Now the Bible Can be Found on Video:

An Analysis of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

by a former student

In One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Randle Patrick McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson) enters a psychiatric ward so he can be analyzed. He is told by doctors that he doesn’t appear to have any hints of mental imbalance like the other patients. As he starts to go against the grain and disobey the ward’s policies, we begin to realize that the entire film is filled with religious symbolism leading up to the crucifixion of Christ. This can be first seen as the patients line up to receive their medication. All of the patients do as they are told and take their pills. McMurphy puts the pills into his mouth but later spits them out when the nurses aren’t paying attention, proving he is different from everyone else in the ward. Here, the first religious overtone can be seen. With music playing in the background, the patients are lining up single file to receive their medication like receiving the host at a Catholic mass. This is made obvious when one person opens his mouth when he gets to the front of the line and a nurse places the medication on his tongue for him.

Next we see nine of the eighteen members of the ward sitting in a semicircle with the head nurse discussing what got them into the ward and the events of the past day. This gives us an understanding of the patients’ attitudes and tendencies. However, in a symbolic sense, the scene achieves other goals. Harding, one of the patients, talks about how the problems between his wife and himself led him to this hospital. He speaks of the paranoia of betrayal. This is foreshadowing what will happen later when one member of the ward betrays the group for personal gain, similar to the actions of Judas against Jesus and his other eleven apostles.

After only a couple days in the institution, McMurphy begins to talk to the deaf-mute named Chief. Everyone there, including the staff, has given up on talking to Chief, but McMurphy is persistent. He starts by teaching him how to play basketball and continues to interact with him. Later, after McMurphy gets into a fight and Chief comes to his aid, McMurphy offers him a piece of gum. Chief takes the gum and thanks him for it -- verbally. Chief had been faking being a mute. This act of making the mute speak can be compared to Jesus’ miracle of making a blind man see. This is where we can first get the idea of McMurphy as a Christ figure to all of the patients in the ward. McMurphy then shows the patients different games to play, teaches them new ways to think about things, and even a way to escape from the confines of their everyday life, in this case, how to escape from the hospital. These teachings are similar to those that religion is always preaching about: ways to change your life to live better, to be saved from punishments, and to reach freedom.

One of the more humorous parts of the film is a scene in which McMurphy, with the assistance of Chief, hops the outside grounds fence and steals the institution’s bus. He drives a group of the patients to a harbor. He then steals a boat and teaches the group how to fish. By using a few small, dead fish as bait, they catch a fish large enough to feed the entire group. This is a direct reference to another one of Jesus’ miracles at the Sea of Galilee -- turning a small number of fish into enough to feed a very large group.

In another very short, but moving scene, all of the patients are playing in the pool. Here, McMurphy is told his status by one of the hospital aides. He realizes that the majority of the patients are here under their own free will. Nobody is forcing them to stay and that they free to leave whenever they want. The setting makes this powerful. McMurphy is fully submerged in the pool and when he lifts his head, he carries out the conversation with the hospital aide. This "opening of his eyes to what is going on around him" can be viewed as a baptism. McMurphy realizes why he is where he is and what he has to do. When put in a biblical sense, he is developing into a Christ-like figure responsible for all the others, and is accepting his fate. If we are following the symbolism, we can suspect that McMurphy will be killed by the conclusion of the film.

McMurphy sneaks two women and many bottles of liquor into the ward and throws a party with the patients. McMurphy’s Last Supper turns out to be a good time for everyone, but will lead to his downfall. He tells one of the patients, Billy, that he is going to escape to Canada. Billy wants to know if he can come. McMurphy agrees and promises to be waiting for him with one of the women that Billy has a crush on. Then McMurphy leads this woman and Billy to a room where they can be alone before McMurphy heads for his Heaven to the north, Canada.

Everybody at the Last Party passes out and is woken in the morning by the hospital staff. The entire ward is asked what happened and nobody comes forward. Billy is then pressured into ratting out the entire ward. He falls to his knees in front of the head nurse and betrays everyone, especially McMurphy, as alluded to in the beginning of the film. McMurphy then begins to escape, but stops when first confronted, remembering that he is fated to stay and accept the consequences.

McMurphy is forced to suffer shock therapy. He is brought back to his bed in the middle of the night. When Chief attempts to talk to him, McMurphy can’t even speak. Ironically, the healer of mutes is now mute. Chief realizes McMurphy’s brain has been damaged and his friend and inspiration is dead on the inside. To free him, he suffocates McMurphy with a pillow. Chief uses McMurphy’s old escape plan and rips out an altar-like fixture from the tub room and throws it through a window. He then walks off into the distance and disappears leaving his savior friend lying dead on his back, for all to see in the morning. At this point, we see the difference between Christ and Christ-like. On this Easter morning, the body is still there.