Nurse Ratchet, Randall Patrick McMurphy, and Their Relationship

In “One That Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Nurse Ratchet represents the power or people that are trying to take away the uniqueness of the “insane” people (AKA take away their insanity). She has group therapy session with the patients, and forces them to talk about what they did to get into the insane ward. Nurse Ratchet pesters Harding to talk about his issues with his wife, and tries to get Billy to talk about him proposing to a girl and trying to commit suicide. She makes them talk about their personal lives in front of the other patients, which makes them feel vulnerable. When Randall Patrick McMurphy comes to the ward, she tries to do the same technique on him, but finds that it doesn’t work like it does on the other patients.

            RPM represents the opposing power or the people who don’t want to give up their insanity or uniqueness. At first, it seems that RPM is the only one that wants to fight the power that is trying to change them. This is shown during the first vote, when only RPM, Taber, and Cheswick are the only ones to vote in favor of changing the schedule. However, during the second vote, all the patients present at the group therapy session vote in favor of changing the schedule. RPM also escapes and steals a bus full of the patients, and takes them fishing. RPM fights against Nurse Ratchet, which makes the other patients question her authority.    

            The relationship between Nurse Ratchet and RPM is a conflict. RPM is the first patient to question her authority/power over the patients. Nurse Ratchet does not like this, so she does everything in her power to stop it. When the second vote occurs and it’s 9-9, she claims that it is not the majority. When RPM gets the 10^th vote Chief, she claims that the group session has ended, and so has the vote. This makes RPM even more willingly to fight against her power, which causes him to escape and going fishing, gamble with the other patients over cigarettes, and sneak girls and beer into the ward. Overall, the conflict between Nurse Ratchet and RPM represents the fight between society wanting to change the “insane people” and the “insane” people wanting to stay just the way they are.