Randle P. McMurphy represents freedom, life, joy, and hope to the patients in Big Nurse's ward. He comes from the Outside, loud, seemingly perfectly sane, and wreaks havoc on the orderly world imposed on the patients. As Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest progresses, McMurphy displays the power of the individual against a repressive establishment. He brings many of the patients in the ward that were self-admitted to the hospital full swing, showing them what life can be like outside of the ward. Chief Bromden, Harding, and even Billy Bibbit end the novel as completely changed men. McMurphy is a messianic figure in the novel- he saves the patients in the ward from leading orderly, boring lives under a repressive establishment. The …show more content…
Whereas beforehand he used to let himself be walked over by the patients and Big Nurse, now Harding sands up for himself, using his intellect to help others, even McMurphy when he refused to leave the ward the night that led to his end. Harding takes one final stand against Big Nurse, when she returns from Medical and claims McMurphy will be back, by tearing up her papers about McMurphy and saying she is “full of so much bullshit”, then checking himself out of the ward (Kesey, 268-269). McMurphy has restored Harding’s self confidence and saved him from a life wasted within Big Nurse’s …show more content…
McMurphy is the type of person Bibbly so desperately wants to be; Billy sees the freedom, life, joy, and hope that McMurphy represents, and that is what inspires him. As the novel progresses and Billy spends more and more time with McMurphy, Billy changes. He stutters less and becomes more comfortable around the guys, and around girls on the fishing trip. Billy begins to accept the freedom offered to him by McMurphy, so much so as to lose his virginity the night of the party. When Big Nurse threatens Billy Bibbit with telling his mom the events that took place that night, Billy tells her it was McMurphy’s fault, condemning McMurphy to be lobotomized. Instead of living with the guilt and pleasing his mother, Billy Bibbit kills himself in a defiance of authority. Those last moments of his life were his choice; instead of spending his life wasting away in the ward, Billy decides to leave. In a twisted way, McMurphy also saved Billy from living the rest of his life in the ward under Big Nurse’s
“McMurphy eventually helps instill the other men on the ward with the confidence to face life again” (Slater 124). He comes to the realization of the power that Nurse Ratched has and becomes afraid; McMurphy succumbs to the pressures that all the other men have faced and conforms out of fear. Nurse Ratched spoke, “’Mr. McMurphy, I’m warning you!’” in “a tight whine like an electric saw ripping through pine” (Kesey 144). This supports that even if McMurphy is the leader or the strongest man alive, the fear of strength in large establishments destroys the confidence that McMurphy once had; it resulted in the thought of life and death-the outcome being death.
There’s this other scene where there’s a party in the ward. It is the last party McMurphy is ever going to have, and he takes medications from the drug room and mixes it with alcohol. This is just like Jesus having his last supper with his disciples before his death. What makes McMurphy similar to Jesus is after the party, he finally defeats Nurse Ratched by revealing that she is not at all powerful to the patients. He shows a signed “that he might
During McMurphy’s stay at the ward, he has created a name and reputation for himself as the tough guy. Despite the fact that the nurses perceived simply as a troublemaker and a disturbance to their daily routine, the other patients look up to him as their lifesaver. It is evident that this is the case when they begin to adopt his habits during the road trip. Kesey writes that they act “like he did” to articulate the way that others perceive him as superior and want to be like him.
My goal in this paper is to thoroughly describe how McMurphy has changed the beliefs for the other men in the ward, and how he has helped them overcome their fears. To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into three sections. In the first section, I provide information
He is a wild card, a con-man, and an insubordinate, who is foul mouthed. He defies authority and gets into fights. He’s been in and out of jail for numerous reasons until he lands into the hospital ward due to “diagnosis and possible treatment”, even though he is just getting out of jail time. McMurphy enters the ward and completely changes the patients’ ways of life. He brings gambling, booze, sex, defiance, and hustling into the ward.
Christ has always been a symbol of caring, hope and freedom to many people and is often embedded into personalities and traits of characters of popular literature. These “Christ like figures” stand by the same principles as Christ by helping and caring for the other characters. In the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, McMurphy emerges as a Christ like figure as he is seen as a savior in the eyes of the patients, he sacrifices himself to save the men on the ward and he teaches his friends the way to a better life. Upon McMurphy’s arrival on the ward, he is quickly seen as a leader to the patients and to many of them is a symbol of hope. However, as the story moves on, the patients begin to see McMurphy more as their
Although Billy Bibbit experiences a positive growth in his character through his gain in confidence, tensions from the past prevent him from evolving and cause him to surrender back to his former self. Billy Bibbit’s relationship
The nature of man, beyond the black-and-white differences, are clearly portrayed between the characters in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as Ken Kesey continuously alludes to the bible. McMurphy is portrayed as a Christ-like figure throughout the novel. The ward symbolizes the broken world filled with sin and death. In the beginning, when McMurphy enters the ward, he is baptized with a shower. “16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.
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.
One normal day everything was going how it was supposed to, the ward was following the schedule, just like Nurse Ratched liked it. The patients were following her rules and did everything she said. But that day R.P. McMurphy was introduced into the ward. He was in there because he committed a crime and said that he was insane, so he got put in there for evaluation. In the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" two characters, Randall McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, had this sort of competition going on to gain the allegiance of the patients.
Determining what defines an abnormal behavior is not simply black and white. To evaluate and diagnose someone it takes clinical assessment and observation of their character and behavior. This paper will review the character of Randle McMurphy from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. By utilizing the DSM-5 criteria for Personality Disorders Randle could be diagnosed as Antisocial Personality Disorder because of the behaviors he exhibited throughout the movie.
In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the main character, Randle Patrick McMurphy, is a perfect example of a tragic hero. Throughout the novel McMurphy sets himself up to be the tragic hero by resenting Nurse Ratched’s power and defending the other patients. He can be classified as a contemporary tragic hero, but he also includes elements of Aristotle’s tragic hero. McMurphy’s rebellious nature and ultimate demise are what truly makes him as a tragic hero.
Ken Kesey uses his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to describe the lives of patients in a mental institution, and their struggle to overcome the oppressive authority under which they are living. Told from the point of view of a supposedly mute schizophrenic, the novel also shines a light on the many disorders present in the patients, as well as how their illnesses affect their lives during a time when little known about these disorders, and when patients living with these illnesses were seen as an extreme threat. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel, has many mental illnesses, but he learns to accept himself and embrace his differences. Through the heroism introduced through Randle McMurphy, Chief becomes confident in himself, and is ultimately able to escape from the toxic environment Nurse Ratched has created on the ward. Chief has many disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and, in addition to these illnesses, he pretends to be deaf and dumb.
2. Was McMurphy a hero (by Zimbardo’s definition) or a trouble-maker? How would you characterize Nurse Ratched? Zimbardo defines a hero as someone whose actions help others in emergencies or challenge corrupt systems without concern of reward or negative consequences. Throughout the movie the main character McMurphy proves that he is indeed a Hero.
His rebellious and free mind makes the patients open their eyes and see how the have been suppressed. His appearance is a breath of fresh air and a look into the outside world for the patients. This clearly weakens Nurse Ratched’s powers, and she sees him as a large threat. One way or another, McMurphy tends to instigate changes of scenery. He manages to move everyone away from her music and watchful eye into the old tube room.