The narrator, Chief Bromden, has an interesting perspective of the story that he is telling. He is a patient who is considered a "chronic" to the workers and other patients. As described by Bromden "Chronics are in for good, the staff concedes. What the chronics are-or for most of us- are machines with flaws inside that can't be repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in over so many years..." (Kesey 24). So, he is a permanent patient in this mental institution. He also happens to be the patient who has been in the mental institution the longest, so he has the most experience with how the head nurse runs it and the routine they follow. Him being in the mental institution the longest allows him to convey to us how everything works and how the patients act.
The most interesting aspect of our narrator is that he is deaf and dumb, or at least that is what everyone thinks. McMurphy catches onto the Chief's little trick almost instantly. The narrator pretending to be this way gives us a unique perspective on the mental institutions and how it works. The people don't pay that much attention to him, but he is clearly paying attention to them. His perception of how he and the other patients are treated gives us a more personal understanding of how the patients are treated. However, it leaves the reader wondering why the Chief is pretending to be deaf and dumb
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