Good Essay About The Nature Of Sacrifice In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

One of the key figures in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the character of Randle McMurphy. McMurphy is different from many of the other characters in the novel; like the Chief, he is not insane, but instead is merely serving out a sentence passed upon him by society. McMurphy is a complex and many-faceted character, and displays a number of analogous traits. These traits are contrasted with traits that are decidedly not Christ-like, making McMurphy into something of a modern tragic hero, as opposed to the way the hero is generally treated in literary works. His ultimate fate is a reflection of this tragic heroism, as well as the ultimate sacrifice for his freedom.
Even as McMurphy enters the ward, the reader can see that he shares some distinct characteristics with Christ. He has not come to the ward by accident, as many of the patients there have; nor is he actually insane. He was forced into the ward by society, and chose to live the rest of his life on the ward rather than go live and work on a farm in the countryside. McMurphy sacrificed his happiness and his freedom completely to go to the ward; he knew he had almost no chance of getting out of the situation alive and unscathed, and yet he chose to go to the ward regardless of this knowledge. When Jesus came to Earth, He was sinless; McMurphy was, of course, not sinless when he came to the ward. However, McMurphy was not insane when he joined the ward, and he voluntarily chose to do so, much like Jesus choosing to leave heaven for Earth, even though He knew that there would be consequences and pain for leaving the Kingdom of God.
One of the first things Jesus did as He grew on Earth was to push for change. He changed beliefs and traditions that had been normal for society for many years, and brought to the people the vision of a kinder God. McMurphy did the same on the ward: as soon as he came into the ward, he began to push for change with Nurse Ratched. The conflict between the two grew and grew as McMurphy continued to push for change and better living situations for all the patients living on the ward. McMurphy pushed for cards, the World Series, music, and even toothpaste; he was trying to give people back their humanity. When Jesus came from heaven, He did something similar—He tried to provide the people with the tools to live a better life through the one true God. Although their methodology and overall message was different, the ways in which McMurphy tries to change the ward are analogous to the ways in which Jesus tried to lead the world to God. Jesus changed the idea of God from an angry, overbearing God to a loving, paternalistic God; McMurphy changed the way the patients came to see the staff and their internment in the ward.
At one point, McMurphy even takes twelve of the patients on the ward on a fishing trip. Jesus is known for his symbolism with fish, turning one fish into thousands to feed the masses; in the same way, McMurphy tries to bring the other patients on the ward to normalcy by bringing them to fish. Indeed, he even brings twelve of them, which is the number of disciples that Jesus had when He gave the Sermon on the Mount, the sermon in which He fed the entire population with a single fish. McMurphy may be gruffer than Jesus, but he had the same purpose: to perform miracles and change the way the people saw their situation going forward.
McMurphy performs a number of “miracles” on the ward, including prompting a purportedly paralyzed man to walk and encouraging a man who rarely spoke to speak. His attempts seemed to work better than the harsh policies that the nurses had in place for the patients, but the nurses did not like McMurphy’s methods of challenging their authority.
McMurphy is a charismatic figure that encourages all those who are around him to follow him and engage in the same behavior he is engaging in. Although he eventually undergoes a lobotomy and is then killed by the Chief, his messages and his spirit live on. The nurses were not fast enough to end his reign, and thus, the patients were infected by his message and they were unable to forget it. When Jesus died on the cross, He had already spread the ministry of His word far and wide—so when He died and was raised again after three days, it was merely the confirmation of his ministry, not the start of it. When McMurphy dies, this too was the thing that the patients needed to be stirred into action; without his death, they could conceivably gone on in the ward indefinitely, without ever becoming whole again.

References

Bloom, Harold. Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002. Print.
Farshid, Sima. 'Operation Of Ideology In Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. SSRN Journal n. pag. Web.
Inchausti, Robert, and M. Gilbert Porter. '"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest": Rising To Heroism'.South Central Review 7.1 (1990): 102. Web.
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Viking Press, 1962. Print.