Comparisons to Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest parallel each other in that their main characters both contain qualities of a tragic hero.

Brutus from Julius Caesar and McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest both have a tragic flaw that leads them to fall from great heights of esteem.

Brutus’s tragic flaw is his honor while McMurphy’s tragic flaw is his pride and defiant nature.  For Brutus his honor leads him into being too trustworthy in situations where he should not be. This makes Brutus easily susceptible to manipulation by Cassius. He makes an error in judgment in trusting Cassius wants to kill Caesar for the good of Rome, when in reality Cassius just doesn’t like Caesar all that much. The gain Cassius seeks is personal in attempting to kill Caesar and not for the common good, as Brutus foolishly believes. Cassius plants seeds early on in the book that manifests Brutus belief that killing Caesar is the only way to protect the Roman Republic and Rome: “I will this night, In several hands, in at his windows throw, As if they came from several citizens,
Writings, all tending to the great opinion, That Rome holds of his name, wherein obscurely, Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at. And after this let Caesar seat him sure;
For we will shake him, or worse days endure” (1.2.315-318). In this quote Cassius speaks his hopes that Brutus will join the conspiracy after reading fake letters, seemingly written by citizens but really written by Cassius, that address admiration for Brutus and concern for Caesar’s ambition. Cassius is able to appeal to Brutus’s honor by manipulating him and making him believe killing Caesar will protect the Roman republic and Rome as a whole: “That noble minds keep ever with their likes; / For who so firm that cannot be seduced?” (1.2.307-308). In this quote Cassius speaks and confirms his intent to manipulate Brutus as he says, “For who so firm that cannot be seduced”(1.2.308), seduced meaning manipulated in this case. This quote goes to show that Cassius’s aims stray from a noble path, as there would be no need to manipulate an honorable man such as Brutus if the intention was pure and noble. Brutus is, however, manipulated by Cassius as he decides to join the conspiracy that plots to assassinate Caesar: “It must be by his death; and for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general… And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg, Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous And kill him in the shell.” (2.1. 10-34 ). Brutus in this quote is sharing that he believes Caesar must be killed, for the common good, before he is able to cease absolute power as a king. Him sharing this belief shows that Cassius’ attempts to manipulate Brutus into wanting to kill Caesar have succeeded.

In McMurphy’s case his tragic flaw, pride, leads him to defy Nurse Ratched, the authority figure that decides whether he can leave the mental institution where he is committed. Nurse Ratched is depicted as a control freak and the threatening of her control is a dangerous game to play: “A lot of it is, but not all. Army nurses, trying to run an Army hospital. They are a little sick themselves” (Kesey 154). The speaker in this quote is talking about Nurse Ratched when she discusses army nurses and the way they handle control in a way that makes them, “a little sick themselves” (Kesey 154). This quote characterizes Nurse Ratched as stern, disciplinary and somewhat of a control freak.

 McMurphy antagonizes Nurse Ratched because he makes an error in judgment by underestimating Nurse Ratched’s power over his fate: “‘We have weeks, or months, or even years if need be. Keep in mind that Mr. McMurphy is committed. The length of time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us’” (Kesey 89). Nurse Ratched in this quote reveals that McMurphy is under the jurisdiction of the staff, but primarily her as she is in control around the hospital. This is grim for McMurphy as he doesn’t fully understand his status as committed until much later when another patient explains it to him. Only then does he get the message that he can’t serve his allotted time from the work farm in the hospital and then be on his way: “I heard him tell McMurphy that, for one thing, being committed ain’t like being sentenced. ‘You’re sentenced in a jail, and you got a date ahead of you when you know you’re gonna be turned loose,’” (Kesey 95). Even after McMurphy’s feeling of invincibility fades after he finds out this fact yet he doesn’t back down and continues to antagonize the Nurse as his pride and defiant nature keeps him from submitting: “He stopped in front of her window and he said in his slowest, deepest drawl how he figured he could use one of the smokes he bought this mornin’, then ran his hand through the glass” (Kesey 114). This event where McMurphy broke through the Nurse’s station’s glass occurred after McMurphy found out his allotted time in the hospital was at the jurisdiction of an already angered Nurse Ratched. It displays how his defiance remains strong even after his seemingly grim fate is revealed.

Brutus and McMurphy are both responsible for their fates. Without Brutus the conspiracy would never form since the other conspirators initially refuse to join unless Cassius can recruit Brutus. When Brutus joins the conspiracy it solidifies, as Brutus is already respected and revered as honorable. His presence in the conspiracy makes the former prospective conspirators join. If the conspiracy hadn’t been formed Caesar wouldn’t have been killed, Rome wouldn’t have turned against Brutus, and a civil war wouldn’t have been initiated over Caesar’s death. Moreover, Brutus wouldn’t have killed himself during the civil war, as it wouldn’t have existed had he not killed Caesar with the other senators: “And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge…Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth” (3.1. 285-289). The speaker of this quote of Antony and he is saying that Caesar’s death will be avenged through war.

McMurphy was responsible for his fate as he led and inspired small-scale rebellion in the mental hospital that antagonized the authority in control of his fate: “And we’re all sitting there lined up in front of that blanked-out TV set, watching the gray screen just like we could see the baseball game clear as day, and she’s ranting and screaming behind us” (Kesey 83). This quote depicts the protest McMurphy leads to alter TV schedules for the World Series after he and the others are denied of their request to do so. Nurse Ratched losing her composure in this scene is especially prominent as it is something that had never been seen before in the hospital, which displays how angered and fed up she is with McMurphy’s behavior. After this outburst her grip on the hospital is loosened. Through McMurphy’s defiant behavior he gets patients to question authority and begin to resist it to an extent. On his own McMurphy’s defiant behavior infuriates the Nurse as it serves as inspiration for the other patients. He makes her lose her composure, which in turn makes her look weak and it threatens her absolute control over the hospital. McMurphy’s antagonizing behavior solidifies his imprisonment in the hospital since he is a committed patient and can only be released at the Nurse and staff’s decision: “‘Keep in mind that Mr. McMurphy is committed. The length of time he spends in this hospital is entirely up to us’” (Kesey 89). McMurphy is also responsible for his fate because irreversible mistake of strangling Nurse Ratched was prompted after Billy’s suicide. The series of events that lead up to Billy’s death are prompted by one of McMurphy’s actions as he set Billy up on a date with Candy, a prostitute. After this date the Nurse discovers Billy in bed with Candy and threatens to tell his mother, he then precedes to commit suicide. In this way McMurphy’s actions are partially responsible for Billy’s death.

McMurphy and Brutus both make irreversible mistakes. McMurphy’s irreversible mistake is incited after Billy’s suicide: “First I had a quick thought to try to stop him, talk him into taking what he’d already won and let her have the last round, but another, bigger thought wiped the first thought away completely. I suddenly realized with a crystal certainty that neither I nor any of the half-score of us could stop him” (Kesey 175). This quote comes after the Nurse blames McMurphy for Billy’s death, though in reality it wasn’t truly his fault. If anything McMurphy showed Billy a life to live for. In reality the Nurse was to blame for his death. The oppression and pressure she subjected him to by threatening to tell his mother he slept with a prostitute is what drove Billy over the edge. Billy wanted to please his mother and therefore he needed to please the Nurse, which she knew. Yet Billy also wanted to be free. Billy was liberated, empowered when he lost his virginity to Candy. That liberation and sense of freedom being ripped away from him and granting him consequence is what tears him apart in the end. McMurphy knew this and for a character as defiant and strong willed as McMurphy there was no letting it go. He made the Nurse pay for what she did to Billy and the countless other patients she’s tormented. After McMurphy strangles the Nurse he gets sent for a lobotomy, brain surgery that renders him a vegetable. This is his fall from great heights of esteem, as he is rendered docile and imprisoned within his own body.

Brutus’s irreversible mistake is killing Caesar, and then subsequently allowing Antony, a close friend of Caesar’s who is emotional and angry after his death, to speak to the Plebeians: “‘you shall speak In the same pulpit whereto I am going, After my speech is ended’” (3. 1. 263-265). These two mistakes then lead to Brutus’s fall from great heights of esteem. Where as before Rome highly respected Brutus, prior to his part in the killing of Caesar, after his irreversible mistake the Plebeians run him out of Rome. However, Brutus did have hopes to sway the Plebeians to his side as he spoke to them and assured them that Caesar’s death was for the common good. Yet when Brutus made his second irreversible mistake of allowing Antony to speak to the Plebeians after him they quickly turned against Brutus: “‘We’ll mutiny. We’ll burn the house of Brutus’” (3. 2. 222-224). These are the plebeians’ cries after Antony gives his speech. The plebeians display they want mutiny in response to Brutus’s actions, which now, after hearing Antony speak, they seemingly find repulsing.

The epitome of tragedy that lies in Brutus’s fall from great heights of esteem is in his suicide or tragic death. As Brutus realizes then his pure intentions were channeled into a wrong act of violence against a beloved friend. Brutus accepts death with honor as his death is of his own decision and his last words speak to avenging Caesar’s murder in his suicide so Caesar may rest in peace: “Caesar, now be still. I killed not thee with half so good a will” (5.5.56-57). Brutus evokes pathos in the audience through his death because it is of such a noble quality. Brutus always held the belief, until the very end, that killing Caesar was for the common good. Brutus was too pure and for that he was taken advantage of. His poor decision-making was the reason for his tragic fall yet his decisions all stemmed from the purest of intentions. The audience pities the good man stuck with an unfortunate fate.

Brutus’s irreversible mistake occurred upon killing Caesar while McMurphy’s irreversible mistake came when he strangled Nurse Ratched. Both tragic heroes’ attempted or successfully took the lives of high-ranking authority figures in their irreversible mistake. This then, for both heroes’, is followed by a subsequent fall from great heights of esteem. After McMurphy makes the irreversible mistake of strangling Nurse Ratched he is sent to get a lobotomy, a brain surgery that renders him a vegetable, living imprisoned within his own body. Throughout the book McMurphy represented the importance of strength against oppression: “‘You mean to tell me that you’re gonna sit back and let some old blue-haired woman talk you into being a rabbit?’” (Kesey 38). In this quote McMurphy is trying to tell the patients they shouldn’t just submit to the Nurse who aims to oppress and weaken them. McMurphy wouldn’t give up, not only as a result of pride but also because he was determined not to let a tyrant like the Nurse beat him into submission. Though he faltered, out of fear, for an extremely short while McMurphy, for the most part, maintained a strong, honorable resistance even when the pressure of his oppressor was at its worst. He is killed by another mental patient, Bromden, as Bromden knew such a man as McMurphy should not live imprisoned within himself as a testament to the Nurse’s power: “I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn’t have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that” (Kesey 177). The “that” Bromden refers to is McMurphy in his docile, vegetable state. Bromden is saying in this quote he knows McMurphy would never have wanted to be an example that displayed the consequences of strength and resistance under oppression; therefore that is why Bromden decides he has to kill him. In this way his death is honorable and his tragic fall is sacrificial in a sense as he gave up his strength and livelihood to instill strength in others. The noble and sacrificial quality of McMurphy’s fall is what evokes pathos from the audience.

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest are similar in that they both contain lead characters that are tragic heroes. The characters in each book evoke pathos from the audience. Furthermore both characters have a tragic flaw that leads them to make an error in judgment, which prompts their irreversible mistake that is subsequently followed by their fall from great heights of esteem. McMurphy’s unwillingness to conform, which lies in his pride and strong will, combined with his irreversible mistake, leads to his tragic fate. Just as Brutus’s honor, his tragic flaw, leads to his unfortunate fall from great heights of esteem.