Point of View

The novel is written in the first person point of view. The narrator is Chief Bromden, a patient on Miss Ratched’s ward in a state run hospital. Chief is the son of an Indian chief and his white wife. Chief watched as the government bought up his father’s ancestral home and caused his father to turn to alcoholism. Chief has been in the mental hospital for nearly twenty years and continues to have delusions as the novel begins.

The point of view of this novel has the interesting twist of being written from the mind of a mentally ill man. The reader cannot be sure what part of the narration is true and what part of it is part of the delusions of the narrator. There are parts that are clearly delusions, such as the times when Chief talks about the machinery in...