One Flew Over the Cuckoo´s Nest: A Sardonic Commentary on Christianity

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“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:17

The savior of the Jewish people, Jesus Christ gave his life to absolve the world of its sins. He lived a pure and virtuous life guiding others towards the will of God while misdirecting them from the evils of earthly pleasures. Though he meant to bring peace, Jesus created discord in the governing processes of the land and was ultimately killed for it. His dissidence and claims of holiness displeased the rulers, but in perspective, he was a peasant who claimed to be the King of All Men; I would be skeptical also. Similarly, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, Randall P. McMurphy plays the martyr for a ward of mental patients against the regime of Nurse Ratched even though she is truly neither the cause nor the instigator of their mental difficulties. Kesey mocks the Christian religion through falsifying McMurphy’s sacrifice to convey white male fears of having minority groups in control.

In comparing McMurphy to Jesus, Kesey questions the true nature of Christ’s service while also conveying how negatively minorities are considered. By portraying McMurphy as a Christ figure who dies, Nurse Ratched and the black boys are being considered “sin”. According to the Bible, Jesus’s death brought the remittance of all sins and so when comparing the two, McMurphy’s sacrifice is meant to be the absorption of all of Nurse Ratched’s evil onto him. The author creates a social commentary this way to show that assertive women in higher positions are generally regarded by white men as being inhuman tyrants, or evil. While it could be mistaken that Kesey truly feels that way against women, the resolution of th...

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...e routine of ward life. The comparison between the two serves to lessen the sincerity of the former and questions the purpose of their being redundant. At the same time, the decision to liken the patients to the disciples makes minority groups in power seem wrong why? ; their control unsure what is happening is something that needs to be changed and eradicated. This paragraph needs more. The last sentence seems like a bit of a stretch there isn’t much to this section

McMurphy is used as the antithesis for Jesus Christ through his rebellious and vulgar actions to provide a sardonic commentary on religion while also on the fears of white men. The clever use of McMurphy as a conquering martyr in contrast with Jesus’s widely supported acts of goodness forms the imagery of domineering women and hateful black men, playing on the prejudices white males have against them.

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