Because he is the narrator, the reader knows more about Chief than any of the novel's other characters. The book takes its title from a nursery rhyme Chief learned from his Native American grandmother. His heritage aligns Chief with the natural world, a world that his white mother conspired to destroy when she influenced Chief's father to sell his tribal lands. This sale enabled the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River, representing Chief's first experience of the victory of mechanization over the natural world. He remembers that his mother kept getting "bigger" while his father "shrunk" into alcoholism and despair. Insult is added to injury when Chief is forced to adopt his mother's white name, Bromden, rather than his
