One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest Essay -- essays research papers

The role of the hero in Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is played by Randle P. McMurphy, a wrongly committed mental patient with a lust for life. The qualities that garner Mc Murphy respect and admiration from his fellow patients are also responsible for his tragic downfall. These qualities include his temper, which leads to his being deemed "disturbed," his stubbornness, which results in his receiving numerous painful disciplinary treatments, and finally his free spirit, which leads to his death. Despite Mc Murphy being noble man, in the end, these characteristics hurt him more than they help him. Throughout the novel, Mc Murphy displays that he has a wild temper. This temper aids him in his battle with the "Big Nurse" Nurse Ratched for control of the mental ward. However, his temper eventually works against him. Upon McMurphy’s arrival to the ward he establishes himself as a con man and a gambler. One of his first bets with the other patients is to see if, within a week, he can put "a bee in [Nurse Ratched’s] butt, a burr in her bloomers. Get her goat. Bug her till she comes apart at those neat little seams" (Kesey, Nest 69). Mc Murphy makes this bet after he learns about the Disturbed Ward where "assaultive" and "potential assaultives" are sent, and also about the "shock shop" where Electro-Shock Therapy is administered to unruly patients. Since Mc Murphy is "not in the habit of los...