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<title> Dale Harding </title>
Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest details the lives of a group of inmates at a mental asylum, and how they change with the arrival of a brash Irishman named McMurphy. For certain characters, the change is profound. For others, such as Harding, the effects of McMurphy's gallivanting around the ward (much to nurse Ratched's annoyance), is peace with one's own identity.
	Harding is by far the most educated of the patients. The novel's narrator, Chief Bromden, reveals Harding has graduated from university, and is therefore president of the Patient's Council. Kesey further emphasises Harding's education through his language which is more formal, better structured and richer in words than the other patients'. Harding is the one who explains the hierarchy of the ward to McMurphy, when the latter first arrives, in a long speech in which he easily twists McMurphy's arguments and words against the Irishman, as a man used to the art of debating:

"Our dear Miss Ratched? Our sweet, smiling, tender angel of mercy, Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter? Why friend, that's most unlikely."
"Buddy, don't give me that tender little mother crap.... Hooowee, I've seen some bitches in my time, but she takes the cake."
"A bitch? But a moment ago she was a ball-cutter, then buzzard - or was it a chicken? Your metaphors are bumping into each other, my friend."	(p. 57-58)1

Kesey further emphasises Harding's intellectual superiority over the other patients by having him casually adding in references to classical Greek mythology ("...if (Ratched) was young and had the beauty of Helen? p. 66), psychology ("You're on our ward six hours and have already simplified all the work of Freud, Jung, and Maxwell Jones... p. 56) as well as medicine and literature in his daily conversations. His intellect is sometimes comically out of place, as when McMurphy replies that he does not know which Helen Harding is referring to, and that he never met Fred Yoong. This only further emphasises Harding's academic background.
 Harding is committed voluntarily. He is a very nervous and emotional man, tending to work himself up when in the grip of one of his speeches, as well as constantly biting his fingernails until they are red and raw. His nervousness stems from his insecurity concerning his masculinity. He discovered at an early age that he was "different" and when he was young he "indulged in certain practices our society regards as shameful" (p. 257), undoubtedly homosexual relationships, resulting in him becoming ill. As he explains to McMurphy, he, like most of the patients, is committed because he is a "rabbit, sans whambam" (p. 63) revealing not only the cowardly self-image he has, but also his inability to function sexually, both qualities not considered very masculine. His delicate beauty and feminine hands embarass him.
Harding's view of himself, that due to his homosexuality he is not as masculine as society demands of a man, is the crux of his complex. This manifests itself mainly in Harding's relationship with his young and lascivious wife Vera, who thinks "any word or gesture that does not smack of brickyard brawn and brutality is a word or gesture of weak dandyism" (p. 44). Harding most likely married Vera to reaffirm his masculinity. She was the kind of woman "manly" men wanted. Kesey brilliantly portrays the couple's relationship in two episodes in the novel. In the first episode, McMurphy is attending his first group therapy session which focuses on Harding:

"...his wife was extremely well endowed in the bosom and that this made him uneasy because she drew stares from men on the street... Mr. Harding has been heard to say that she 'damn well gives those bastards reason to stare' (and) that he may give her reason to seek further sexual attention.
...
"He has also stated that his wife's ample bosom at times gives him a feeling of inferiority." (p. 43-44)

Harding feels quite incapable of competing with his overly feminine wife sexually, as she is, in that respect, so superior to him. Viewing himself as a "dandy", he was quite unable to compete with the common man on the street, resulting in a lack of self-confidence.

The second episode occurs when Vera comes to visit her husband. Kesey quickly establishes Vera as flirtatious when one of the aides tells Harding that his wife "sweet talked" him into letting her visit Harding, despite it not being a visiting day. When the aide departs, Vera blows him a kiss, and then faces her husband, "slinging her hips forward" (p. 157). What follows is a confrontation between the two, in which Harding, unable to compete with her physically, uses his intellectual superiority to belittle her. Vera in turn uses her flirtatious manner and her body to make her husband feel inferior and inadequate:

"I didn't intend nothing by it except what I said, Dale-"
"You didn't intend anything by it, sweetest; your use of 'didn't' and 'nothing' constitutes a double negative. McMurphy, Vera's English rivals yours for literacy. Look, honey, you understand that between 'no' and 'any' there is-"
"All right! That's enough! I meant it both ways. I meant it any way you want to take it. I meant you don't have enough of nothing period!"
"Enough of anything, my bright little child." (p. 159)

Vera retaliates by flirting with McMurphy, leaning forward so he can see her breasts and complaining about Harding's friends - "The hoity-toity boys with the nice long hair combed so perfectly and the limp little wrists that flip so nice". Harding then asks if it was only him his friends came to see, to which Vera replies that "any man that drops around to see her flips more than his damned limp wrists" (p. 157). Harding cannot satisfy his wife, and she wants him to know that, constantly. But Harding does not hate his wife. He keeps a picture of her at his bedside table (in a bathing suit holding the top up with her hands, characteristically enough) and describes his moment of personal triumph as when he leaves the ward, escorted by Vera.

Harding is the patient with the most foresight. It is he who warns McMurphy of the dangers and consequences of the latter's outrageous behaviour. When McMurphy arranges for some prostitutes to come to the ward, it is a drunk Harding who tries to convince McMurphy to escape along with the two girls in the morning, because only he can see the repercussions of McMurphy's actions. He is also the only one who attempts to explain anything to McMurphy; how the ward works, why the patients volunteer to be committed and why they stay. His explanations are very accurate and form a sort of philosophical background to Chief Bromden's confused narration. His clear-sightedness extends to McMurphy's character; when nurse Ratched attempts to turn the Acutes against the Irishman by pointing out that he is conning them, Harding is the only one who agrees. McMurphy is a con-man, and to attach angelic attributes as the others have been doing is an insult to McMurphy's character. But Harding admires the man anyway.
As the novel ends, Harding's dream of leaving the ward is finally realised. The character's change has been subtly signalled. Instead of a nervous man who giggles and feels insecure about himself, Harding has changed to a more peaceful person. His speeches are calmer, as is his whole behaviour, and he even starts to deal blackjack just like McMurphy. He is a scared man, true, but no longer the scared rabbit he was at the novel's beginning. 
1 All page references taken from 1989 edition published by Signet Printing
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