Tools of Characterization

Characterization in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Actions

Guys, it's pretty clear that R.P. McMurphy did some bad stuff to get himself chucked in prison and then the mental hospital. For starters, he's been convicted of five assaults and one statutory rape. He's not exactly squeaky clean, and he's definitely impulsive.

Nurse Ratched, by contrast, is someone who is extremely careful in all of her actions. She projects a face of total calm, and the more agitated McMurphy gets, the calmer Ratched seems to get. Everything she does is a calculated attempt to achieve the ends she wants. Clever girl.

Meanwhile, the other patients in the hospital are all well behaved before McMurphy shows up. But his disobedience inspires them to act out more, and before you know it McMurphy has the whole ward drinking and partying. With all this freedom going around, it's all the more crushing when McMurphy gets a lobotomy and the other patients immediately go back to being passive and obedient.

Names

You might think it's just a stereotype, but there's a common perception that Irish people are fiery tempered and quite fond of drinking and having sex. And that's why it's no coincidence that the main character's name is Randle Patrick McMurphy, the most Irish name you're ever going to see.

On top of that, you have a cold and calculating nurse named Nurse Ratched. Now you can pronounce her name as "Wretched," which can be suitable for her meanness. But you can also pronounce it like "Ratchet," which is even more appropriate. Why? Because she constantly ratchets up the pressure on McMurphy (and the other patients), bit by bit. You can't blame her for any individual thing she does—taken by themselves, they're each not all that bad—but the long-term effect of her mental games is the total destruction of the patients' independence and self-esteem.

Sex and Love

Well it's safe to say that McMurphy likes sex, but he definitely doesn't associate sex with love. After all, the guy went to prison for statutory rape. On top of that, he's happy to command his lady friend Candy to have sex with a mental patient just as a personal favor. With this attitude toward women, it's little wonder that McMurphy tries to kill Nurse Ratched for bossing him around so much. He's not exactly reading Betty Friedan in his spare time.

Meanwhile, you have a guy like Billy Bibbit who thinks that sex and love are so important that he's willing to kill himself over the emotion he feels at having sex for the first time. Mind you, he kills himself because of the shame Nurse Ratched makes him feel. And in this moment, we see one more example of the way the hospital tries to destroy the patients' independence through shame.

Speech and Dialogue

You can see a huge difference between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched's characters by the way they express themselves through language. McMurphy is fiery tempered and quick to get frustrated. Nurse Ratched, on the other hand, is always extremely calm and proper, which always gives her an advantage over McMurphy. After all McMurphy always ends up looking like a crazy person when he raises his voice, because compared to Nurse Ratched's icy calmness, almost anyone could be considered crazy.

Occupation

Nurse Ratched is the head nurse at the mental hospital and most of the other characters are her patients. It's fair to say that there's a power dynamic going on where Ratched treats the patients like children. And whenever the patients get frustrated with being treated so poorly, she tells them to cool their jets, making them feel even more like over-emotional children.

But here's the thing: the patients will never defeat Ratched at the "acting calm" game because the longer they act calmly, the more Ratched will get her way. But if they act aggressively, she'll just see it as confirmation of how insane they are. So in McMurphy's words, the game she's playing is a rigged game, and it all goes back to the fact that she's the nurse in charge and everyone else is just a patient.