‘Any claim for the novel as being politically progressive is undermined by its underlying misogyny?’ How far do you agree with this statement?

The political outlook of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest can certainly be said to be a progressive one. At its heart is the conflict between the repressive social and ideological controls embodied by the Combine (represented here by the hospital ward and its technology), and traditional American values (represented by McMurphy and Bromden). In the final, almost prophetic, image of the novel we see an idealistic view of the future as it appeared to Kesey in the early 1960’s. The ‘Indians spearing salmon off old ramshackle wood scaffolding all over that big million-dollar hydroelectric dam’ represent co-existence between modern and traditional, conformity and rebellion, white American and Native American. This harmonious vision is given greater power by the fact that the first Native American civil rights organisation - the American Indian Movement - was formed, only 6 years after the book was published, in 1968. However, more recently, the progressive nature of the novel has been questioned by feminist critics who view Kesey and his central protagonist as deeply misogynistic and sexist. The ball-cutting ‘Big Nurse’ is seen as the archetype of all that traditional ‘unreconstructed’ masculinity abhors in women, particularly those in positions of power and influence. In this light, the novel seems to depict the authentically virile and potent America being systematically undermined and emasculated by female driven consumerism and institutionalism.