Analysing the novel based on psychoanalysis can prove difficult and confusing and psychoanalysis degrades humans into creatures that just desire sex. We have to remember that Ken Kesey may have used elements of psychoanalytic imagery to set the scene for a mental asylum; the author’s background effects the use of imagery used. However, I find it interesting that Nurse Ratched is emasculating and led to McMurphy’s downfall, like Chief’s mother did to her husband. Some may say that it’s no coincidence that Harding, earlier on in the novel, referred to Nurse Ratched as a ‘mother’ that looks after her patients and the community outside the hospital and McMurphy shares similar characteristics with Chief’s father and throughout the novel McMurphy becomes a father figure to Chief trying to make him ‘bigger’, which, metaphorically, means to recover his manhood and self- esteem.