There are times when a martyr must occur for people to find an individual strength within them. In the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and the movie Cool Hand Luke directed by Stuart Rosenberg, the use of religious imagery and allusions depicts both main characters from the novel and the movie as saviors who free the other characters from oppression.
In the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy’s (the main characters) role as a messianic or Christ-like savior becomes substantial early on in the read. His honest, heartfelt laughter is seen as a way to free the patients from the Combine’s clutches and their absurdity, which is related to praying for deliverance from one’s sins. At one point in the novel one of the characters named Chief Bromden comments on McMurphy’s laughter. He says, “He knows you have to laugh…to keep the world from running you plum crazy” (92).
Laughter plays a religious role in the movie Cool Hand Luke because it is something that was regularly done by the main character Luke to show the other characters that sometimes you have to make the best of what you have. At the end of the film the character Dragline is describing Luke as someone who was always smiling and laughing no matter what.
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Betrayal in Cuckoo’s Nest is represented as the religious “Last Supper” on the ward. The party on the ward appropriately accomplished the role of Christ turning water into wine when cough syrup is turned into alcohol. Also the character Harding sprinkles pills over two patient’s heads which is related to the idea of a baptism. One of the characters Billy Bibbit commits suicide after betraying McMurphy by giving him up to Nurse Ratched. This relates to the story of Judas committing suicide after betraying Jesus.
Luke is betrayed at least twice throughout the movie. Once is during his first escape from the work farm when another inmate tries to escape when he does, but is so noisy that he draws attention to Luke trying to escape. The other is when the character Dragline betrays Luke by bringing the police to him at the end of the movie. Before Draglines betrayal he says to Luke, while on his knees, “I done enough world shaking for a while, you do the rest of it for me”. Even though Dragline betrays Luke, his character is seen as similarly related to Peter from the Bible; not only does Draglines physical description as a burly figure fit the description of Peter but like Peter, he is seen as the leader of the inmates both before his betrayal and after. He is shown at the end of the film telling the story, or testifying what happened the night Luke was killed.
There are many references to the cross in the book Cuckoo’s Nest, the first is represented by the Chronic Ellis. After undergoing too many ESTs, Chief Bromden describes Ellis as “…nailed against the wall in the same condition, they lifted him off the table for the last time” (92).
The importance of this imagery becomes even more apparent when Harding describes the “table, shaped, ironically, like a cross, with a crown of electric sparks in the place of thorns” (94).
The religious imagery of the cross is mentioned and shown many times throughout film Cool Hand Luke. The most significant and obvious is the final shot of the film where Luke’s picture, which has been torn in the form of a cross, lays over a road that forms a cross. In the last few moments of the movie, Dragline describes Luke as “heralded by two angels” apparently floating in the skies. The two angels can be described as the two women Luke is with, in the picture.
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In Cool Hand Luke, the movie begins with the word, VIOLATION, across the screen. The word is from a parking meter and sets the tone for the entire movie. Luke Jackson, the title character, is arrested for cutting off the heads of the town's parking meters while drunk, or in legal terms, for destroying municipal property while under the influence of alcohol. When asked why he cut the heads off the ...
Both McMurphy and Luke can be described as heroic or Christ-like figures that had to die in order for the men to realize their individual strengths, much like Jesus had to die in order to save us from our sins. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, McMurphy becomes a martyr in his final selfless sacrifice. Chief Bromden stays with McMurphy until the end, relating his character to Peter because he was the most loyal out of McMurphy’s friends. Luke becomes a martyr in the film Cool Hand Luke because the men learned to make the best of their lives just like Luke made the best of his time on the work farm.
Works Cited
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. New York: New American Library, 1962. Print.
Cool Hand Luke. Dir. Stuart Rosenberg. Perf. Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin and J.D. Cannon. Warner Bros, 1967. Film.
