Analysis Of Mcmurphy In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

When evaluating Ken Kesey’s character McMurphy from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, comparisons can be drawn to both a trickster and a Christ like figure. Of the two, McMurphy much more qualifies as a trickster: a self-serving boundary crosser who inevitably influences his surroundings for the better (Tricksters).
A trickster is a self-server, and upon his arrival, McMurphy pressures the other patients to gamble with him while asking invasive questions. This makes the patients appear “the way kids look in a school room when one ornery kid is raising too much hell” (Kesey 17). McMurphy disregards their discomfort in favor of his own amusement. At the end of his introduction, he directly tells Nurse Ratchet that when it

The biggest boundary he crosses is his constant challenging of Nurse Ratchet’s authority and intentions. McMurphy tells Harding that the patients are “a bunch of chickens at a peckin’ party”, and that “it’s that old nurse” that makes the first peck (Kesey 35-36). Comparing the patients to chickens and claiming that Nurse Ratchet is the one who starts the conflict between them causes an angry reaction from the patients. McMurphy enjoys this backlash and continues to break even more rules, be it refusing to take his pills, throwing a secret party, or pressuring another patient into losing his virginity. His trickster characteristics push him to show off his disrespect for authority and order

Going along with how Christ figures “don’t have to hit all the marks” (Foster, 128) or requirements of a Christ figure to be one, McMurphy can easily be seen as a one with his suffering, wounded body, and self-sacrifice also. Nonetheless, McMurphy does not hit nearly as many qualifications as he does a trickster. Nurse Ratchet explains this best at the beginning of the book by saying that McMurphy wants an “easy life…power and respect…Sometimes a manipulator’s own ends are simply the actual disruption of the ward for the sake of disruption” (Kesey 25). She compares McMurphy to a manipulator, a term that can be linked to a trickster, to describe his motivations. Her explanation of his desires perfectly matches those of a