Nurse Ratched
Mildred Ratched, best known as Nurse Ratched, is a fictional character from Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. She was portrayed by Louise Fletcher in the 1975 film version in an Academy Award-winning role.
A cold, sadistic tyrant obsessed with her own power, Nurse Ratched has become synonymous with the stereotype of the nurse as a "battleaxe." She has also become a popular metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and authority in bureaucracies such as the mental institution in which the novel is set.
Template:Spoiler Ratched is the head administrative nurse in the Portland State Mental Hospital, where she exercises near-absolute power over the patients' access to medications, priveliges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these priveliges whenever a patient displeases her. Her superiors turns a blind eye because she maintains order and keeps the patients from acting out (either through mind-numbing drugs or emasculating "therapy", which consists mostly of humiliating patients into behaving. Her greatest success is the stuttering, suicidal Billy Bibbit, who is so terrified of her that he does whatever she says.
When Randall McMurphy arrives at the hospital, however, her autocratic rule is nearly toppled; he not only flouts her precious rules with impunity, but encourages the other patients to follow his example. Her attempts to cow him into submission — at first with threats and mild punishments, then with shock therapy — are unsuccessful. If anything, they only make him more defiant.
The last straw is when McMurphy sneaks two prostitutes into the asylum to relieve Billy of his virginity. Ratched threatens Billy with telling his feared mother about the transgression, which frightens him into committing suicide. Enraged, McMurphy attacks and nearly chokes her to death.
In retribution, Ratched has McMurphy lobotomized. Another patient, the mute Chief Bromden, smothers him as a kind of mercy killing. While Ratched's main antagonist is gone, however, her control over the other patients is gone; as she can no longer speak (McMurphy nearly ruined her vocal chords when he he choked her) and McMurphy had shown the other patients how to think for themselves, she can no longer frighten or threaten them.
Some have criticized Kesey's characterization of Ratched as sexist; as embodied by her, it has been said, female authority is denigrated as "ball-cutting" (which McMurphy often accuses her of.) It is worth noting that the only other female characters in the novel are prostitutes.
Nurse Ratched was named the 5th greatest film villain by the American Film Institute in their series 100 Years... 100 Heroes & Villains trailing only Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Darth Vader and the Wicked Witch of the West.
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