One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

record adjectives and images that reveal the fearfull mood

part 4

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I think this is in part 4. It's my favourite quote of the book:

“Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?”

Here McMurphy as he is being prepared for shock therapy. The Christ imagery is so profound. I find this fearful in the way that one might have felt as Christ was being tortured or crucified. It wasn't simply Christ that was killed, it was truth (in a Biblical sense). Similarly McMurphy's death was the death of truth, the death of a being that, like Christ, dared challenge the hypocrisy of the establishment.