Cuckoo's Nest Movie Comparison

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST NOVEL AND MOVIE COMPARISON

At first, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a novel written by Ken Kesey in 1962. Its popularity led to the making of a movie based on the novel. The words “based on” are carefully chosen, because those who saw the movie and read the book can all agree on the fact that the movie isn’t a perfect representation of the book, even though there are a lot of similar elements. To be able to see the big picture of the differences and the similarities of the novel versus the film, it is important to discuss these three elements: the protagonist, the plot and the characters of both the movie and the book. First off, one of the most remarkable differences between the book and the novel is the protagonist. In the novel, Chief is the narrator of the story. His thoughts, his childhood memories and his hallucinations with the fog machine are all very present and

In addition to that, the main characters themselves show differences in their way of acting. For example, Chief Bromden appears in the book to be someone quite clever despite his mental illness. He fakes being deaf to spy on others and his thoughts are logical most of the time. In the movie, he just looks like a fool who doesn’t know what is going on half of the time. The only words he can say are “juicy fruit”, whilst in the book he speaks normally towards the end of the story. To sum up, the movie isn’t identical to the book, although they are quite similar. It can be shown through the protagonist, the plot and the characters. As a matter of fact, Ken Kesey, the author of the novel, refused to watch the movie after its release. Many think it’s probably because of the all the differences between the movie and the book. He’s right to say that the movie doesn’t portray the book really