede to
Foucaults assertions that sexuality and the bodies in which sexualities are contained are loci of
power, then masculinity must therefore be discussed in the environs of the body. I contend,
however, that these sexualities and performances are contained not in the genitals, but rather
the carriage, the voice, the affect, and the tendencies of the governing mind (Discipline and
Punish 135). Even more important, we must consider the spaces in which these bodies move
and negotiate, and how these spaces affect the performance and constructions of masculinity.
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This paper will argue that the setting of the mental institution in One Flew Over the
Cuckoos Nest creates an inherently unique discursive space that departs from the normative
spaces at large in a multitude of ways. Firstly, it is a space in which a female characterNurse
Ratchedis able to dominate the patriarchal structure, and subsequently form her own
structure in which male bodies are marginalized and paradoxically fixed. By paradoxically fixed,
I refer to a space in which the male patients confinement to the ward and the determination of
their need for rehabilitation result fundamentally from their unacceptable performances of
masculinity, which I categorize binomially as amasculine
1
and hypermasculine. Ironically,
however, this same unacceptable amasculine performance is inculcated in these men through
Ratcheds employment of discipline and regimentationpurportedly rehabilitative methods
as a means of creating malleable, docile bodies. Progressing from this argument, I will discuss
the constructions of masculinity within Keseys text, and contend that these fluid gender
performances conspire to destabilize Ratcheds structure, thus illustrating the Foucauldian
principle that power is a series of fluid exchanges rather than a fixed entity.
Institutions Within Mental Hospitals: Destabilization of the Patriarchy
As Foucault discusses in The History of Sexuality, power has traditionally been defined
in terms of law, prohibition, liberty, and sovereignty as these things exist within collections of
institutions and mechanisms that ensure the subservience of the citizens of a given state
(1192). In this statement, we may logically presume that the institutions to which Foucault is

1
In this paper, the term amasculinewhich I define as male gender performance which
opposes or is dissimilar to normative expectations and performances of masculinityis
employed in an effort to maintain language which exists outside of the gender binary,
avoiding such terms as effeminate, feminine, or girlish which use female
characteristics as diatribe.
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referring are intangible: widely accepted customs and precepts of morality, spirituality, law, and
government that maintain order in the behavior of the citizens who adopt them. Actual,
tangible institutions, such as the mental institution in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, would
be defined in Foucauldian terms as one of the terminal forms power takes (The History of
Sexuality 1.4.2). In other words, power in and of itself is not a tangible thing, nor is it a
structurethus, it finds its tangibility within actual structures such as courtrooms, prisons, and
hospitals (Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1.4.2).
In terms of Foucauldian institutions, however, the structure of the mental hospital is
inherently unique in that it is a location wherein institutionsnamely, the institution of
patriarchal dominanceare destabilized. Though the Cold War era of One Flew Over the
Cuckoos Nest saw women widely maintaining their positions outside of the workforce rather
than returning home, the variety of these positions nonetheless remained limited to positions
in clerical work, sales, teaching, and nursing (Meyerowitz 1462). The latter two of these four
examples were deemed especially acceptable professions for women, ostensibly because they
carried a tone of the domestic: teaching involved caring for and leading Americas children,
while nursing had been a display of admirable female contribution to the nation since the
Revolutionary War (Segal 758). Though women in the workforce continued to be subjugated
within the patriarchy in other professions, the nursing profession carried with it an unusual
amount of autonomy for women, in part because its tasks had, over time, been designated as
feminine (McDonald 565). In the Cold War era, men continued to fill the majority of physician
roles and therefore maintained the institution of the patriarchy in hospitals, but their female
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nurses were inarguably a vital source of support and information without which physicians
could not effectively function in health care settings (McDonald 562).
In keeping with these historically-situated discursive institutions, the mental hospital
ward featured in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is controlled by a dominant female power
figureNurse Ratched: an intimidating, calculating, and unwaveringly regimented woman,
whose word is maintained as law even above the voice of the doctors (Kesey 113). Indeed,
Ratcheds influence is so extensive that she personally chooses her staff on the ward in a
remarkably strategic way so that her agenda and habits are not disrupted. Maintaining her
supreme authority requires that she choose doctors who will crumble beneath her and do not
have a persistent or formidable force of will, as is described in the following:
Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff: doctors, all ages and types, come
and rise up in front of her with ideas of their own about the way a ward should
be run, some with backbone enough to stand behind their ideas, and she fixes
these doctors with dry-ice eyes day in, day out, until they retreat with unnatural
chills. (Kesey 22)
Nurse Ratcheds position of dominance also depends on having a support staff as
malleable as the doctors who are supposedly above her. However, the aides malleability does
not arise from the same place as that of the doctors, who acquiesce because they are
intimidated by Ratcheds unyielding demeanor. Rather, as the text indicates, their malleability
stems from apathy and a proclivity for hate and even brutalitya fact Ratched exploits to
maintain control of the patients:
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They come at her in a long black row of sulky, big-nosed masks, hating her and
her chalk doll whiteness from the first look they get. She appraises them and
their hate for a month or so, then lets them go because they dont hate enough.
When she finally gets the three she wantsgets them one at a time over a
number of years, weaving them into her plan and her networkshes damn
positive they hate enough to be capable. (Kesey 22)
Having established a hierarchal structure of power within the hospital, Nurse Ratched stands in
what she believes is an immutable state of authority, replete with underlings to do her bidding
and virtually no one to question or depose her.
Institutions Within Mental Hospitals: The Psychotic Other, Control, and Categorization
That a hospital should be considered a structure in which such subjugating power is an
element seems somewhat counterintuitive, especially when surveying a hospital from a
position that defines such locales as spaces of caretaking and assistance rather than a structure
with an authoritative hierarchy. However, a mental hospital is fundamentally different from its
physiologically-focused relative, since mental illness has for centuries existed as a social taboo:
a thing to be feared; a thing that was at one time attributed to demonic possession; a daunting,
threatening thing, if for no other reason than our lack, even now, of complete understanding of
both psychology and the brain (Pescosolido et al. 855). Knowledge and understanding of these
were even more limited in the Cold War era, in which Keseys text is situated, evidenced in part
by the stark differences between the ideology and treatment planselectroshock therapy, for
instanceof Keseys mental hospital and those of its modern day renditions (28). In contrast to
those receiving inpatient care at a regular hospitalindividuals typically regarded with
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unwavering sympathy in response to their bodily infirmitiesthe residents of a mental hospital
are considered dangerous in their abnormality, perhaps because their minds do not follow
normal progressions of thought and therefore, because their behavior can be unpredictable
and even dangerous. The mental hospital therefore exists as a space in which individuals are
maintained as marginalized figuresothered because of their psychoses and abnormalities.
Given this important difference in patient categorizationphysical infirmity versus mental
infirmityKeseys mental hospital exists as a space in which caretaking is secondary to
containment and control. It is therefore a structure much more akin to a prison than a care
setting.
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault analyzes the social and ideological shifts that catalyzed
changes in the prison systems of the modern age. Additionally, he identifies the mental
hospital as an environment akin to a prison, in that both structures operate under claims of
rehabilitation that can only be accomplished through sustained confinement and supposedly
regenerative treatment (21). My preceding statements identify the patients in Keseys mental
hospital as marginalized figures who are identified as being potentially dangerous or, at the
very least, who are possessive of a mental state that renders them incapable of conformity to
societys institutions. Among the central characters in Keseys text, none but McMurphy have
committed a crime under the law, yet all are subjected to the same confinement and
rehabilitation McMurphy is (34). Logically, then, it follows that there is virtually no initial
designation in Keseys mental hospital between crimes under the lawwhere the law is a
Foucauldian institutionand crimes against social expectation.
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In this sense, it would seem that the reasons which led to these mens arrival in the
mental hospital amounts to much of the same thing; however, once these men are actually in
the hospital, there is an important distinction that relies upon the constructs of agency, or
personal power. At the hospital in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, there are two different
avenues by which residents are categorized: committed and voluntary (Kesey 145).
Commitment, as the protagonist McMurphy discovers, is involuntary and involves indefinite
residency at the hospital, and discharge can only take place through the approval of the clinical
staff (Kesey 127). McMurphy has been committed due to a diagnosis of criminal insanitya
diagnosis he allegedly orchestrated for himself through deception in order to avoid serving the
rest of his sentence in a penitentiary for statutory rape (Kesey 34). Conversely, the term
voluntary is as self-explanatory a term as it appears. Patients categorized as voluntary,
which in the text accounts for nearly every other major character of focus, remain in the
institution by choice (Kesey 145). The implication, therefore, is just as Foucault argues: if the
power to confine some of these men to the ward is not fixed; if it is not necessarily validated in
institutions such as official ward policy or the official permission of authority, the power to
confine must exist in a space outside of or between these institutions (The History of Sexuality
1.4.2). The question that follows is this: by what means are grown men of reasonable, albeit
varyingly aberrant, mental faculty robbed of the agency to seize their right to freedom; robbed
of the ability to exercise their right to get an AMA
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signed this afternoon (Kesey 146)?


2
A discharge against medical advice, by which a patient is permitted to leave a
psychiatric ward of their own volition while absolving the hospital or staff of any liability
for adverse events that might occur after departure (Alfandre 256)
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Docile Bodies in the Cuckoos Nest
When he learns the difference between commitment and voluntary residence,
McMurphy is infuriated. He unleashes a tirade on his Voluntary ward-mates, none of whom he
identifies as being so broken that they are completely and irrevocably dysfunctional:
Tell me why. You gripe, you bitch for weeks on end about how you cant stand
this place, cant stand the nurse or anything about her, and all the time you aint
committed. I can understand it with some of these old guys on the ward.
Theyre nuts. But you, youre not exactly the everyday man on the street, but
youre not nuts. (Kesey 145)
One by one, McMurphy confronts the Voluntaries, demanding an explanation for their consent
to remain confined. Among them, only the stuttering, glaringly Oedipal Billy Bibbit offers an
explanation: Sure! he screams again. If we had the g-guts! I could go outside to-today if I
had the guts. (Kesey 146). For Foucault, Billys statement would likely have come as no
surprise; the significance of his language would have been unmistakable. Both McMurphy and
Bibbit deploy the term guts in equation with empowerment and agency. Considering that
these so-called guts are a colloquialism for the bowels, the implication here is that this
empowerment and agencypowerare situated in the body itself. In this discourse, what
makes a person powerful appears at least partially inseparable from his or her physical
constitution.
In subjectively more refined terms, Foucault, too, defines the body as object and target
of power, meaning that the body possesses and can act in power and can also be acted upon
by power (Discipline and Punish 136). One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest illustrates both of these
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scenariosa dissonant symphony of the exact types of ceaseless struggles and
confrontations that Foucault claims defines the fundamental nature of power (The History of
Sexuality 1.4.2). With regard to the latter scenario in which the men on the ward are acted
upon by power, it is through this action that the men become docile; they become bodies that
may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved (Foucault, Discipline and Punish 135). The
arguably schizotypal Chief Bromdenan immense Native American man who acts as the
narrator of the textinsists that this work and transformation is accomplished by machines:
fog machines, disguised machines, and tiny machines inserted into the brain (Kesey 67).
Though these machines are quite real to the Chief, it is useful to consider them in their
allegorical sense. Foucault proposes that the machine is the body: its disciplining, the
optimization of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel increase of its usefulness
and its docility, its integration into systems of efficient and economic controls (The History of
Sexuality 1.5.1). In other words, the controlling power by which Ratched transformed these
men into docile beings was exerted against their bodies, by her body and those of the aides.
The Chiefs external machines are not necessary since the bodies of the men themselves are
machines that can be broken down and rebuilt to be yielding.
Though Foucault discusses bodies in Discipline and Punish in terms of the soldier, we
must remember that a soldier is essentially an individual acting at the behest and in the
prescribed manner of authority (135). With regard to the alleged goal of rehabilitation on the
ward, Nurse Ratched must operate within a paradox: she must promote and facilitate the idea
that treatment is meant to right the abnormality, but she must not right it to such an extent
that the docility of the men is disrupted. Rhetorically, her real success in maintaining control in
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the ward is dependent on the manner in which she projects the first part of this paradox: a
veritable angel of mercy, purring her selfless, good intentions in such a manner that the men
not only accept itthey begin to hold one another accountable to Ratcheds rules, making her
authority self-perpetuating (Kesey 90). Tangibly, success in Ratcheds paradox is accomplished
through her strict use of discipline, which Foucault states increases the forces of the bodyin
this case, endeavoring to reclaim mental stabilitywhile simultaneously dissociating power
from the body (Discipline and Punish 138). Ratcheds use of discipline, therefore, allegedly
endeavors to increase the mens capacity, yet it reverses the course of energy, the power that
might result from it, and turns it into a relation of strict subjection (Foucault, Discipline and
Punish 138).
Discipline and Punishment: Deprivation, Shaming, Regimentation, & Threat of Torturous
Obliteration
Specific examples of control via discipline of the body in Keseys text revolve around the
type of deprivation punishments more commonly seen in prisons or prisoner-of-war camps.
For instance, during a group meeting on the ward, one of the men reiterates a long-standing
annoyance with the fact that the dormsthe mens sleeping quartersare locked on the
weekends, preventing the men from getting extra sleep: Cant a fellow even have the
weekends to himself? asks the patient; I mean, normal people get to sleep late on
weekends. (Kesey 126). Nurse Ratched sternly replies with the following: You men are in
this hospital because of your proven inability to adjust to society. The doctor and I believe
that every moment spent in the company of others is therapeutic (Kesey 126). The men get
a similar rejection when they demand to know why their cigarettes are being withheld from
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them: I feel says Ratched, that three and four and five packages of cigarettes a day are
entirely too many for a man to smoke (Kesey 127). Similarly, Chief Bromden relays the
following experience with Ratcheds black boysthe ward aideswho steal his breakfast
after he is drugged and locked in Seclusion after a disruptive outburst:
I dont remember if I got breakfast or not. Probably not. I can call to mind some
morning locked in Seclusion the black boys keep bringing seconds of
everythingsupposed to be for me, but they eat it insteadtill all three of them
get breakfast while I lie there on that pee-stinking mattress, watching them wipe
up egg with toast. I can smell the grease and hear them chew the toast. (Kesey
6-7)
Beyond being deprived of food, the inclusion of bodily waste in the Chiefs supposedly
rehabilitative treatmentin this case, punitive Seclusion seems reminiscent of rubbing a
dogs nose in its own filth to demoralize it and teach it not to make a mess in the house, and is
an element that is not experienced by the Chief alone. A dissociative Chronic named Ellis has a
routine of standing motionless in the same spot on the wall, his arms out in a crucifixion pose,
which inevitably results in him soiling himself: Hes nailed like that on the wall, like a stuffed
trophy. They pull the nails when they want him to move sos I can mop the puddle where he
stands. At the old place he stood so long the piss ate the floor and beams away under him
(Kesey 12). All of these acts of deprivation reshape the mens bodies as docile. Men whose
bodies are tired, perpetually under supervision, deprived of food, deprived of self-soothing
substances, and demoralized in a puddle of their own filth are logically less apt or able to rebel.
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In addition to deprivation, discipline on Nurse Ratcheds ward appears irrevocably linked
to regimentationa fitting preoccupation, given the distinct evidence that Ratched likes things
just so. Foucault states that regimentation is a means by which the activities of others are
controlled, not only in the sense of when activities are performed, but how they are performed
as well (Discipline and Punish 150). The men must not only do what they are told; they must be
deprived even of their control over how their tasks are completed. This is evident in
McMurphys failure to adequately clean the dorm toilets, which incites the mens general
neglect of their chores. Ratched swiftly responds with a counter-assaultive speech that clarifies
her shrewd paradoxical control:
We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of
thought about their therapeutic value. A good many of you are in here because
you could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World, because you
refused to face up to them, because you tried to circumvent them and avoid
them. At some timeperhaps in your childhoodyou may have been allowed
to get away with flouting the rules of society. When you broke a rule you knew
it. You wanted to be dealt with, needed it, but the punishment did not come.
That foolish lenience on the part of your parents may have been the germ that
grew into your present illness. I tell you this hoping you will understand that it is
entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline and order. (Kesey 149)
In Ratcheds ward, every activity must support the paradoxical agenda: they must appear to be
instrumental in the mens rehabilitation, but they must not be so genuinely rehabilitative that
they energize the men to rebellion. While many of the aforementioned deprivation examples
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can also be categorized under this concept of regimental disciplinary control, the most
compelling of any example in Keseys text is McMurphys campaign for the World Series.
Having rarely missed a World Series in years, McMurphy attempts to negotiate a
change in the schedule so that he and the other men can watch the baseball game instead of
the six oclock news (Kesey 92). Such a change would disrupt Ratcheds regimentvery
displeasingbut even in the face of this annoying challenge, Ratched must adhere to the
illusory aspect of the paradox. The ward constitutionitself a fallacious artifact of the Ratched
paradoxs restorative elementcalls for a majority vote in order for the schedule to be changed
and the Series to be aired (Kesey 105). After one unsuccessful attempt, McMurphy thinks he
has accomplished majority support on his secondwinning the right to watch the World Series
and also winning small battle against the nurse. Unfortunately, the Nurse disdainfully reminds
him that there are forty patients on the ward, and only twenty votedMcMurphy must have
the support of at least one of the Chronic patients, as wellall of whom are vegetative,
dissociative, or unresponsive at the very least (Kesey 105). Such a farcicle constructthe rules
of the Constitutionis demonstrative of the nearly bulletproof construction of Ratcheds
regimentation and how she employs this to retain control, mostly to her success. Further, as
previously mentioned, the manner in which regimentation is presented to the menthat the
schedule has been set up for a delicately balanced reason that would be thrown into turmoil by
switch of the routines has led them to believe that it is vital to their success and even their
safety: I dont know, Mack, Scanlon finally says, Im pretty used to seeing that six oclock
news. And if switching times would really mess up the schedule as bad as Miss Ratched says
(Kesey 90). At Scanlons statement, others chime in, contributing their fearful opinion that
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the World Series could result in a complete infrastructural collapsethe fruition of the seeds of
mental control Ratched has been planting all along (Kesey 91).
It is clear that Ratched has made the men docile through all of these implants of
disciplinesuch to the point that historically, it has taken little effort on her part to subdue any
sort of uprising among the majority of her male patients. However, Ratched does not deprive
herself of the comfort in having a real coup de grace. If the everyday methods discussed here
lack in efficacy, there is the quietly humming threat of torturous obliteration: electroshock
therapy and, for individuals who are incurably subversive, frontal lobotomyboth designed to
create a more docile body and both perpetrated in what the Chief calls that filthy brain-
murdering room (Kesey 197). Torture, says Foucault, has a dual purpose: first, it must mark
the victim, and secondly, it must be seen by all almost as a triumph (Discipline and Punish
34). If we consider the delivery of an electric shock to the brain, which renders the patient
involuntarily placid and devoid of self-control of even their most basic bodily functions, an act
of torture, we must acknowledge that it matches this dual purpose. Taberan Acute who
dared to question why he had to take medicationwas treated with electroshock therapy to
help him achieve therapeutic success. In the discussion of Taber, we see that electroshock
therapya supposedly benevolent treatmentcarries all the characteristic of Foucaults
concept of torture: Why Ive never seen anything to beat the change in Maxwell Taber since
he got back from that hospital; a little black and blue around the eyes, a little weight lost
[emphasis mine], and, you know what? Hes a new man. Gad, modern American science
(Kesey 31). Lobotomy, too, carries all of the traits of torture: when McMurphy ultimately meets
this fate, he is put on display in the ward, his face milk-white except for the heavy purple
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bruises around the eyesa warning, like a medieval head on a pike, to any who would dare to
defy Ratcheds structure as McMurphy did (Kesey 246).
Constructions of Masculinity: Wolves and Rabbits
To begin my discussion of masculinity construction in Keseys text, we must briefly
return to a time long before McMurphys destruction. The aforementioned battle over the
World Series holds significance not only in its illustration of regimental control, as discussed,
but also in its semiotic significance to McMurphy and men like McMurphy. The World Series is
a game, yes; however, it is a game submersed in male ritual: a game played by men and
watched by many, male and female, but a game that was, in the Cold War era, an expression of
what it meant to be an American male (Elia et al 222). McMurphy arrives on Nurse Ratcheds
ward as a man who is accustomed to living in a mans world: a world of armies, bars, bird-
dogging girls, and backroom gambling (Kesey 34). In the female-dominated mental hospital,
McMurphy is out of his elementnot just because of the ample frustration of deprivation and
regimentation, but because he is essentially not allowed to be a man, or what he feels a man
should be. The battle of the World Seriesindeed, every battle waged, waiting to be waged, or
suppressed in the wardare rudimentarily born of Ratcheds suppression of masculinity
therein.
As initially discussed, masculinity is one of many expressions of gender. It is a construct
that conjures up notions of power and legitimacy and privilege (Halberstam 2). Furthermore,
in contemporary discussion, gender is not defined by biologyit is defined by how the
masculinity is performed (Butler 402). From these arguments, we proceed from the notions
that gendermasculintycan be performed by either biological sexmale or female. Lastly,
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in keeping with contemporary discourse, this paper aims to avoid a discussion of masculinity
that is binary in naturea trend that has tended to dominate such examinations of masculinity
in Keseys text. Having established these guidelines for discussion, we must maintain that
constructions of masculinity within Keseys text are not only highly multifarious; they are fluid,
as all gender performance is. Though fluidity implies a state of flux in performance, for the
focus of my argument, I will categorize these performances under two broader archetypes of
masculinity: the amasculine and the hypermasculinewhich will varying be referred to in
conjunction with hegemonic masculinityand how these expressions promote or destabilize
Nurse Ratcheds power structure.
Hypermasculinity
When Randall P. McMurphy strolls into the ward, Chief Bromden describes this event as
follows: He sounds big in the way he walks voice loud and full of hell (Kesey 9). From his
first moments in the hospital, McMurphy embodies transgression and the opposite of
everything Ratched wantsneedsher patients to be. Bromden repeatedly describes him as
big throughout the novel, referring to his physical appearance and his general carriage: he
carries himself with weight and power (Kesey 9). Once in the supervising physicians office,
McMurphy himself states the reason for his commitment as an alleged psychopath: Now they
tell me a psychopaths a guy fights too much and fucks too much, but they aint wholly right, do
you think? (Kesey 11). Everything about McMurphys gender performance is drenched in
machismo.
Hypermasculinity is a term that was originally proposed by American clinical
psychologists Donald Mosher and Mark Sirkin in the 1980s. In developing an inventory through
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which the presence of hypermasculinity could be discovered, Mosher and Sirkin settled on a
definition for this term which closely resembles McMurphys vulgar definition of a psychopath:
a man with calloused sex attitudes toward women; a man who considers violence as manly
and danger as exciting (153). In the context of these attributes, McMurphy is not only the
embodiment of Nurse Ratcheds worse nightmare: he is the embodiment of the
hypermasculine in Keseys text. This role as the hypermasculine figure also situates him in a
related category: hegemonic masculinity, defined by R.W. McConnell as the configuration of
gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the
legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees the dominant position of men and the
subordination of women (qtd. in Coles 31). In other words, McMurphys personal construction
of masculinity is the only construction that has the potential to destabilize Ratched and her
power structurethe only man who has the guts and personality to have her to where she
dont know whether to shit or go blind (Kesey 57).
Amasculinity
Since this paper examines a microcosmthe mental hospitalin which there is a
significantly more dominant male character, McMurphy, amasculinity is discussed in this paper
in relation or opposition to McMurphys hypermasculine construction. If McMurphy has
arrived on the ward by merit of an overexaggerated performance of manhood, many of the
other residents arrived by merit of the exact opposite, or were eventually groomed to be as
such. In my earlier discussion of power, control, and dominance, and the retention of these
things by Nurse Ratched, I employed the term amasculine to refer to the nature of the gender
performance of many of the male residents. As aforementioned, many of the menBibbit and
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Hardingreside on the ward because of preexisting conditions of amasculinity (Kesey 15).
Since gender and masculinity obviously cannot be performed independent from the body,
much of these other patients characterization as amasculine is dependent on their bodily
expression.
As to the other residents in whom these particulars are not made clear, we observe that
even in the absence of preexistence and overt, observable expression, Ratcheds modes of
control are purposed to refigure the men as amasculine: men who, unlike McMurphy, feel
compelled or even required to act with respect toward women, even fearing them, and do not
crave aggression, violence, or supremacy over women as McMurphy does. In short, where
McMurphy declares his intent to stage a coup and become the bull goose loony, as he has
always been in every other setting, the long-term amasculine residents on the ward have no
such aspirations with any earnestness (Kesey 14). Amasculinity, therefore, is characterized by
passivity; by figurative or literal smallness in contrast to McMurphys bigness.
Amasculine Performances and Sexuality: Bibbit and Harding
If, as McMurphy states, the hypermasculine psychopath can be defined as a sexually
promiscuous man, young Billy Bibbit and Harding stand as the antitheses to this assertion.
Avoiding the repetitious Oedipal discussion, much of Billy Bibbits amasculinity is rooted in his
virginity and that he is a grown man strictly governed by his mothera never-seen personality
doppelganger of Nurse Ratched, by the way she is characterized in dialogue (Kesey 241). Billys
observable expressions of masculinity include his bashfulness about sexual discussion, as
evident in the following:
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*McMurphy+ prods at Billy Bibbit Hey Billy Boy, you remember that time in
Seattle you and me picked up those two twitches? One of the best rolls I ever
had.
Billys eyes bob up from his plate. He opens his mouth but cant say a thing.
McMurphy turns to Harding.
Those girls were about take off when one looked at him and says, Are you the
renowned Billy Club Bibbit? Of the famous fourteen inches? And Billy ducked
his head and blushedlike hes doin nowand we were a shoo-in.
Billy Bibbit is petrified of his mothers disapproval, which has stifled any chance he ever had at a
sexual encounter or any other kind of relationship with a woman (Kesey 103). Given this
dynamic with his mother, Billy looks upon any woman from an inferior position of
intimidationcertainly not a characteristic which would put him, as he claims, next in line for
the job of bull goose loony (Kesey 15). Even more unfortunate, Billys permanent state of
inferiority and nervousness manifests itself in a practically crippling stutter (Kesey 101). Where
McMurphy is loud with a voice like hell, Bibbit can barely utter a cohesive sentence, and thus
lacks power behind any protest he might try to make.
If Billy Bibbits amasculinity is rooted in his involuntary asexuality, Hardings is rooted in
the uncertainty of his heterosexuality and the fact that he does not possess the sexual virility of
men like McMurphy. The Chief describes him thusly from the outset:
Harding is a flat, nervous man with a face that sometimes makes you think you
seen him in the movies, like its a face too pretty to just be a guy on the street.
Hes got wide, thin shoulders and curves them in around his chest when hes
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trying to hide inside himself. Hes got hands so long and white and dainty I think
they carved each other out of soap, and sometimes they get loose and glide
around in front of him free as two white birds until he notices them and traps
them between his knees; it bothers him that hes got pretty hands. (Kesey 14-15)
In addition to his pretty looks and dainty handsa stark contrast to McMurphys scarred face
and calloused mittsthe implication that Harding is homosexual is repeated throughout the
novel, particularly in relation to his alleged inability to sexually satisfy his wife (Kesey 72). Mrs.
Harding later visits the ward with insults for his amasculine behaviorhis laugh, which she
describes as that mousy little squeakalong with more specific suggestions of his alleged
dalliances with men:
She talks some more about some of Hardings friends who she wishes would
quit dropping around the house looking for him. You know the type, dont you,
Mack? she says, The hoity-toity boys with the nice long hair combed so
perfectly and the limp little wrists that flip so nice. (Kesey 137)
Summarily, Bibbit and Harding have arrived on the ward as men who perform
amasculinity rather than masculinity. Their residence there is, in fact, a direct result of their
failure to perform masculinity as dictated by society or members of society; namely, Hardings
homosexual tendencies and Bibbits attempted suicide in response to his mothers pressures
and abuse (Kesey 103). Both originated from positions of subjugation to women: Bibbit to his
mother and Harding to his wife, having been humiliated by her infidelities and the implication
of his sexual failures these infidelities imply (Kesey 137). Both men are predisposed to craving
order and peace, as they are incapable or ineffective at self-advocacy in any other situation.
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Given their long-term construction as amasculine men, Bibbit and Harding exist in opposition to
Nurse Ratched as her dream patients, on whom she has to exercise very little force to maintain
control over them.
Amasculine Grooming: Malleable Masculinities
In relative contrast to Bibbit and Harding, the remainder of the Acutes on which Keseys
text is focusedthose in immediate proximity to McMurphydo not have an overtly stated
predisposition to amasculinity. In fact, a few of the figuresSefelt, Frederickson, Cheswick, and
even the long-suffering Banciniare prone to rebellious displays and unpredictable outbursts
(Kesey 148). The difference, of course, if we consider these displays and outbursts in relation to
those of our hypermasculine figure, McMurphy, is the absence of calculation and perseverance.
Since the aforementioned three characters mental illnesses are never made explicitly clear, we
can never be entirely certain that these outbursts are indicative of an aggressive masculine
performance, or simply a behavior linked with their disorder. Nonetheless, within the
previously discussed context of Foucaults docile bodies, these are the men who have been
groomed by Nurse Ratched to be amasculineto be docile. Even the physically immense Chief
Bromden has learned to disappear within the fog of Ratcheds control rather than fight it (Kesey
60). These mens attempts of rebelling are swiftly repressed by Ratched or her aides, in a
manner that is both patronizing andfor these men, at leastirresistibly diffusing of any
agency they attempt to seize for themselves:
*Frederickson+ steps up to the nurse, shaking his fist at her. Oh, is that it? Is
that it, huh? You gonna crucify old [Sefelt] just as if he was doing it to spite you
or something?
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She lays a comforting hand on his arm, and his fist unrolls.
Men like these, who are so easily pacified and influenced, remain on Miss Ratcheds ward only
because they have accepted her paradox. They accept her illusion that whatever is
prescribedwhether activities, medications, or regimentsare prescribed in their best
interest, and that to resist Nurse Ratcheds prescriptions is to resist and destroy ones own
health (Kesey 133).
Unexpected Masculinity
If we maintain that, for the purposes of this papers argument, we must define
masculinity constructions by their relationship to McMurphys performance of hypermasculine
and hegemonic masculinities, we cannot ignore Nurse Ratched as a masculine figure. Previous
discussions of masculinity have always attempted to place Ratched outside the realm of
possibility of masculine performance: she is a symbol of female dominance; she has breasts;
she is the bearer of castration (Gfin 39). The masculinity of the men on the ward depends
upon the fact that they are biologically male and Ratched is biologically female, or so these
discussions seem to argue (Meloy 12). If we move beyond this binary, however, Ratcheds
gender performance is very like McMurphys in many respectsespecially if we consider that
McMurphys masculinity construction is characterized by his ability to manipulate situations,
use physical aggression, dominate others, and claimor reclaim authority.
Judith Halberstam would argue that judging Nurse Ratcheds performance of
masculinity in the context of meneven outside physiological mattersis incorrect (15). She
would categorize Nurse Ratcheds masculinity as female masculinity, which rejects the idea that
female masculinities are the rejected scraps of dominant [male] masculinities in order that
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male masculinity may appear to be the real thing (1). However, Ratcheds performance is not
one of rejected scrapsshe is the bull goose loony of which McMurphy speaks. She is, as
Harding describes her early in the narrative, a good strong wolf, not a rabbit like the men or
many of the women of her era (Kesey 50). In a Cold War discourse of patriarchal dominance,
her position in the mental hospital has enabled her to become a perfomer of hegemonic
masculinitynot in the sense that she is able to dominate women, which she does, but in the
sense that she is able to dominate everyone. She is the titular Cuckoo; the nest is hers.
Interactions Between Masculinities: Catalysts for Power Exchanges and Destabilization
Nurse Ratcheds prescriptionsher power structure and the grooming required to fix
the men with itare built on a foundation of learned helplessness. Developed in 1975, Martin
Seligmans concept of learned helplessness is defined as follows: individuals learn from
previous experiences in which control eludes them, and, over repeated identical or similar
experiences, assume the control will continue to elude them and cease to try to seize or
maintain it (136). Through strategy, Ratched is able to create an environment in which such a
lesson can be learned, and men can be controlled through what Seligman would call learned
helplessness and Foucault would call docility. Regardless of the chosen operative term, what is
implied by Ratcheds success in creating and sustaining such an environment is that she is
aware that any construction of masculinity other than those that are amasculine is a threat to
her domination. This is abundantly clear in her rejection of any doctor or aide who presents
himself as potentially hegemonic in his masculinity; these are promptly ejected from her
structure as they would act as destabilizers of the female-dominant structure.
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The effects of McMurphys hypermasculinity in the midst of his amasculine ward-
matesthe rabbits, as Harding offersare drastic and cannot go unacknowledged (Kesey 50).
From the outset, he impresses the silent Chief Bromden with his sizeliteral and figurative
and he disrupts the passive calm of the ward as he dares to laugh loud and long (Kesey 9). After
his first experience of the Therapeutic Community, McMurphy brashly and unequivocally
declares the meetings a bunch of chickens at a peckin party (Kesey 44). Moreover, over the
course of a debate with the pecking victim, Harding, McMurphy leads Harding to concede to
the fact that Ratched is a ball cutter people who try to make you weak so they can get you
toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to get you to
do this is to weaken you by gettin you where it hurts the worst (Kesey 46). McMurphy
though not through any sophisticated psychological knowledgerecognizes Ratcheds tactics
immediately, and he recognizes that Harding, as well as the rest of the men, have been forced
into amasculinity.
Though this situation might be acceptable for most, if not all, of the men who welcomed
him to the ward, for McMurphy, this environment is untenable and one he sets out to change
immediately. For the hypermasculine McMurphy, subversion and disruption come naturally: he
is neither one who is prone to toeing the line, nor is he one who accepts being anything but
the bull goose loony (Kesey 46). McMurphys intent to destroy Ratcheds structureto get
her goatseemingly begins as nothing more than an amusing diversion, and one he can make
some easy money from (Kesey 58). Having been perpetually in a position as the hegemonic
masculine figure, McMurphy does not expect to fail in his endeavor. As time passes and
McMurphy feels himself continually stymied and restricted at every turn, he resorts to
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progressively more disruptive and unpredictable acts: redirecting meetings, intimidating
Ratched with his nude body as a reminder of his strength and virility, refusing to do chores,
constructing a gambling casino in the bath rooms, and putting his fist through the protective
glass between the nurses office and the ward (Kesey 44-151).
Incredibly, with each of these subversive acts, we can observe a shift in the manner in
which the other men perform masculinityespecially where we define amasculine as passive
and masculine and hypermasculine as agentic and aggressive, respectively. The consequence of
this fluid change in performance is what Foucault refers to as the process which transforms,
strengthens, or reverses force relations, where force relations refers, in this case, to which
bodies are acting and which are being acted upon (The History of Sexuality 1.4.2). In Keseys
text, an exchange occurs first between the hypermasculine McMurphy and the amasculine
men. They are observably emboldened by McMurphys own boldness, which can be clearly
seen in the difference between McMurphys first Therapeutic Community meeting and those
that follow.
Specifically, McMurphys democratic battle for the World Series shows us a drastically
different group of men who are no longer part of a pecking party, but seem to have taken on a
few of the characteristics of the wolf they call McMurphy (Kesey 52). As Ratched attempts to
shut down McMurphys call for a second vote, Scanlon and otherspreviously meek and
silentpipe up in his defense and in rejection of Ratcheds disciplinary structure: Let him vote,
why dontcha? Why ya want to ship him to Disturbed just for bringing up a vote? Whats so
wrong with changing time? (Kesey 104). Even amid McMurphys apparent defeat, Ratched
sees her previously unchallenged authority crumbling. As the men, with their elected bull
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goose loony, stare intently at an invisible baseball game that is not actually playing, Ratched can
do little more than watch, hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline
and order and recriminations (Kesey 109). Previously trapped in Ratcheds rigid regiment
petrified, in fact, to step outside of itthe other men begin to experience life again as
McMurphy feels normal men do by shedding the docile bodies that have been imposed on
them and adopting a performancealbeit brief and changeableof the hegemonic
hypermasculine (Kesey 171).
Adherence to Foucauldian notions of power requires, however, that we remember that
such shifts in power are fluid: a back-and-forth exchange which transfers the power from one
position to another (The History of Sexuality 1.4.2). If these men exchange their amasculine
performance for a performance more akin to McMurphys hypermasculinityand this to the
affect of victory and a power transferwe must remember that what is good for the gander is
also good for the goose. The events of rebellion which result in McMurphys and the other
residents success essentially comes down to, as McMurphy would likely say in a card game,
upping the ante. The men get louder; they do not back down; they rebel in numbers as a
means of combining their individual power; they do not attend to the Nurses regiment. In
response to this, Nurse Ratched also increases her force of discipline in all of the ways discussed
previously. Ultimately, Keseys text demonstrates that these Foucauldian force relations
never cease (The History of Sexuality 1.4.2). Though it would seem that Ratched is ultimately
the victor because she destroys her male foil and arch-nemesis, the text demonstrates that the
final scoreboard is actually uncertain:
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She tried to get her ward back into shape, but it was difficult with McMurphys
presence still tromping up and down the halls and laughing out loud in the
meetings and singing in the latrines. She couldnt rule with her old power
anymore She was losing her patients one after the other. (Kesey 245)
Ultimately, it is the exchange of masculine performances and constructions that catalyzes the
shift in power described above by the Chief: a duel of the hypermasculine push; of the parry of
female masculinity; of the enforcement of the amasculine, and the abandonment of the same.
It is easy to attribute power in Keseys text as an illustration of the castration myth; to cast
Nurse Ratched as the Mother, the men as her sons, and McMurphy as the Father. However,
these analyses do not do justice to the incredible complexities of these characters, and fail to
recognize the elaborate elements of the power structure in which they move.
[8507]










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