(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

Biblical Allusions in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

            " "You of little faith," he said, "Why did you doubt?"" (Bible, Matthew 14:31). Matthew quotes Jesus in this biblical passage questioning a man who didn't believe in him. Jesus delivers a valid point, through the scripture, that the power of one individual should not be doubted - especially one as radical as he. A person can use there differences to strike people's attention. Sometimes this is not seen, because society settles for conformity. However, a person who is willing to challenge that community can truly be heard and make and impact. This very point can be clearly seen in Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where Kesey actually alludes the story of Christ. The protagonist Randle McMurphy, a new admission to the psych ward during the late 1950s, with his free-spirited attitude is able to change the patients" conformist ways and completely restructure their small community within the ward. He accomplishes this by gaining the Acute patients as followers and slowly taking away attention and power from the head nurse, Nurse Ratched. Kesey uses both characterization and symbolism to employ the idea that imbalance within a conformist civilization or culture can essentially cause a complete societal breakdown, in addition by alluding to the life of Christ he is able to actually show the process of this breakdown.
             Throughout the novel Kesey uses his characters as symbols of biblical figures depicting the life of Jesus in order to support the belief that a small imbalance caused by one person can lead to mass destruction within a tyrannical society. In the ward community which represents the Holy Land, McMurphy is portrayed as the figure of Christ. Before McMurphy set foot in the hospital there was a set structure that everyone followed. Nurse Ratched ran the show and all of the patients knew that and obeyed. However, once Randle McMurphy was brought into the picture everything changed.


Essays Related to Biblical Allusions in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

1. One Flew Over The CooCoo's Nest

ONE FLEW OVER THE COO-COO?S NEST One Flew over the Coo-Coo's nest is about a man (Jack Nicholson) who is committed to a Mental Hospital after being transported from a jail for breaking the law. ... One flew over the Coo Coo's Nest is a 1975 film portraying life inside a mental hospital. ... Ken Kesey's use of symbolism in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest transforms the novel and the hospital within the novel a microcosm of society, a battle between the sane and insane, the conformist and the non-conformist. ... Despite the sad ending, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

  • Word Count: 467
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Notes on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Title of Work: One Flew Over the Cuckoo' Nest Author: Ken Kesey Date of Publication: 1962 Genre: Physcological, character, fictional Writing Style: Stream of consciousness, innovative, descriptive Point of View: Chief Bromden, observance is key, combine, foggy Setting/Atmosphere: Oregon, psych hospital, post-war era, 1950's Plot Development: Part 1- Chief Broom, combine, longest residing patient, new admission McMurphy, M brings trouble to ward, fields...

  • Word Count: 970
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Imagery in One Flew Over the Cuckoo

In One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest Kesey uses three different kinds of imagery to develop the story and creates vivid Pictures in the mind of the reader. In One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Chief Bromden's fantasies are dominated by images of machines, and these images occur throughout the novel. ... In One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, there are numerous examples of animal imagery. ... In another part of the poem it says, "One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest". ... There are also numerous examples of cartoon imagery In Ken Kesey's One F...

  • Word Count: 1280
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Biblical References In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

This is just one of the many examples in the novel, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, which is similar to an event that happened in Biblical times. Although most people consider the novel to be a comical book, many of the characters in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest relate in many ways to people from the New Testament of the Bible. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel about patients in an insane asylum. ... "Much of the original material [for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest] was written under the influence of LSD and peyote" (Bigchalk (2) 3). ... One...

  • Word Count: 1795
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The paper that I am writing about is on the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest with Jack Nicholson. ... In the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest the patients were removed from society and, the Head Nurse made them change the way that they went upon everything they did in life. ... Most patients were willing to give up their freedom and adapted to life in the institution.3 Some of the coercive that took place in the movie included the physical domination over the patients by the hospital guards, the various threats issued by Nurse Ratchett (loss privileges by telling Tom...

  • Word Count: 610
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

6. One Flew Over The cuckoos nest

McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that the Spirit of Christ is present in even the least expected of all people. ... In biblical scriptures it is shown how Jesus never held himself above others. ... On page 23 of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Chief Bromden observes "the (patients) are grinning now, not so uneasy anymore, and glad that something out of the ordinary's going on." ... The party that McMurphy throws right at the end of the Novel symbolizes the Last Supper, when all the men realize something new, and have fun one last time before the end. ... Jesus" ...

  • Word Count: 789
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

7. 1984 and one flew over the cuckoos nest

In the books 1984 by George Orwell, and One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey, there were similarity's such as theme and authors style. ... I thought that the passage on page 5 of 1984, and the passage on pages 4 and 5 of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, brought out some of both the similarities and differences of the books. ... The passage from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest is filled with diction as well. ... I think the major difference between these passages was each ones purpose. ...

  • Word Count: 325
  • Approx Pages: 1
  • Grade Level: High School

8. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: McMurphy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, with its meaningful message of individualism, was an extremely influential novel during the 1960's. ... Ken Kesey had many significant experiences that enabled him to create One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. ... Kesey's experiences at the hospital were his first step towards writing Cuckoo's Nest. ... From these things, Kesey obtained exceptional insight for writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. ... One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest takes place in a mental hospital in which the...

  • Word Count: 1986
  • Approx Pages: 8

9. As You Like It and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Both Shakespeare's comedic play As You Like It and Ken Kesey's post-modernist novel, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," portrays the transformation of its characters throughout the texts, via a close examination of the gradual evolution of character that occurs within the protagonists of each text. ... Similarly, Kesey's, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," reflects the transformative process of the journey through the experiences of Chief Bromden. ... This can be seen in Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest through the relationship of the Chief and McMurph...

  • Word Count: 1017
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question