Narration from the mentally ill, a comparison of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"

Insanity is certainly a subjective term, especially when confronted with apparently insane/mentally ill narrators. Such is the case with Chief Bromden, the narrator in Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Christopher, who tells the story in Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time." Both narrators seem intuitive, ‘normal,’ and utterly competent even as they describe themselves as otherwise. And both narrators face tremendous obstacles that ultimately uncover hitherto hidden capabilities.
To start with let’s look at a few instances of these narrators describing themselves.
Bromden is an inmate at a mental institution. He is differentiating between the different classes of inmate, Acutes being the not so bad, short term, self-admitted inmates, and the chronics being pretty much there for life. Bromden further diversifies the categories when he says, “Chronics are in for good, the staff concedes. Chronics are divided into Walkers like me, can still get around if you keep them fed, and Wheelers and Vegetables.” (13) So Bromden isn’t an invalid, and he obviously has mental capacities that the nurses and doctors have no idea about. But this next statement seems a conundrum in light of the coherency of the narration. “I’m the one been here on the ward the longest, since the Second World War. I been here on the ward longer’n anybody.” (14) So there is a legitimate reason he is there, supposedly. And he has been pretending to be deaf and dumb for ten years. This means he could speak up, explain himself and get out of there. The fact that he doesn’t hints at a genuine mental problem, something that he needs to figure out, which I will discuss in a moment. But first let’s look at Christopher.
“My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057.” (2) This gives a picture of the obsessive intellect of the narrator. He knows much about certain things due to an impulsive need to know them, to connect them, such as connecting the countries and capitals of the world or the numbers in the universe. But more intriguing is his matter-of-fact narration of his own autistic actions. For example, at one point he is being checked into a police station, and the deputy tells him to take off his watch. Christopher writes “I said that I needed to keep my watch on because I needed to know exactly what time it was. And when they tried to take it off me I screamed, so they let me keep it on.” (13) In real time this scream would have been loud, a tantrum, and all would have seen him as a child, uncontrollable and inconsolable. But the way he tells it, it was just really important that he know the exact time.
Now the story becomes somewhat of a conflict for the reader. The calm voice of the narrator is not the boy being described in the story. We want the boy in the story to be able to do what is necessary to solve the mystery presented to him, and the narrator is rational enough to do that, but it’s as if the physical body is incapable. Both Christopher and Bromden have this mind/body disconnect, which is both frustrating and incredibly insightful, so far as answering the question of what really goes on in the mind of the mentally ill.
But each character is also faced with a problem that requires that disconnect to be bridged.
The obstacle in Cuckoo’s Nest is put into words when another inmate, Harding, is explaining to the new guy why the head nurse has so much power over the inmates, causing them to stay in the institution instead of trying the real world again: “Oh, you’re not paying attention, my friend. She doesn’t accuse. She merely needs to insinuate, insinuate anything, don’t you see? Didn’t you notice today? She’ll call a man to the door of the Nurses’ Station and stand there and ask him about a Kleenex found under his bed. No more, just ask. And he’ll feel like he’s lying to her, whatever answer he gives. I If he says he was cleaning a pen with it, she’ll say, ‘I see, a pen,’ or if he says he has a cold in his nose, she’ll say, ‘I see, a cold,’ and she’ll nod her neat little gray coiffure and smile her neat little smile and turn and go back into the Nurses’ Station, leave him standing there wondering just what did he use that Kleenex for.” (54)
She makes them believe about their own selves and capabilities what she wants them too, or at least keeps them guessing as to how competent and sane they really are. And the inmates haven’t figured a way around this. As Mr. Harding puts it, they all are “frightened, desperate, ineffectual little rabbit(s)” (53). Along with the rest of the inmates, Bromden has this mystery to solve before he can leave the ward. He has to figure out how to see himself as something other than an institutionalized rabbit, and think for himself what he wants to be, where he wants to go, and what his thoughts and desires and actions mean, according to his own interpretation. And based on the intentional longevity of his silent treatment, we know that those first words will be both highly significant and life changing.
Christopher’s larger problem is masked in the mystery of his neighbor’s murdered dog. After finding the murdered dog, Christopher is confronted by the owner, Mrs. Sheares. When Mrs. Shears starts screaming, Christopher writes. “I put my hands over my ears and closed my eye and rolled forward till I was hunched up with my forehead pressed onto the grass. The grass was wet and cold. It was nice.” (4)
Soon the police arrive. A Policeman begins questioning Christopher. He writes, “He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly. They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works … I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world. It is like when you are upset and you hold the radio against your ear and you tune it halfway between two stations so that all you get is white noise and then you turn the volume right up so that this is all you can hear and then you know you are safe because you cannot hear anything else. The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like him touching me like this. And this is when I hit him.” (7)
Christopher feels a desperate need to solve the murder mystery, but the above passage describes an utter, physical incapability to do this. In the course of his investigation, he has to learn to project his desires into physical form, and must confront the mental issues that block control of his own body.
And in the end, Bromden and Christopher both push the limits of what they thought they were capable of, and come out feeling emboldened, accomplished, and ready to start life again, in light of what they have learned and done.
So what is the insight gained from a first person narrator who is the crazy one, as opposed to an omniscient narrator, or even limited third person? What you get is a question of what is crazy. When you hear the voice inside the head, you realize the rational, cool-headed intelligent voice is, perhaps, the real person behind the body, or the outward actions and eccentricities/craziness. At the same time you see the almost complete inability of them to make the outward self mirror the mind. It takes some sort of catalyst to give them the courage to start to consider projecting the mind out. For Bromden it takes a wild, unruly and ultimately saving new inmate to show him the path and give him the strength to break the bonds he has imposed on this body. For Christopher it is an epic journey to London, a trip that is born from fear and necessity, not want, and which is truly an impossible task to the body described in the first part of the book.
Because we’re in their heads, we understand what is at stake as they begin their transformations. We realize they are truly not who they seem on the outside, and we ask the question over and over again: What does it really mean to be mentally ill? At the same time the question arises: What does it really mean to call someone normal? And the answer comes out in both novels: Who knows.