Mcmurphy Analysis

In order to illustrate McMurphy’s tragic, impending downfall from his role as the ward’s flawed yet benevolent savior, Ken Kesey depicts McMurphy’s actions through a multitude of Biblical allusions, specifically, to the life and death of Jesus Christ. By doing so, Kesey further implicates that the mental hospital and other institutions are inherently misguided and at times, villainous. Throughout the novel, McMurphy performs a series of miracles, which involve healing the patients by making them whole again. For instance, McMurphy breaks the patients’ crippling apathy, bolsters their confidence, and restores their waning masculinity; he even manages to make Bromden speak again. In fact, Bromden believes in McMurphy’s charismatic healing abilities …show more content…
However, as McMurphy gains influence among the patients, Nurse Ratched, much like the Romans choosing to persecute Jesus, decides that he must be punished for posing a challenge to her authority. As he lies on the cross-shaped table for electro shock therapy, the technicians place a “crown of silver thorns over the graphite of his temples”(237). Obviously, Kesey relates McMurphy’s electro shock therapy to Jesus’s crucifixion. Before being placed on the cross, Jesus was viciously beaten and forced to wear a crown of thorns for being the king of the Jews. After three sessions of therapy, which is a direct reference to the three days Jesus lay dead in a tomb, McMurphy resurrects in order to have one final act of rebellion against the corrupt institution. The men gather together and carouse, passing “the wine…around again” that the girls brought (254). Doubtlessly, Kesey alludes to the last supper otherwise known as communion. At the last supper, Jesus is fully aware that his death is imminent, and he symbolically breaks bread and shares wine to represent his broken body and shed