Reflection of the short story "Use of
force" by William Carlos Williams
Violence is a strong word. A word who's context
matters and should carefully be used. In this short story, a doctor narrates
his thoughts about a personal appointment that involved a sick girl, her
parents, a wooden stick, and a gradual loss of patience.
At the beginning of the story the doctor is polite
towards the girl, trying to establish a comfortable and trustworthy
environment. Since the girl did not cooperate, the doctor found himself using
force against her in order to obtain a glimpse of her throat. The narration
describes his actions in a violent manner, for example: "Then I grasped
the child's head with my left hand" or "I forced the heavy silver
spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged". Although
this shocked me at frst, I agree that this force was unavoidable and not
necessarily violent. I don't think he was hurting her, for what he was trying
to perform was a common procedure any patient would get. I believe the girl was
just scared and therefore trying to acquire attention.
Also noticeable was the feelings the doctor was
narrating. In the story he said things like: "It was a pleasure to attack
her" or "I could have torn the child apart in my own fury...".
These descriptions would make a reader think he is a violent person, but I
think he is just human. As human beings, first thoughts can be rough or raw.
Here we have a doctor who is trying to help this little girl and due to her
resistance he looses his patience and thinks he is angry enough to kill the
"brat", as he called her. Nonetheless I think these are normal
emotions a person can feel when he or she does not feel appreciated or simply
ignored. The fact that he thought he was enjoying using force against the girl
doesn't make him more violent than a person who wants to "kill"
another human being who just ruined a project that he or she had been working
on for the past weeks. If everyone knew what other's first personal thought
were, I think some people would be incorrectly classified.
That is a bold, yet understandable point of view. It was disturbing to me when the doctor admits his joy over attacking the child, and so I did not agree with his methods.
ReplyDeleteThat is a bold, yet understandable point of view. It was disturbing to me when the doctor admits his joy over attacking the child, and so I did not agree with his methods.
ReplyDeleteI get why you say this about the doctor. We are all violent creatures and we all have violent thoughts, we're no different than him because if people could read our thoughts they would see we're all like him.
ReplyDeleteThis analysis made me realize that the doctor was not necessarily the villain of the story, but as you said "he is just human" he was there trying to do his job and the girl became the opposite force that makes it almost impossible.
ReplyDelete