In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey there are multiple themes portrayed throughout the story. Some themes such as emasculation and social pressures are introduced at the very beginning of the story and are then slowly dwarfed by other themes. Some themes are introduced when the protagonist, Randle McMurphy, arrives at the beginning of the story and starts ruining Nurse Ratched's dress. Themes that accompany McMurphy include the need to express sexuality and the power of laughter. Throughout the story Nurse Ratched uses emasculation and social pressure to control her patients until McMurphy shows them how to express their sexuality and use the power of laughter to regain their dominance. It is clear from the beginning of the story that Nurse Ratched is a powerful woman as she is given the nickname Big Nurse. Her power comes from the way she runs the mental hospital and the staff who work for her, all attempting to emasculate the patients. It is implied that when the patients first enter the hospital they are taken to a room with Vaseline and a thermometer, subdued, and then raped by Nurse Ratched's assistants. "I see two, maybe all three, in there, in that shower room with Admissions, running that thermometer through the fat until it's covered the size of your finger... and then you close the door and open all the doors. showers to the point where I can't hear anything." (Kesey, 10) McMurphy avoids the thermometer telling the assistant to wait until he has introduced himself to everyone in the ward, which allows him to escape this procedure. Nurse Ratched also emasculates patients by making them more feminine or taking away their ability to express themselves… in the center of the card… it came out of her chest and swelled, bigger than anyone had ever imagined.” (Kesey, 319) The end of that quote is the most important part because it shows how feminine Nurse Ratched was and how much she hid it. Yet McMurphy showed it to the world anyway and conquered what everyone thought was an impregnable force. Over the course of the book many things had changed but perhaps the most obvious were the themes. The corrupt themes present at the beginning of the book slowly became less important over time. Eventually they were no more and the themes that had emerged in the beginning had fully developed and flourished. Although Nurse Ratched attempted to control the patients with themes of conformity and emasculation, McMurphy became a savior figure and helped save them from her matriarchy using themes of expressed sexuality and the power of laughter..