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Theme Of Allusions In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

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In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, Randle Patrick McMurphy, the protagonist, leads a rebellion within a mental institution and helps the patients learn the importance of self-worth and not conforming to rules that violate their natural rights. Kesey employs many biblical allusions in the novel that serve to build deeper meaning of the character McMurphy, who on the surface comes off as harsh and unpleasant at times to the reader. However, he is key in helping bring real change to everyone in the hospital. By alluding to the bible to establish Randle McMurphy as a Christ-like figure in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey is able to soften the hard edges of McMurphy, which is essential in the novel because it is ultimately …show more content…

McMurphy holds a party full of alcohol mixed cough syrup, “Artificial flavor, coloring, citric acid..seventy percent inert materials..and twenty per cent alcohol”(252) and the two prostitutes Candy and Sandy. In the morning Nurse Ratched catches them and Billy Bibbit blames McMurphy and claims it was all his idea, “And M-M-McMurphy..they teased me, called me things”(264). The party and Billy’s betrayal is an allusion to Christ’s last supper and shortly after like the party Juda betrayal to Christ. Billy ends up killing himself after the betrayal just like Judas after the realization of what they did. These betrayal set in motion both their deaths and ultimately their legacy after death. The death of McMurphy helps free the patients of the reigns of the hospital set on them, like how Christ free his people from the price of their sins. Even though McMurphy in the novel was very greedy and self-motivated at times, the inclusion of these allusions help break down the hard exterior that had been painted on him, by showing the reader that there was more to him and he truly wanted to help these patients. Kesey connections to Christ and McMurphy helps give the transitions needed in the novel to come to the conclusion at the end of the novel that because of McMurphy, many patients are now able to live their lives without being constricted to the walls of this hospital, but follow their own true

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This madness in Mcmurphy gives the men hope throughout the novel. The irrational behavior can be judge as reasonable in many cases. Mcmurphy is a big, loud and confident man. He’s different from many other patients in the ward. When he first entered the ward he was laughing and telling jokes.

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In the novel, McMurphy attacks the nurse brutally and attempts to kill her, “doctors and supervisors and nurses prying those heavy red fingers out of the white flesh of her throat as if they were her neck bones, jerking him backward” (Kesey 319). Also, the narrator shows mercy towards McMurphy by smothering him in his sleep, “and scissor the kicking legs with mine while I mashed the pillow into the face. I lay there on top of the body for what seemed days. Until the thrashing stopped” (323).

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However, he resists the temptations of sin and completes his forty days of mediation. “1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (NIV Matthew 4:1). This is referenced when McMurphy holds back his true thoughts and appeases towards Nurse Ratched. Nevertheless, when McMurphy returns to his old self, he punches through the glass window of the nurses’ station. This is a metaphor of Jesus ragging and clearing the merchants of the temple or Christ’s last glorification as a human on Palm Sunday when he returns to Jerusalem to die.

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By weakening McMurphy’s power in the ward, she creates an environment where can continue to thrive in her power through the systems she has set in place. However, Nurse Ratched’s plan does not succeed and McMurphy is allowed to proceed with his fishing trip. He continues to undermine the nurse’s authority to the point where he physically assults her after she blames Billy’s death on him. His actions give Nurse Ratched an opportunity to give him the ultimate punishment, a

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