One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Style

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Style

Point of View

Kesey seems to follow a fairly straightforward course in unfolding the plot of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Except for a few flashbacks and digressions, the story is essentially told from beginning to end. The first-person ('T') narrator Chief Bromden, however, is a schizophrenic—a person prone to hallucinations and delusions. As a result, the reader is sometimes unsure whether some of the events he describes really happened or not. After all, Chief believes he sees small mechanical items inside the capsules of medicine he receives and believes that a machine is responsible for creating the "fog" that enfolds his perceptions. Having Chief as a narrator also adds to the development of the story, however, for told through his eyes, the story unfolds in part through Chief's changing emotional and intellectual state. After McMurphy leads the revolt over the World Series, for example, Chief notes that "there's no more fog...
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