In Ken Kesey's novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the tragic hero of his story enters a psychotic ward and takes pity on the mentally ill patients, who are being terriorized by the tyranical nurse of the ward. The wards of the hospital had been oppressed by Nurse Fletcher until McMurphy is admitted. McMurphy, in his overconfident manner, undermines Nurse Fletcher and she gradually loses her control over the patients. Nurse Fletcher regains her power by destroying McMurphy. McMurphy soon dies after recieveing a lobotomy.
McMurphy sacraficed his relatively safe position in the psychotic ward in order to help heal the patients. McMurphy's fatal mistake came from his overconfidence in his growing power over Nurse Flethcher. The lobotomy Nurse Fletcher ordered on McMurphy destroyed his mind and the confidence the patients had gained from his presence.
Some of the inaccuracies in this post bother me, so I'll try my best to present a better depiction of Randle McMurphy as a tragic hero (that, and I have an in-class timed write on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest tomorrow).
First, I do hope you remember that the tyrannical nurse of the ward is actually Nurse Ratched; you must have confused her name with Louise Fletcher, the actress who portrays Nurse Ratched in the film adaptation.
On another note, McMurphy doesn't choose to leave the Disturbed ward; Nurse Ratched decides to send him back out because "she saw that McMurphy was growing bigger than ever while he was upstairs where the guys couldn't see the dent she was making on him." (pg 251, Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). In a sense, McMurphy's time away from the ward allowed him to become a mythical figure, as the other patients continue to hold confidence in him because they know he is still alive and kicking. Realizing that Nurse Ratched will never release McMurphy from the ward, the other patients try to help him escape, but McMurphy falls asleep with the ward in chaos, and ultimately pays for it with his life.
However, Nurse Ratched does not regain her power by destroying McMurphy; despite his lobotomy and eventual death, McMurphy arguably defeats Nurse Ratched when he rips open her shirt and strangles her. With her womanhood exposed to the men of the ward, Nurse Ratched can no longer control them with an iron fist; in fact, she is incapable of speaking, communicating only by writing on a sheet of paper. She brings out a post-lobotomy McMurphy as an attempt to reestablish power, but at that point only 3 patients who knew of McMurphy remained on the ward, and they all remain skeptical that McMurphy has returned (they have confidence that he escaped, and that the McMurphy they see is just a fake). Only Chief Bromden realizes the truth, and smothers McMurphy so that he can't be used to intimidate others in submission.
I don't think that McMurphy doomed himself with his overconfidence, but rather his rebelliousness and willingness to fight singled himself out as a person who could ruin Nurse Ratched's control over the ward, and thus he was dead to rights once he entered the ward. It was only a matter of time before he slipped up or made a fatal mistake.
Posted by: Bob Smith | 03/20/2013 at 08:59 PM