Damn Women

Perhaps one of the more concise and accurate depictions of Nurse Ratchet in the novel comes in the words of Mr. Harding.

“She’s impregnable herself, and with the element of time working for her she eventually gets inside everyone. That’s why the hospital regards her as its top nurse and grants her so much authority; she’s a master at forcing the trembling libido out into the open—”

The use of the word ‘impregnable’ overall illustrates Nurse Ratchet’s ethos and is vital in the portrayal of women in the novel.

According to the online Oxford Dictionary ‘impregnable’ means strong enough to resist or withstand attack; not to be takenby force, unconquerable: an impregnable fort.

or

not to be overcome or overthrown: an impregnable argument.

The word is the direct antonym of ‘pregnable’ which -to state the obvious- means.

capable of being taken or won by force: a pregnable fortress.

open to attack; assailable: a pregnable argument.

Both words come from the old French word “prenable” equivalent to “pren” or “prendre”  which in turn means to seize or take over.

Nurse Ratchet’s impregnability is an effect of her passive-aggressive attitude which in turn “forc[es] the trembling libido out into the open”. She will always win because people lose their control faculties around her (while she, astutely, keeps them) and therefore end up being the irrational ones.

As Nurse Ratchet is the dominant feminine figure of the novel, the portrayal of women in the book almost falls entirely on her descriptions. In a medical (more likely vernacular medicine) context ‘impregnable’ means not being able to get pregnant. This connotation of the word adds an interesting characteristic to the depiction of women in the book, precisely because it removes them from their foremost quality as women, which is being able to give birth. Therefore, women in the novel are depicted as sterile, hollow hearted, cold, passive-aggressive, creatures, ironically bearing enormous breasts, upholding their rule by the means of careful psychological scrutiny and manipulation on its inferiors. A woman sans everything that makes up a woman, but not androgynous because gender is important in order to have a generalization, a figure to hate. Same case applies with the black boys.

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest has been overly criticized for being sexist and racist, which is not far from the truth. But the novel’s  bigoted attitude is just a reflection of our own society which loves to have a specific target. It is not women or black people specifically the novel accuses, they could be perfectly replaced by Chinese and Martians. The point here is to criticize how entire categories are targeted, be them gender, nationality, race… The negative portrayal of women is not to be taken literally but rather as critique of the demonization and hasty generalizations society makes on people.