SOURCE: Larson, Janet. “Stories Sacred and Profane: Narrative in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.” Religion and Literature 16, no. 2 (summer 1984): 25-42.

In the following essay, Larson traces the dialectical and dialogical implications of the narrative in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

In his “wry codicil” to the “Definition of Man” which opens Language as Symbolic Action, Kenneth Burke observes that this symbol-using, symbol-misusing animal is “rotten with perfection.” Goaded by Aristotle's principle of entelechy to make plans for our own completion—plans that could extend with “perfect logic” to our complete extinction (16-20)—we are storytelling animals and creatures who live in stories. Theologians have drawn upon such an understanding of human nature and culture to develop powerfully appealing accounts of life and faith as story. But what kind of stories shall we have? Ethicists David Burrell and Stanley Hauerwas write that

a true story could only...