One flew over the cuckoo's nest - Book Report/Review Example

The Chief is a mute man, whose inner turmoil brings Kesey's true intentions to the forefront. It is through the Chief's foggy paranoia and schizophrenic dementia that the reader ultimately ponders the reality of the entire narrative, the validity of McMurphy's heroism and the actuality of the Chief's escape from the mental ward. Through Chief's first person narrative, the reader is introduced to McMurphy and is detailed on all of the conflicts McMurphy faces while in the mental ward. One of the main conflicts that Chief describes is McMurphy's rebellion and consequential battle with Big Nurse.

For example when the Chief finally tells McMurphy "My Papa was a full Chief," and that "He was the tallest on the mountain and we didn't live on a mountain. He was real big when I was a kid. My mother got twice his size" (Kesey 186). The story then depicts McMurphy's lobotomy which is ordered by Big Nurse. When he is brought back to the ward he is "wheeled in the gurney with a chart at the bottom that said in heavy black letters, 'McMurphy, Randle P., Post cooperative,'" (Kesey 269). Like the Chief's father before him, McMurphy has been stripped of his manhood and his identity by a white woman and a white establishment.

Furthermore, the Chief's descriptions of the conflicts between Nig Nurse and McMurphy seem to characterize Keseys's views of women and feminism. The antagonism in the novel toward feminine power portrays it as a mysterious and alluringforce that inevitably proves destructive to men. This idea is very specific to the postwar era, where women in numerous sectors of the economy refused to return to the home when men returned from World War Two. Furthermore, Kesey's work represents a larger cultural fear that, as women move into morepowerful positions, men will become emasculated.

The similarities between what happens to McMurphy and the Chief's own experience with his father gives the lobotomy a deeper meaning and helps relay to the reader what Kesey is really trying to say. This perspective brought to life by the Chief also proves that in order for McMurphy to beat the system and Bog Nurse, he must first beat himself and the freedom he so strongly desires. The story Chief tells about his father is just one of the many instances where he uses his own narrative voice to express his belief that there is no true escape from the mental ward.

His silence in general, proves his lack of interest and obvious defeat. He no longer has the drive to try and beat the system and has given up all together, This lack of enthusiasm and drive for freedom on the Chief's part adds another dimension to the story and brings into play an irony that grows as the reader gradually understands the unreliability of the narrators rendering of events and rationalizing his own text's significance. Chief admits that he has been in the ward " the longest, longer'n anybody.

Longer'n any of the other patients," (Kesey 16). Armed with the knowledge the reader begins to see that the Chief's perceptions of his surroundings are usually grotesque, weird and most often crossed with drug induced hallucinations. Hallucinations of his Indian father, treacherous white mother and a humiliated culture which is now mirrored in his own life. Kesey contrasts such victimized males with the overt masculinization of McMurphy. According to the Chief, McMurphy is "big"