Of The Hero In 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'

A hero is a person who is idealized for courage and sacrificing themselves for the greater good of the people. In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, new asylum admission, Randle McMurphy, is portrayed as the hero to the other patients. At the beginning, the patients of the ward are closed in with lack of self-confidence, but when McMurphy shows up he changes that and helps the patients become their own person. The patients believe that McMurphy is their savior because of how he stands up to authority against the brutal ways that the patients have been treated. However, McMurphy’s ways sometime do seem to be a bit scheming and conniving, he seems to do it to better his fellow patients. Overall, McMurphy is the hero of this book by opening the patients eyes. Although McMurphy’s tactics may not always be beneficial to everyone, he is viewed as a heroic figure in the eyes of the patients because of the way he tries to change things in the hospital. …show more content…
In fact, McMurphy’s shows us this side of him when the lifeguard tells him that committed patients can leave only when Nurse Ratched gives them permission to. This causes McMurphy to temporarily conform to Nurse Ratched’s rules which disappoints the rest of the patients. One of the patients, Charles Cheswick, was so disappointed that he actually killed himself. When this happens, McMurphy realizes that his actions affect everyone due to his influence on the other patients. Although this occurrence does show McMurphy as a selfish character, it does not prove he is not a