One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
Table of Contents
Key Facts
Title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Author: Ken Kesey
Type of Book: Novel
Genre: Counterculture novel
Original Language: English
Written in: California during the late 1950s, while Kesey was a creative writing student at Stanford University
First published: 1962
Narrator: Chief Bromden, also sometimes called Chief Broom
Point of view: First person limited, through the eyes of Chief, after his escape from the hospital.
Tense: The first section of the novel is in present tense; after that, it alternates between past and present tenses
Set in: The ward of a mental hospital in 1950s Oregon.
Protagonist: Randle Patrick McMurphy
Climax: After a brief period of good behavior, McMurphy signals his renewed commitment to rebellion by smashing in the glass window of the Nurse’s Station at the end of Part 2. This act represents McMurphy’s now deliberate choice to assume a leadership role and marks the beginning of his martyrdom.
Falling action: Chief begins speaking to McMurphy; McMurphy promises to restore Chief to his former strength; McMurphy leads the men in a fishing expedition that allows them to reconnect with their own power and freedom; McMurphy is given electroshock treatment after he and Chief fight with the orderlies; Billy loses his virginity during the ward party and then commits suicide; McMurphy attacks Nurse Ratched and is then lobotomized; Chief euthanizes McMurphy and escapes from the hospital.
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