About

Nurse Mildred Ratched is the cold and sadistic fictional head nurse from Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In the 1975 film, she was portrayed by Louise Fletcher, who won best actress for her role.

Nurse Ratched is is the head administrative nurse at a fictional mental hospital in Portland, where she exersizes absolute power over her patients' access to medications, privileges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these privileges whenever a patient displeases her. Her superiors turn a blind eye because she maintains order, keeping the patients from acting out (either through antipsychotic and antivonvulsant drugs of her own brand of therapy, which consists mostly of humiliating patients into doing her bidding). Her greatest success is the with the stuttering, suicidal Billy Bibbit, who is so terrified of her that he does whatever she says.

In my opinion, Nurse Ratched is the perfect villain. She does not appear to be what she seems. On the outside she is a calm and collected middle aged women who never raises her voice above a whisper, and rarely displays her inner emotions. She is able to maintain complete control of her patients with little effort. She is strict, but to the outsiders of her ward, she always seems to keep everything in perfect order. On the inside, she is cruel, ruthless, and cold. She doesn't seem to feel any type of human emotions such as love or happiness. Although it is never mentioned in either book or movie, I believe that she suffered some kind of personal loss earlier in her life and has never gotten over it. The only way she is able to feel strong is by having complete control over everything she comes into contact with.