A-llusions...not Illusions! A-llusions!

So Mark O'Malley was over at my house this past weekend, and we decided to watch the classic film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which Mark had never seen. I had seen the movie about five times or so, but when I went to bed later that night, I thought more about what the movie meant. We had just wrapped up our reading of The Metamorphosis and discussion of biblical allusion, and I began to explore what biblical themes were present in Cuckoo's Nest:

McMurphy seems to play the role of Jesus and the other mental patients are his disciples. They follow him in opposition to Nurse Ratchet who seems to play the devil (quiet, sinister, and with hair rolled up to actually look like devil horns). The next part of the analysis will spoil the end of the movie so here is a warning to stop reading if you do not want the movie ruined for you.

At the end of the movie, McMurphy leads his "disciples" in a night of alcohol and sex which may be seen as a sort of last supper. In the penultimate scene, Nurse Ratchet finds the mess and a naked Billy (one of the "disciples") in bed with a woman. When Nurse Ratchet questions Billy as to who put him up to it, Billy takes on the role of Judas and betrays McMurphy by ratting him out to the nurse before being hauled away. In the confusion, McMurphy begins to escape from the hospital when he hears a scream from the next room. At this point he has a clear choice: he could escape out the window or go to see what happened to his friend Billy. He choses the latter, sacrificing himself. When McMurphy finds that Billy has killed himself (just as Judas did), he begins to choke Nurse Ratchet until he is knocked out by the guards.

McMurphy is then lobotomized for his efforts, and the sacrifice is complete. In the final scene, Chief kills McMurphy, not wanting to see him live as a vegetable, and escapes out of the hospital. McMurphy is thus resurrected in the form of Chief.

This seems to fit really well. It's an interesting move comparing McMurphy, a man of multiple vices, to Jesus, the Western symbol of innocence. By the same token, Nurse Ratchet, a "respectable" mental therapist, is portrayed as the devil. This allusion added a whole other component to the movie that I was previously not privy to.

(P.S. for those true Cuckoo's Nest fans out there: the title of this blog is actually a line said by Mr. Harding in the movie. Give yourself a pat on the back if you noticed that before reading this line!)