It's Elementary

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest relies on its Point Of View to give the story its full effect. The book is told through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a patient on the psychiatric ward. Ken Kesey's purpose for doing this is to give the reader an insight into the mind of a psych patient. The Chief tells McMurphy that most of the men on the ward are there voluntarily. McMurphy, like the reader, questions why any man would commit himself into this institution. McMurphy, like the reader, does not fully understand what the other patients' minds are like. The Chief very often makes reference to a "fog" on the ward. "It’s like… that big red hand of McMurphy’s is reaching into the fog and dropping down and dragging the men up by their hands… raising not just for watching TV, but against the Big Nurse…" The fog symbolizes the false lives Ratched has forced the men into living. They are not truly happy, it is only an illusion and the men are too scared to blow away the fog and see the truth behind Ratched and her ward. The only way the reader can fully understand this is by going into the fog themselves through the eyes of Chief Bromden.