Ken Kesey's McMurphy as a Christ-Like Figure

In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the main character, Randle Patrick McMurphy, serves as a Christ-like figure. Literary critic, James F. Knapp says that, "In (One Flew Over the) Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey creates a character who quite simply learns to be Christ. As McMurphy begins to feel a bond of sympathy for his fellow patients he comes to their aid at increasing cost to himself." (Knapp) Comparable to his archetype, Jesus Christ, McMurphy is elevated above his society, takes multiple actions to change the norm of his time and place, is condemned for his ideas and has the power to save others.

Within the first pages of the novel, the reader is already well aware of the fact that the story takes place in a mental institution full of patients whose ailments obviously qualify them as insane. When McMurphy is committed, we can see that he is clearly psychologically stable. This corresponds to Jesus, who is eternally sinless and perfect, coming to earth, a place where every man, without exception, is sinful. Kesey informs us that McMurphy was originally at a work farm where he was close to finishing his sentence, but decided to pretend to be psychotic so as to be put into an asylum. By choosing to alleviate his time in the penitentiary, he actually sacrificed himself because instead of attaining freedom in a matter of months at the work farm, he ends up spending the rest of his existence in the hospital. This is similar to the idea of Jesus coming to earth voluntarily; He not only gives up Heaven to come to the world He created, but comes as a poor carpenter to live a life of suffering and pain. The combination of R. P. McMurphy's freedom from insanity and his seemingly voluntary commitment to the institution elevates the character to a position where his is innately higher than his peers, just as Jesus was superior to all of mankind.

When McMurphy comes into the ward, he immediately pushes for changes and questions institutionalized policies. In one of the ward meetings, McMurphy asks the nurse if the week's schedule can be altered on account of the World Series in baseball. In another instance, he questions why the music must be so loud that the patients cannot hold conversation. He demands that the unused tub room be opened up to patients that wish to play card games. He questions every detail, down to the fact that the toothpaste is locked away in a cabinet. This constant desire for reform mimics the massive changes that Jesus brought about during his lifetime. He revised the conceptions of God as a stern, foreboding God to a loving, father-like God. He brought about changes in the laws and rules that the Hebrews were expected to follow in order to bring honor and glory to God. He even went as far as to completely change the means as to which one would attain salvation. The immense degree of constant change that McMurphy brings about in the ward directly parallels that which Jesus instituted into Christianity.

During his time at the mental institution, McMurphy serves as a better means to help the patients recover than many of the medical treatments that are already in practice. Many of the treatments that the doctors are using at this time are obsolete and do nothing in the way of healing patients, while a few others, namely electric shock therapy and lobotomy, actually make patients worse. When McMurphy is around, many of the men on the ward seem like they are completely normal people, free of mental illness. For instance, everybody in the hospital believes that Chief Bromden is both deaf and mute, but McMurphy, by the end of the novel, elicits multiple responses from the man, as well as having reasonable conversations with him. During His lifetime, Jesus performed many miracles and healed many people; McMurphy parallels one such case very closely. When McMurphy asks Ellis, the man who is practically paralyzed and spends his days mounted to the wall, to get up and move, he takes a step forward. He fails because the restraints keep him held up to the wall, but we still are able to see the connection between McMurphy asking Ellis to walk and Jesus, who heals a paralytic by asking him to stand. The paralytic, because of his faith in Jesus, is then completely healed. While Jesus does heal physical ailments, the most important part of his ministry is his forgiveness of sin. In the novel, sin is symbolically represented by mental illness; therefore, by curing the patients of their psychological diseases, McMurphy is allegorically forgiving them of their transgressions. As McMurphy heals the diseases of the ward, he gains a group of followers; these followers, who are mostly the "acutes" that Bromden describes, directly represent the followers of Christ. When McMurphy takes a group of men on a fishing trip, Chief Bromden narrates that "McMurphy led the twelve of us toward the ocean" (Kesey 203). We see in this passage that McMurphy, just like Jesus, has twelve followers, or, symbolically, Disciples. We see here that McMurphy's time spend in the ward draws direct correspondence to Jesus' life on earth. By the last part of the novel, we see that McMurphy even starts to identify with Jesus. When the technician in the electric shock therapy room puts "graphite salve" on his temples, McMurphy asks, "What is it?" When the technician replies, "Conductant,", McMurphy tells him "Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?" (Kesey 237). Like Jesus, McMurphy heals the sick and suffering, he rids the patients of mental disorder just as Jesus forgave humans their sins, and he collects the same type of following that Jesus did.

Ultimately, Jesus and McMurphy are both persecuted and condemned for their ideas and beliefs. Jesus, born into the Jewish faith, brings up ideas in his sermons that would have been appalling to other members of the Hebraic tradition to hear. Likewise, McMurphy's ideas, while well accepted by the patients of the hospital, are not well accepted by many of the doctors, nurses, and hospital staff members. In the Gospel, Judas betrays Jesus, telling the Roman soldiers who are looking for Him where they can find Him. Jesus is then crucified under the hand of Pontius Pilate. In the last part of Kesey's novel, Nurse Ratched, who allegorically represents Pontius Pilate, is told by Billy Bibbit, McMurphy's Judas, that it was McMurphy who hosted the party, invited the women into the ward, and had the alcohol brought in. Nurse Ratched is furious with McMurphy for disobeying her and indirectly causing the death of Billy Bibbit; she shouts at him, "First Charles Cheswick and now William Bibbit! I hope you're finally satisfied. Playing with human lives- gambling with human lives- as if you thought yourself to be a God!" (Kesey 266). Nurse Ratched then orders that a lobotomy be performed immediately on McMurphy. The lobotomy, which symbolizes the crucifixion, completely alters McMurphy, making him a "vegetable": simply a body, without the capacity for thought. Knapp comments that, "... Ultimately, McMurphy sacrifices his mind and then his life so that his brothers may be reborn out of the living death in which he had found them." (Knapp) The ending of McMurphy's life clearly parallels the ending of Jesus' ministry; both are betrayed by somebody close to them and then killed by the person who has been after them.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nestis allegorically the story of Jesus Christ. Randle Patrick McMurphy represents Jesus, both as elevated figures who are free from the inflictions of their peers. Both characters come into the world and change what is the commonly accepted norm, heal the ill, save the people around them, and gain a devoted following. Both Jesus and McMurphy have their lives ended in the same manner. By using McMurphy to symbolize Jesus Christ as fully and completely as he did, Ken Kesey has transformed his novel from a simple book with a menial and trivial plot, to an updated version of the stories found in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are found in the New Testament of the Bible. In doing so, Kesey added profound weight and meaning to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Works Cited

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Signet, 1963.

Knapp, James. F. "Tangled in the Language of the Past: Ken Kesey and Cultural Revolution" The Midwest Quarterly, Summer 1978. 398-412.