Chief Bromden
First edition
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| Author | Ken Kesey |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Paul Bacon |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Viking Press & Signet Books |
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Publication date
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1962 |
| Pages | 320 |
| OCLC | 37505041 |
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional processes and the human mind as well as a critique of behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. It was adapted into the Broadway play One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Dale Wasserman in 1963. Bo Goldman adapted the novel into a 1975 film directed by Miloš Forman, which won five Academy Awards.
Time Magazine included the novel in its "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005" list.
The book is narrated by "Chief" Bromden, a gigantic and docile half-Native American patient at a psychiatric hospital, who presents himself as deaf and mute. Bromden’s tale focuses mainly on the antics of the rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy, who faked insanity to serve his sentence for battery and gambling in the hospital rather than at a prison work farm. The head administrative nurse, Mildred Ratched, rules the ward with an iron fist and with little medical oversight. She is assisted by her three day-shift orderlies and her assistant doctors.
McMurphy constantly antagonizes Nurse Ratched and upsets the routines of the ward, leading to constant power struggles between the inmate and the nurse. He runs a card table, captains the ward's basketball team, comments on Nurse Ratched's figure, incites the other patients to conduct a vote about watching the World Series on television, and organizes an unsupervised deep-sea fishing trip. His reaction after claiming to be able to and subsequently failing to lift a heavy control panel in the defunct hydrotherapy room (referred to as the "tub room") – "But at least I tried" – gives the men incentive to try to stand up for themselves, instead of allowing Nurse Ratched to take control of every aspect of their lives. The Chief opens up to McMurphy, revealing late one night that he can speak and hear. A disturbance after the fishing trip results in McMurphy and the Chief being sent for electroshock therapy sessions, but even this punishment does little to curb McMurphy's rambunctious behavior.
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