Who Is The Narrator In One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Kenneth Elton “Ken” Kesey was the novelist that wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a narrative that examined the maltreatment of a psychiatric hospital; it was published in 1962. Shortly after Kesey graduated from University of Oregon in 1957, he was offered a scholarship to Stanford University in a creative writing program, it was during that time he volunteered to participate in an analysis administered by the U.S. Army where he was given hallucinatory drugs and was asked to report on their results. He also held a position at a mental institution as an attendant. Those experiences gave him an insight and served as his basis for his successfully written 1962 novel.

The novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey is told through

the eyes of Chief Bromden, a schizophrenic at a mental institution in Oregon. The mental institution has only male patients and is run by Nurse Ratched, a callous, manipulative tyrant. She has complete control of the ward and no one dares to go against her orders. Nurse Ratched’s task became challenging when Randle McMurphy gets transferred to the mental institution from a prison because unlike everyone else, he is obstreperous. The warfare of willingness between disobedient McMurphy and intransigent Nurse Ratched soon affects all the ward’s patients.
Nguyen 2
Chief Bromden is the narrator of the novel and has been in the institution longer than any of the other patient.

Before he entered the institution, he joined World War II where he learns about electronics in the army and later had schizophrenic hallucination about being part of the Combine. The Combine is the creation of Chief’s paranoia; a mechanized society that controls humankind by making it fulfill the rigid standard of behavior. Chief pretends to be deaf and mute to protect himself from the Combine. On the other hand we have, Randle McMurphy, the protagonist of the novel, who is completely the opposite of Chief Bromden. McMurphy is a gambler and Korean War hero, he is rebellious, loud and is afraid of nothing. He was admitted to the institution from Pendelton Prison Farm after being diagnosed psychotic but he is not insane at all, instead of being there and obey the rules like the others, he is on a mission to rehabilitate the patients and help them find themselves again. McMurphy appears to be the pioneer amongst the patients. Nurse Ratched was a former Army nurse and is the antagonist of the novel. She controls everything in the hospital and will not back down without a fight. She resembles a doll on the outside, but mechanized and steel underneath. Her expressions are always "calculated and mechanical." She emasculates her patients through a psychologically manipulative program to sabotage their self esteem, moreover, she’s oppressive and inhumane. The battle

between Christ and Satan, who will win? What happens in the end?
Randle McMurphy was not accommodating when he first arrived particularly when he noticed that Nurse Ratched’s motive was to turn the men against each other and dominate them. He then began to provoke her sovereignty by invigorating the men to fight over the negligible rules. A force battle between the nurse and the patient starts. For a brief timeframe, McMurphy is
Nguyen 3
by all accounts winning yet Chief acknowledges Nurse Ratched is simply waiting for her opportunity.

After awhile, he backed down from being rebellious when he founds out that Nurse Ratched has immense power over his future especially when she can keep him for however long she wants, so he begins to follow rules until one of the men commits suicide, disappointed that McMurphy has backed down. Nurse Ratched thinks that she has won the war and decides to punish the men for their rebellion but little does she knows, McMurphy responds by challenging her power again and the battle is back on, only this time it is more aggressive and committed. Towards the end of the novel, McMurphy smuggles two prostitutes into the ward one night and the men have a full-blown party, but they were caught the next morning. Nurse Ratched degraded Billy Bibbit and threatened him that she will tell his mother about what he did and made him begged her for mercy. Instead of keep living under her severe principle, Billy picks suicide, giving up life, while at the same time settling on a free choice. Nurse Ratched then points the finger at McMurphy for the death of Billy Bibbit. McMurphy then attacks Nurse Ratched and successfully disrobes her, exposing her breasts to all the men on the ward. She then sends McMurphy to lobotomy where he became a vegetable, however, Ratched has lost her dictatorial power over the ward. The patients transfer to other wards or check themselves out of the hospital. Chief

Bromden was unable to see McMurphy living under Nurse Ratched’s rules so he smothers McMurphy until he dies and escaped the hospital and ran for his freedom.

Nguyen 4
In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey has been alluding to biblical imagery throughout the novel, the biggest allusion in the story is Randle McMurphy as a christ figure, another relevant biblical symbol that Ken Kesey outlines is the electro shock therapy table that is shaped to look like a cross that uses restraints on the arms and head, much like the original crucifixion of Jesus Christ, this foreshadows McMurphy’s death. McMurphy in this book follows very closely with the story of Jesus Christ, he becomes the novel’s tragic hero who ultimately fall for the greater good of his people, the patients. Ken Kesey uses the hospital to symbolize society sexual repression in the 1950s. In the novel, Nurse Ratched hides her sense of femininity and becomes cold and heartless making her a “machine”; she repressed the men sexuality, making them weak with no self-esteem. In the end, McMurphy attacks the Nurse Ratched, rips her clothes and exposes her breasts, he defuses her power by showing her sexual identity as a woman. This is part of the reason that her power over the men is broken. The visible sight of her femininity frees them to be more like men because they have always seen her as a cold mechanical machine. The theme of the novel is that sexual freedom is important as it defines who we are and we should be able to expressed that, it is what makes us all unique from each other. The tone of the novel is critical as Kesey uses McMurphy’s rebellion to undermine and criticize society and the authority, he also uses this to express his attitudes. Overall, the book is superb with great meanings; it was an adventure predicting what McMurphy’s next move is going to be but that is just another reason to love the book; I would suggest this book entirely.