"Defenestration" is one of the all-time greatest words in the English language. Five lovely syllables for a word that is not an antonym by virtue of denoting a reversal of the action of the word you have left after removing the negative prefix. Fenestration is a term referring to the architectural design of window placement within a building.
Defenestration represents the entirety of the nomenclature specifically comprising descriptions of the singular act of throwing something out a window. In most contemporary cases, defenestration is given to mean the even more singular act of either tossing someone else through a window or jumping out of the window yourself.
Defenestration in History
Historical acts of defenestration that have achieved some measure of fame include the revolt against Jezebel in the Bible, the murder of the 8th Earl of Douglas by Scotland's King James II, and the suicide of noted philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Acts of defenestration also populate the history of movies. In fact, some of the most memorable moments in movie history involve defenestration. Taking things even further, a number of classic films climax with defenestration.
"The Exorcist"
Arguably the most famous case of cinematic fatal self-defenestration occurs at the end of "The Exorcist." SPOILER ALERT. After spending most of the movie trying to tempt the demon living inside young Regan to leave her alone, Father Karras finally succeeds by luring the devil into his own body to act as host to evil. While still possessed of his own senses and not yet fully under the dominance of the malevolent spirit inside him, the priest attempts to kill both entities sharing his body by diving through a window that takes him tumbling down a flight of concrete steps that you can actually visit on your next trip to Washington, D.C.
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Arguably the most famous case of cinematic defenestration that acts as a metaphor for achieving the dream of freedom from oppression marks the climax of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." The big Native American who spends most of the movie fooling the other characters and the audience into thinking one thing about him only to reveal the truth is the opposite turns out to be the one who flies away.
Going into "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" you might think Jack Nicholson's Randall Patrick McMurphy will be the one to escape the oppressive ideological state apparatus known as the mental institution. Actually, the defenestration that takes place ties directly to an earlier scene in which McMurphy struggles in vain to lift up a heavy ceramic plumbing fixture.
The failure of his physical exertion endows the fixture with symbolic representation of his upcoming failure to fly over the cuckoo's nest and the ultimate success of Chief Bromden to do just that. Bromden is physically capable of lifting the fixture up and tossing it through the window so he can achieve his deliverance.
"Desperate Lives"
Movies that exist solely for the purpose of delivering an anti-drug message tend to be heavy-handed. The defenestration that occurs in "Desperate Lives" is perhaps the most melodramatic of them all. A very young Helen Hunt -- or is it a very young Jodie Foster? -- stars in this TV movie in which the most memorable scene is the defenestration. After trying the illegal drug known as angel dust, Hunt's character experiences a freak out that climaxes with her histrionic defenestration through an upper story window, witnessed by a school ground full of kids below.
For more articles by Timothy Sexton, check out:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Thin Line Between Reality and Sanity
Origins and Histories of Unusual Words
The Top 5 Scariest Movies of All Time
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