Sacrifice In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman struggles to financially support his family and to accept his son Biff’s decisions about his career. He dreams of Biff becoming a successful salesman, living the life Willy always wanted for himself. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel by Ken Kesey, Randle Patrick McMurphy challenges the authority of the controlling Nurse Ratched, and eventually reveals to the other patients that they are capable of living in the world outside the hospital. At the end of the respective works, both Willy Loman and McMurphy sacrifice themselves. However, while McMurphy’s selfless act successfully saves the other patients, Willy’s selfish motives only cause his family to fall apart and Biff to lose respect for him. The results of each man’s sacrifice are as drastically different as their intentions. Originally, Willy Loman is unsatisfied with his life as a salesman and his …show more content…
The nurse still expects that McMurphy is “much too fond of a Mr. Randle Patrick McMurphy to subject him to any needless danger” (158). She assumes he only cares about himself based on his first few weeks in the ward, which is true, but he soon decides to help the men instead of helping himself. McMurphy defends the men when the nurse threatens to take away the privilege of the game room because all the men “turned to him, full of a naked, scared hope” (200). He realizes that he is the only one who can save them from a lifetime in the hospital with Nurse Ratched, and he makes it his mission to help the men gain confidence. By the time the men take a fishing trip, McMurphy knows they are capable of taking care of themselves. As they shout for his help, he is “just standing at the cabin door, not even making a move to do anything…just laughing” (248). He lets them learn to solve their own problems, and the men realize they