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Women In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, female characters are utilized in a way that reflect how appearances set expectations in the form of gender roles. Just as the slender, curvy, dainty form of a woman is seen, so is her delicate, conforming, and docile manner expected. Kesey’s most forefront female, Nurse Ratched, is an unexpected mix of awe-inspiring and fear-inducing. Her appearance, however, is repeatedly described as ruined due to her having huge breasts. Since breasts are obviously characteristic of females, they take away from the role she aims to keep as the head of her ward. She is just like McMurphy who “hadn’t let what he looked like run his life one way or the other.” Her individual conquest lies in becoming something

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