The man known across time for his perfection, Jesus Christ, lives yet again in the heart of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey. Being the son of God, he was born to help lead the people of his father's earth to a more peaceful life. But how does his powerful legacy live on in a novel written about the lives of inmates in an insane asylum? Through the life of a rugged, gambling, red-headed man committed after being sent to a work farm (Kesey 16-18). Randle McMurphy, better known as Mac, takes on this huge duty of being in His shadow unknowingly once he sets foot on the hospital ward. In a close analysis of the novel, it becomes apparent how closely tied the symbols associated with Christ are with the character of McMurphy. These symbols were very important in the book in showing how McMurphy aids the people of the ward, as Christ would do similarly.
McMurphy
October: McMurphy
Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy attendin...But a common question posed by the readers gone to movie-watchers is why do the directors omit some of the key scenes when changing a book to a movie?
The most subtle of the ties to Christianity, the hands, appears most often in the novel. The hands symbolize how their touch has healing and enlightening powers. During McMurphy's introduction to the ward, he shakes everybody's hand including Chief's, and Chief felt that his hand "commenced to feel peculiar and went to swelling up out there on my stick of an arm, like he was transmitting his own blood into it" (Kesey 27). In comparison with the Bible, it states that whenever Jesus performed a miracle, he touched his subject and used his hands to heal just the same way Mac helped Chief's soul. With the way that director, Czech...