The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

Nurse Ratched (rached) Archetype of a disciplinarian
nurse. Nurse Ratched is a character in the
1962 Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest, later fi lmed with Louise Fletcher as the
hatchet- faced nurse who seeks to subdue the
rebellious spirit of mental patient Randle McMurphy,
played by Jack Nicholson. She had all the charm
and patience of Nurse Ratched, and when she administered
the injection he felt as if he had been jabbed to the
heart with a sharpened stick.
nymph A young woman or girl, especially one
with a lithe, youthful fi gure. <strong>The</strong> nymphs of Greek
and Roman mythology were minor female deities
of nature associated with specifi c locations, including
rivers, trees, and mountains. <strong>The</strong>y were said to
remain perpetually young (though not actually
immortal themselves) and to be very beautiful and
generally friendly toward mortals. Several mortal
heroes, including Achilles, had mothers who were
nymphs. <strong>The</strong>y could be subdivided into fi ve broad
types: the dryads and hamadryads lived in trees
and groves; the naiads, in freshwater; the nereids
inhabited the waters of the Mediterranean; the
oceanids lived in the outer oceans; and the
oreads, in grottoes and mountains. “When not
engaged in reading Virgil, Homer, or Mistral, in
parks, restaurants, streets, and suchlike public
places, he indited sonnets (in French) to the eyes,
ears, chin, hair, and other visible perfections of a
nymph called <strong>The</strong>rese” ( Joseph Conrad, <strong>The</strong> Mirror
of the Sea, 1906).
nymph
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