Point of View in Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Essay

Point of View in Keseys bingle Flew everyplace the Cuckoos Nest The choice that a novelist makes in deciding the channelise of view for a novel is hardly a minor one. Few authors make the decision to use first person narration by subsidiary character as Ken Kesey does in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. By choosing Bromden as narrator instead of the central character of Randle Patrick McMurphy, Kesey gives us narration that is objective, that is to learn from the outside of the central character, and also narration that is subjective and understandably unreliable. The paranoia and dementia that fill Bromdens narration set a tone for the struggle for liberation that is the foot of the story. It is also this choice of narrator that leads the reader to wonder at the conclusion whether the story was actually that of McMurphy or Bromden. Keseys choice of narrative technique makes One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest a successful novel. It would be hard to ignore biographical information when analyzing a work by Ken Kesey, because of both his involvement with the tick writers and as an advocate for hallucinogenic drugs. In fact, it is said that Kesey created the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest during a peyote hallucination, when an Indian came to him (Tanner 21). While his choice of the Indian, a supposed deaf mute, as narrator seems out of the norm it is even more so when comparing Kesey to the other Beat writers. McMurphy can be compared most to Dean Moriarty of Jack Kerouacs On The Road, save Bromden is nothing like Kerouacs narrator, Sal Paradise. Certainly the loud and boisterous McMurphy would have made for an interesting narrator for this novel but this would have provided for a very different ending. Even the... ...oos Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1992. 5-11. Hunt, John W. Flying the Cuckoos Nest Keseys Narrator as Norm. Lex et Scientia 13 (1977) 27-32. Rpt. in A textbook on Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1992. 13-23. Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. New York Signet, 1962. Martin, Terence. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and the High Cost of Living. Modern legend Studies. 19 (1973) 43-55. Rpt. in A Casebook on Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Ed. George J. Searles. Albuquerque Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1992. 25-39. Semino, Elena and Kate Swindlehurst. Metaphor and mind style in Ken Keseys One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Style 30 (1996) 143-67. Tanner, Stephen L. Ken Kesey. Boston Twayne, 1983.