One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest By Ken Kesey

In Kesey’s novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest the character R. P. McMurphy is an anti-hero. Kesey portrays him as an anti-hero by his behaviour and motives. When McMurphy first enters the ward its all a gamble, he fakes his way in trying to escape working. When he first arrives its all for himself and he doesn’t have much care for the other patients. McMurphy immediately decides he wants to be the bull goose loony in charge. In the start of novel he is vary mild when it comes to his violence but it increases over the time he is in the ward. Everything he does seems to be gamble, he gambles his way in he gambles his luck in the ward by making comments to Nurse Ratchet, the three black boys and the other nurses. After the first meeting he tells the other patients that they were a pecking a party and doing exactly what the nurse wanted, the patients try to convince McMurphy that she can convince anyone to do what she wants, McMurphy takes this as a challenge and then starts to oppose her.

He convinces the some of the patients to start playing basketball, and elbows one of the black boys in the face, breaking his nose. He later breaks the glass for the nurse’s station at least twice, another patient breaks it with a basketball and then chief also breaks it once. He then gets in a fight with all three of the black boys, chief also joins in the fight to back him up, this results in him undergoing shock treatment, but that doesn’t change him. In the end of the novel when Billy Bibbit kills himself Nurse ratchet subtly blames McMurphy, which pushes him to the limit of attempting to kill her, he is then taken and undergoes a lobotomy. In the end McMurphy’s influence on the patients outweighs Nurse Ratchet and most of them leave the