Women often hold emasculating power over men. This is a strong theme in the novel with multiple instances reinforcing it.
Nurse RatchedNurse Ratched exhibits the power of women as the "matriarch" of the hospital. Presiding over all male patients and a mainly male staff, Nurse Ratched represents the emasculating effect women have on men. She has everyone under her strict control. McMurphy's comment that she is a "ball-cutter" (60) is symbolically accurate. Her big breasts mark a sex appeal to her, but the fact that she hides them shows that she rejects sexuality and doesn't let her gender hinder her power over the men.
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Harding's wifeIn one of the Group Meetings, the group discusses, or rather tears into, Harding's problems with his wife. He has stated that at times his wife's big breasts give him a sense of inferiority. Her large sex appeal weakens his. He becomes angry when she receives attention from other men because she believes that his lack of crude behavior is "dandyism" (54). This in itself is emasculating.
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Chief Bromden's motherBromden's mother was a white women that was "five feet nine inches" but "bigger than me and papa together" (219). He felt her overbearing power and said she "grew bigger all the time"(219). The fact that he took her last name also shows her power over his father. His father was weakened by many people because of the fight for his tribal land, but Bromden refers to his mother as the reason his father gave up on life.
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Rowley's DeathThe news of Rowley, one of the Disturbed patients, committing suicide comes in the middle of a series of Bromden's hallucinations. Bromden overhears someone through the fog talking about how Rowley did it: he cut off his own testicles and bled to death. Bromden contemplates that the man was just impatient, and "all the guy had to do was wait" (129). This implies that he would have eventually been castrated simply by being in the ward.
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Bibbit's motherBilly Bibbit, a young patient on the ward, is often used as a threat by Nurse Ratched. Whenever Billy is an issue or does something wrong, Ratched tells him she'll tell his mother and he immediately repents. The power his mother holds over him is obscene for his age. Billy ends up committing suicide after Ratched catches him in bed with a prostitute and threatens to tell his mother.
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