l and controlling Nurse Ratched. Although he received the harshest punishment imaginable, McMurphy showed the other patients that it was possible to beat the seemingly invincible Big Nurse. McMurphy helped change the lives of most of the men on the ward, when it seemed they were in a situation were change was not possible. “The story casts its central character as a Christ-like figure who is sacrificed on the cross of conformity and control.” (Isherwood, 2001) He gave the men back the ability to control their own lives, which Nurse Ratched had taken away from them. McMurphy is a character, which uses his control for noble purposes by rebelling against a controlling authority system, so that others can regain control over their lives. Nurse Ratched (The Big Nurse) The ultimate (and my all time favorite) antagonist is the dominating character of Nurse Ratched. The patients, the black boys, the other nurses, and even the doctors are completely submissive to Nurse Ratched's authority. Charles Isherwood gives the perfect description of her character: “This castrating mother figure is a combination of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Mengele, and Joan Crawford encased in starch.” She is a woman who has transformed herself from a human being into a machine that demands complete control and order of everyone. This demand for controlling others is so great in her mind that she believes that her corrupt and malicious use of her control over the men is justified. At the beginning of Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched perceives that she has complete control and order over the ward. Her perceptions of her amount of control at this point in the novel are accurate. Her patients are terrified of her. The Chief describes The Big Nurse as, a mechanism of terror, able to control the hospital with her “beams of hate,” which shows the Nurse as the embodiment of pure evil. She is a force that influences all her patients to accept her ...
