One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest Film Vs. Book

The novel “ One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is narrated in first person. Chief Bromden a mentally ill Indian who ironically tells the story, since he is a mute for most of the events he is describing. However the significance that the Chief is a mute not only guides the novel but gives one insight in to all characters, events and personal histories, otherwise unavailable. For example the Chief is allowed unlimited access into Staff meetings, which helps the reader to gain greater understanding of the Big Nurse. Kesey also uses many devices that show that the chief is clearly an unreliable narrator such as hallucinations and the fog machine. Flashbacks of events allow Kesey to use rea

McMurphy with his twelve followers engage on a fishing trip, deep-sea fishing was an important event in Christ teachings. The fishing trip also leaves the ‘followers’ with a sense of self-worth, which Nurse Ratched has denied them. “ I wash my hands of the whole deal” was also a significant event in the cruxification of Jesus and forebodes to McMurphy’s self-sacrifice. In the end of the novel the mechanical Nurse Ratched symbolic loses her only sign of humanity, her voice.

On the other hand the movie is told in third person and while the story is focused on McMurphy, the movie is completely devoid of any intricateness made available by first person narrative perspective. Because the chief is only an auxiliary character in the movie, the audience learns little about his complex past and personality. Such as his previous war experiences that have left him shell-shocked, the black boys that are driven solely by hate and the knowledge of the Big Nurse ie that she has chosen her staff and tuned them into her frequency.

The movie also employs the same use of symbols although McMurphy’s self-sacrifice isn’t quite made evident. As in the novel the Chief questions whether McMurphy ever really planned to wake up and make his escape thus self-sacrificing, while in the movie McMurphy tries to escape in the morning even after being caught. The patients also do not leave ‘ like the disciples’ in the novel.

The central issue in the novel apart from McMurphy’s sanity is the oppressive nature of America in the 1950’s and 1960’s and the counter-cultures that resulted from this repression. The fact that characters are presented as small and big in terms of power shows this. For Instance the Big Nurse is described as “…enormous, capable of swelling bigger and bigger to monstrous proportions.” The reason for this is that she has the establishment behind her a

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