January 2008

Sinners as Saviors

Recently, as I was sorting through some of the stuff I hauled homed from school when I retired, I came across an angry letter the mother of one of my students had written to me some years earlier. She was complaining about a book.

She wrote: “I do not approve of the book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. I do not wish for a child of mine to read this trash. I hope you will give him an alternate book to read. I cannot believe that our school sanctions this book. I read part of it and it literally made me sick to my stomach! My older daughter was told by one of her English teachers that the school did not sanction the use of the ‘F’ word in class and here this book is given to my son—in the same school—as required reading. I am furious!!”

This is what I wrote back: “Sorry that my assigning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to my American literature students upset you. Let me begin by addressing the central objection you raised in your letter to me. If our school does not sanction the use of the ‘F’ word in class, how can a teacher assign a book in which some of the characters use this word?

“The answer is that our using this book does not constitute our approval of the language. We also use The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in which the word ‘nigger’ appears probably two hundred times. Our assigning this novel does not mean that we are racists or that we approve of this racist term. Mark Twain uses the term for its historical authenticity and to reveal Huck’s character to us. ‘Nigger’ is the only word Huck has for slaves, so it is the term he uses. For much of his early life he is also blinded by it; all slaves are simply ‘niggers,’ and this means they are superstitious, ignorant, and incomplete human beings. It is when Huck learns to see beyond this racist stereotype that he begins to grow, and this growth defines the theme of the novel. Twain could not have done this with any word other than ‘nigger,’ offensive as that word is.

“By the same token, Ken Kesey uses the ‘F’ word to define some of the characters in his novel. This does not imply approval on Kesey’s part, or on our part. His characters’ use of language helps us to understand them. Our use of the book certainly does not mean we sanction the use of such language any more than we approve of Huck’s use of ‘nigger.’

“I wish I could persuade you to read the entire novel. I think you would find a story much to your liking, even though you would be disgusted by some of the language and behavior. When McMurphy, the central character, shows up at the mental hospital, he is an arrogant egocentric. He is earthy and profane, and he is out for one thing: self-gratification. He is in the hospital because he requested a transfer from the prison farm where he was serving a sentence, and he intends to run the show.

“Before the end of the novel, though, this self-centered braggart learns one of the great lessons of human existence. He learns the same lesson Huck Finn and Oskar Schindler learned. He learns, through love, to put someone else’s well being ahead of his own. McMurphy puts his self-interest aside and does what he can to improve the lives of the other patients. This does not mean we necessarily approve of his means, but we still recognize his genuine and selfless transformation. The author goes to some pains to point out the significance of this change. When McMurphy is sent to the electroshock therapy unit, he asks if he is to be given ‘a crown of thorns.’ On a fishing trip the narrator tells us that McMurphy is surrounded by ‘his twelve men.’ In the end McMurphy sacrifices himself for another of the patients, and after his death the patients are spiritually reborn because of his example. The language and some of the actions may be profane, but the imagery here is decidedly Christ-like.

“If I had my way, you and your son would both read the book and talk about it. You would find other offensive parts, but you would also find a noble story here. This book is not about sanctioning the ‘F’ word. Rather, it shows us that even rough, profane and earthy men can sometimes become great. What matters ultimately about McMurphy is not his language, but his embracing a great and transcendent moral truth: putting aside the self for the benefit of others.

“If you still prefer that your son not read the book, I will give him another. But this means he will not be able to participate in our class discussions. Nor will he be able to do the essay assignment in which the students are asked to explore similarities between this book and the film Cool Hand Luke. I am not suggesting that his grade will suffer from this. It will not. I do think, though, that he will be missing an opportunity. Great storytellers hold up mirrors to reveal to us what they believe is worst and best in us. What better place to examine those stories than in an English class.”

As I recently reread my letter I was both pleased at the case I had made for the novel and a little embarrassed at its self-satisfied tone. It didn’t make any difference, anyway. The mom would have none of my argument and wanted her son to have a different book. I can’t remember what I gave him as an alternate.

Last November, I wrote about what I used to say to parents during open house. Among other things, I wanted them to feel that I knew what I was doing in class. I also wanted them to know that from time to time I was going to make their kids uncomfortable, and I wanted them to trust me to do that. Well, this mom did not feel comfortable about the book, and she didn’t trust me make her son uncomfortable, either. I think both of them saw me as a dangerous character.

I think it was John Gardner who observed (probably in The Art of Fiction—Notes on Craft for Young Writers) that there are just a few great stories, and they keep getting told and retold in new and different ways. Joseph Campbell had a profound understanding of this, too, of course, and it was the basis of his comparative study of mythologies from around the world.

I mentioned in my letter to the angry mom that I was going to have my students explore similarities between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Cool Hand Luke. Both works go to pains to make their protagonists appear Christ-like. In Cool Hand Luke there is, of course, the famous shot of Luke appearing very much like the crucified Christ, as he lies on that table after having eaten fifty boiled eggs.

Like Jesus, Luke also has an absent—a disembodied—father. When Luke’s mother comes to visit him at the prison work camp, she tells Luke that his father always made her laugh. Luke responds that he would like to have known him. Both Jesus and Luke challenge the authorities around them. Luke keeps running away from the work farm, and he subverts the punitive nature of the camp when he turns a road tarring detail into a game. Finally, after he is killed, he is turned into a legend. In the final scene of the film we see the knot of Luke followers gathered around Dragline, Luke’s closest friend in the camp. The others ask him how Luke looked after he was shot and was being driven to the hospital. Dragline says, “He was smilin’—that old Luke smile.” And Dragline sums up the man by saying Luke was a “natural born world shaker.” But, if Luke is a savior, he seems to become one unintentionally. Unlike McMurphy, he doesn’t sacrifice himself for others. Rather, he inspires the other convicts with his relentless defiance.

Perhaps a closer to comparison to McMurphy can be found in Oskar Schindler. At the beginning of Schindler’s List, Schindler is motivated solely by self-interest. Early in the film he is perfectly willing to use victimized Jews to set up his factory to manufacture pots and pans for the German army. He borrows money on the cheap from Jewish businessmen, and he uses Jews as slave labor in his factory. He takes over a luxurious apartment shortly after its Jewish inhabitants have been removed to the ghetto. Later, we hear him say to his wife that in every business venture he has tried up to this point, there was always one thing missing—war. Thank goodness for the war.

But, as the story progresses, Schindler gradually gets to know and care about the Jews who work in his factory and about those living in a nearby work camp. We see this change happening to him as he exchanges personal items of increasing value—his cigarette lighter and then his watch—to have Jews moved from the work camp to the safety of his factory. By the end of the film, this man who once coveted money more than anything is broke. He has spent his fortune—steamer trunks full of money—to buy the freedom of the Jews who work for him. This Nazi who was a war profiteer has put himself at considerable risk and has sacrificed everything to save the very people he once exploited. He has been reborn through the transformational power of love.

And, we can reach back farther than Schindler to find another example of someone who is reborn through love: our old friend, Ebeneezer Scrooge. We all know what a heartless, stingy wretch he was before he was visited by the three spirits.

And then, of course, there is Huck Finn. Not that he was avaricious like a Schindler or a Scrooge or as self-serving as Luke or McMurphy. He was always likable to us, but he was still indifferent to—actually, he was oblivious to the injustices imposed on Jim. When it finally became clear to him, not only that Jim was fully human, but that he was a wonderful person—that he was a better father than Huck’s own father was—he learned to love him.

I used to tell my students that when the Medal of Honor is given to soldiers who have died heroically in battle, the ceremony includes this passage from the book of John in the King James Bible: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This is what McMurphy did. But, Huck, I used to say to them, went a step further. When he decided to destroy the letter that would return Jim to slavery, he was convinced that he was committing an unpardonable sin. Even so, he said, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell—and tore it up.” He was willing to give up his soul.

If we know men by their fruits, sometimes those fruits come in strange guises.