One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 647subtle but in-depth exploration of how we construct
our heroes, what it means to be “heroic,” and the
results of this process on those who are singled out
for such adulation.
Right from McMurphy’s initial appearance we
are told how the other characters conceive of him
in a heroic mold. Chief Bromden thinks that
McMurphy is a giant sent to rescue them from Big
Nurse and notes that the rest of the patients “get a
big kick out of going along with him.”As the story
progresses McMurphy takes on the appearance of a
religious or spiritual hero, analogous to the figure of
Jesus Christ. Harding, a patient leader, suggests that
McMurphy could “work subconscious miracles.”
McMurphy organizes a fishing trip for 12 of the
other men, “his dozen people,” and upon being given
electroshock therapy on a cross-shaped table he jok-
ingly asks the attendant whether he gets “a crown of
thorns.” In addition to these religious allusions, the
plot of the novel, in which McMurphy sacrifices his
own life for the good of the other men, has obvious
echoes of the biblical story of Jesus.
While the traditional hero is often a superhu-
man individual marked out by his superior strength
or physical prowess, the novel frequently highlights
how normal McMurphy is. Perhaps most sig-
nificantly, at one point in the early part of the novel
McMurphy is unable to lift a heavy control panel
off the ground. While we are never convinced that
he will be able to achieve such a Herculean feat,
his declaration to the other patients that he “tried
though” has its own heroic significance, given the
manner in which McMurphy encourages the men to
stand up for themselves to Big Nurse.
McMurphy’s subversive actions and anti-estab-
lishment attitudes mark him out as an antihero, a
common figure in American novels of the 1960s.
Indeed, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest explores
America’s relationship with the antiheroic. Once Big
Nurse learns of the patients’ adoration of McMurphy
she attempts to discredit him. She tries to downplay
McMurphy’s heroism by ridiculing the idea that he
is savior-like: “And yet,” she went on, “he seems to
do things without thinking of himself at all, as if
he were a martyr or a saint. Would anyone venture
that McMurphy is a saint?” However, such is the
patients’ love of McMurphy that when Big Nurse
tries to suggest McMurphy is manipulating them
for the worse the patients refuse her suggestions: “I
feel compelled to defend my friend’s honor as a good
old red, white, and blue hundred-per-cent Ameri-
can con man.” Harding’s comments imply that the
patients both realize and embrace McMurphy’s sup-
posed moral failings. Though the hero convention-
ally embodies the values of the establishment that he
belongs to, the novel’s depiction of the hospital ward
as a corrupt, abusive, and dehumanizing place means
that we, like the patients, have little problem in sid-
ing with McMurphy over Big Nurse and her staff.
Interestingly, the novel also suggests that the
patient’s worshiping of McMurphy has negative
effects for him. As the story reaches its conclusion
Chief Bromden realizes that the role of hero might
have more drawbacks for McMurphy than he and
the other patients initially thought: “I wondered
how McMurphy slept, plagued by a hundred faces
like that, or two hundred, or a thousand.” The sense
that McMurphy is trapped by the needs the patients
have of him is also made apparent. When McMur-
phy has a chance to escape from the ward but
refuses, the Chief suggests: “It was like he’d signed
on for the whole game and there wasn’t any way of
him breaking his contract.”
Ultimately McMurphy is successful as a hero,
saving the other patients from Big Nurse. Though in
one sense he “loses” his battle against Big Nurse and
is lobotomized at her command, by the end of the
novel he has managed to pass on his life-affirming
sense of self-belief and self-worth to the other men.
This positive message enables the patients to over-
come their fear of Big Nurse and face the prospect
of leaving the hospital for good.
David Simmonsidentity in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
As the novel begins we are introduced to the narra-
tor, Chief Bromden, as the orderlies on the mental
ward are mocking him. The staff thinks of him as
a child and treats him like an object, calling him
“Chief Broom,” this introduction is indicative of the
novel’s preoccupation with identity and the various
ways in which society attempts to control us by den-
igrating certain peoples and lifestyles. For the Chief
suggests that those who work on the ward are only