Beginning of Essay
McMurphy is linked with the mythical frontier American when he engages in battle with Harding for the position of "Bull Goose Loony": "Then you tell Bull Goose Loony Harding that R. P. McMurphy is waiting to see him and that this hospital ain't big enough for the ....

Middle of Essay
.... with the heroic (male) American past is forged by the fact that he wears a pair of shorts decorated with "big white whales" which recall Melville's Moby Dick. Indeed, so that the reader does not miss the allusion, Kesey has McMurphy relate that the person who gave him the shorts was "'a co-ed at Oregon State, Chief, a Literary major'" who made him the present "'because she said I was a symbol'" (69). Melville is a by no means unambiguous writer. Indeed, in Moby Dick, the white whale may be seen as a symbol of impenetrability which forms the book's focus over its "hero" Captain Ahab. Kesey, however, appears to associate Moby Dick with male ag ....