Main Character Outline: McMurphy

Personality and Motivations

McMurphy is intelligent, charismatic, confident, and revolutionary in the ways that he challenges oppressive authority. His self-assurance seems out of place when he is admitted to the hospital as it is a time where it’s expected one would naturally be solemn. McMurphy is charismatic, which is shown in his ability to get along with other patients when he arrives at the hospital. McMurphy is a gambler with what Bromden describes to be politician like charm. He is also displayed as very sexual, violent, and impulsive according to his file. His liveliness is out of place in the solemn institution he enters. This non-conformity early on displays McMurphy’s ability to go against the grain with ease and confidence. Before his arrival patients are seemingly lifeless. Bromden describes it as if McMurphy’s arrival cleared the “fog”, which represents a lack of awareness. While the unwritten yet clear social guidelines in the hospital dictate the way the other patients act McMurphy quickly distinguishes himself from the rest as he disregards them. While the other patients repress their emotions McMurphy expresses them. Throughout the novel McMurphy works to empower the oppressed patients and in the end sacrifices his freedom and sanity through committing a violent act against the oppressive figure Nurse Ratched.

Relationships

McMurphy is a leader for the other mental patients. He quickly gains their admiration and eventual trust. He also empowers them throughout the novel by questioning the authority that oppresses them and by forcing the patients to recognize they don’t have to be powerless against their wrongful oppression. The patients regain portions of their livelihood throughout their novel due to McMurphy’s efforts. McMurphy is the character that leads the events in the novel by empowering the patients to take back control of their fate. In the end Nurse Ratched loses her tyrannical hold over the ward because of McMurphy and a majority of the patients transfer to other wards and some check themselves out of care. Bromden, inspired by McMurphy, is liberated from the hospitals constraints when he breaks out through a window. Bromden ends up killing McMurphy because he doesn’t want McMurphy to stay imprisoned in his body as he is a vegetable after his lobotomy.

McMurphy detests the ‘ball-cutter’ Nurse Ratched as he plainly sees her ‘therapeutic’ remedies as repulsing acts of tyranny that work to deteriorate the mental patients’ strength and beat them into submission: “Those Chinese Commies could have learned a few things from you, lady” (Kesey 206). Throughout the novel McMurphy and Nurse Ratched fight over power. McMurphy bets with the other patients that he can make Nurse Ratched lose her calm, which she does, and Nurse Ratched tries to beat McMurphy into submission. After McMurphy strangles Nurse Ratched she, in retaliation, has him lobotomized. This leaves him as a vegetable. Nurse Ratched loses her strong grip over the ward and its patients due to his efforts. He essentially sacrifices himself to destabilize the Nurse’s tyrannical power.

Tragic Hero

Nobility

McMurphy is not part of nobility. Yet he is displayed continuously going against the grain and questioning dominant authority in attempt to fight oppression. In this sense he is a true leader who is capable of empowering and liberating those around him from oppression.

Tragic Flaw

McMurphy’s tragic flaw is his pride and persistent defiance. He is so assured in his strength that he fails to recognize the places where he is powerless; because of this he underestimates Nurse Ratched’s power over his fate. When he finally realizes her control he has already put himself in a leadership position and his noble qualities keep him from stepping down.

Errors in Judgment and Responsibility for Fate

McMurphy’s tragic flaw leads him to underestimate Nurse Ratched and continually antagonize her. Not willing to recognize weakness he only backs down for a short while when it is already too late as the Nurse already has it out for him with a sealed fate of imprisonment in the hospital. McMurphy’s defiance leads him into electro shock therapy and eventually a lobotomy, which leaves him as a vegetable.

Irreversible Mistake and Responsibility for Fate

McMurphy’s irreversible mistake occurs when he strangles Nurse Ratched. This leads to the death of his sanity and strength as he is then sent to get a lobotomy that turns him into a vegetable. In addition McMurphy sealed his imprisonment at the hospital by antagonizing Nurse Ratched and refusing to escape when he had the opportunity to.

Fall From Great Heights of Esteem or Tragic Death

McMurphy immediately distinguished himself as different from the other mental patients when he is admitted to the hospital because of his pride and defiance. As the story goes on however his defiance gets him sent to electro shock therapy, it also solidifies his entrapment in the hospital. McMurphy’s sanity and strength declines as Nurse Ratched has his shock treatment continue.

When Billy commits suicide because of Nurse Ratched’s threats to tell his mom that he slept with a prostitute McMurphy strangles Nurse Ratched. This final act of insubordination leads to McMurphy’s lobotomy, a surgical operation that cuts connections in the brain’s prefrontal lobes. After this operation McMurphy is turned into a vegetable and all the freedom, sexuality, and strength McMurphy clung to is lost. This tragic fall is especially difficult because it displays a character of such strong will forcefully conformed and overpowered by the oppressor he worked to defeat. Bromden kills McMurphy as he wants him to die with dignity. In this way his death is honorable. Though it isn’t by his own means Bromden knows McMurphy wouldn’t have wanted to stay alive in such a state of weakness as a testament to the Nurse’s tyrannical power.

Evokes pity and fear in audience

The fear for McMurphy is consistent throughout the book as he is challenging forces he is not equipped to defeat. As Nurse Ratched’s power and ability to control is continuously reaffirmed the fearfulness of McMurphy’s antagonizing ways grows stronger as the reader begins to grasp the negative repercussions of angering such a powerful character. The fear of McMurphy is rooted in his impulsiveness, which leads him to make irreversible mistakes such as strangling Nurse Ratched. He is violent and sometimes unpredictable, which endangers others and himself. In the book his impulsive tendencies make the patients and the reader fear for his fate in the hospital even though he was sane upon entering the institution.

The reader can’t help but pity McMurphy as his sense of strength and resistance against oppression is taken away under Nurse Ratched’s tyranny. A character with such a strong will rendered helpless, his fate in the hands of a cunning tyrannical Nurse he had antagonized before realizing her true control over his fate. All the other patients looked up to him. The reader couldn’t help but root for McMurphy to find a way to resist submission and preserve his strong will, strength, and freedom. He was the patients’ leader that they looked to for guidance. Pity is evoked for McMurphy when he sacrifices his sanity and freedom in order to give the patients strength and inspire them to resist oppression themselves; a noble act that leads to a tragic end.