For most religious people it is one of the main goals in their life to live after the guidelines of virtue and show behavior with high moral standards. Virtue means goodness, morality, integrity, dignity… Everything that Randle McMurphy is not at the first instance in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. His character opposes all classic characteristics of virtue and roughly speaking he fails to survive in the end. Therefore is it important to be virtuous?
I believe that although virtue is coming out of fashion in today’s culture, it is a necessary, daily element in our life.
For most people virtue isn’t the “coolest kid in town”. If someone announces that they’re giving up on dating, spending money on nice clothes and to overall work on becoming a more virtuous person, one will be labeled as a “freak”; someone maybe too religious that has a screw loose somewhere. Being virtuous can be boring because you have to control and put yourself in the background in a time when most teenagers and adults live their life for the public. One will sit in a nice restaurant with a plate more like art than food in front of them, but instead of enjoying their meal and talking with their friends, people will take a picture to display on instagram or facebook showing other people how good their life is. Being wicked and a little bit crazy is a strangely attractive characteristic nowadays. Along the lines of “good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere.” In OFOTCN McMurphy is that kind of crazy, wicked person. Although he fails to fit into society, it is hard to argue that he is not polarizing, fun and strangely likeable. When Murphy is asked why people believe he might be mentally ill, he bluntly says, “Well, as near as I can figure out, it's 'cause I, uh, fight and fuck too much.” A virtuous person would never say that. But coming from Randle, it is oddly witty and authentic. McMurphy is not the perfect example of virtue; he is the exact opposite, the