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

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

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