“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey (post 3): Narrator’s stranger in the mirror and faked deafness may indicate multiple personality

Mirror

“There’d be my face in the mirror…That ain’t me, that ain’t my face” (1, p. 140).

In many past posts, I have discussed the fact that persons with multiple personality may see someone in the mirror with whom they don’t identify; that is, an alternate personality. Search “mirror” and “mirrors.”

Deaf and Silent

The narrator has admitted to the reader since early in the novel that he has pretended, throughout his years of psychiatric hospitalization, to be deaf and unable to speak (but deaf persons can learn sign language and usually have working vocal cords).

He does not give a good reason for his pretense. He does not say what history prior to hospitalization would have accounted for it. Had he supposedly been that way his whole life? Had he been that way after a traumatic event? Had his hearing been medically evaluated? Had he been offered training in sign language? So far, none of this has been addressed in the novel.

It seems to me almost impossible for a person to successfully pretend to be deaf and unable to speak, and not slip (until recently), when under daily observation by Big Nurse and the hospital staff for years. It might take a deaf and silent alternate personality to fool the staff and pass medical tests.

I am halfway through the novel, and will continue to read.

1. Ken Kesey. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest [1962]. New York, Penguin Books, 2007.