The Use of Force, by William Carlos Williams is the story of a Doctor’s struggle to diagnose his very young patient due to the child’s outright defiance. The doctor is angered by the girl’s attitude towards him because most likely he had never had to deal with such a difficult patient. Most people in that time period considered doctors to be on the top of the food chain (so to speak), they were not usually questioned, just obeyed. After a while of trying to convince Mathilda to open her mouth so that he may look at her throat and rule out diphtheria, the doctor became more and more enraged. He was especially testy with the parents who kept trying to convince their daughter that the doctor was “a nice man” “For heaven’s sake, I broke in. Don’t call me a nice man to her. I’m here to look at her throat on the chance that she might have diphtheria and possibly die of it. But that’s nothing to her. Look here, I said to the child, were going to look at your throat. You’re old enough to understand what I’m saying. Will you open it now by yourself or shall we have to open it for you?” (Williams, 807) Which perhaps is the most interesting part of the story because this is when the actual “force” in question comes into play, he pretty much confronts the child by saying “or shall we have to open it for you” showing his self-empowerment over her. Figuratively, he puts the child in her place.
I believe the doctors anger and frustration is not due to the fact that the girl was being difficult, instead i believe his anger derived in the fact that he knew this girl could have a deadly disease but could not diagnose. This is where force comes into play for both the girl and the doctor. The girl uses force throughout the story to keep the doctor and her parents from noticing her throat and the doctor uses physical and verbal force (as you stated) with her to get her to open her mouth, to finally diagnose the deadly disease.
ReplyDeleteI agree, his anger did seem to have manifested from his worry of the girls health. And there was such a tug of war for control in this story between the girl and the doctor. Her desire to conceal the disease from anyone probably stems from her belief that if no one knows then no further harm will come to her
ReplyDeleteI think that the doctor, throughout this examination, turned too much to his private personality and forgot that he was there as a doctor. His desires overcame the actual goals that he had as a doctor. I think this is evident when toward the end he is trying to reason why he is using the force on the girl.
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