ПК 1 Англ яз 3,4 семестры / Analysis Use of force
.docx1. Non-fiction story
2. The story The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams shows a conflict between the doctor and a determined child patient who has been suffering from fever for three days.
3. The theme of the story is family, empathy, emotion, justifiable violence.
This story surrounds a doctor’s visit to a family’s home to attend to their ill child. The parents fear the child may have diphtheria. The child refuses to be diagnosed, however, which raises concerns for the parents as well as the doctor visiting.
The mood of this story can rather be described as restless, on the one hand they want to help the child, on the other hand they do it with the use of force.
5. The narrator of this story is a doctor who is called to check a new patient Mathilda by her mother Mrs. Olson.
The main characters are the doctor, the child and parents.
The Doctor is the main character in the story and it is told by him and from his perspective. The Doctor is a respected professional whose reputation is good and who is conscientious enough to make house calls. He feels that he can make good diagnoses on what he first sees when he sees a patient in their own environment. He seems to be a personable professional who is able to put parents at their ease, even when they are worried about the health of their child.
The Child is the patient whom the Doctor has been summoned to see. She is feeling very unwell and her parents are at their wits' end, calling the doctor to see if he can diagnose what is wrong with her. She is fractious and difficult, possibly because she is feeling so sick. She becomes more and more uncontrollable and this does not seem to be her characteristic behavior because her parents seem shocked and embarrassed, rather than accustomed to her increasingly aggressive reaction to the Doctor. It is also possible that she is feeling strange about the doctor because she can sense something changing in his demeanor as he deals with her. As she gets more defensive she also becomes more "savage". It is suspected but never confirmed that she is suffering from diphtheria.
The parents of the child have called the doctor to their home because they are worried about their sick child. They are not well-off - the doctor remarks that the home is poor - but they are loving and responsible. They are not sure how they feel about the doctor, or about doctors in general. They know that they need his expertise and knowledge if they are to find out what is wrong with their daughter. They also seem to resent the fact that they cannot help their own daughter and are powerless to do anything without the doctor's help. They are very embarrassed by their daughter's behavior and do not seem either familiar with it or accustomed to it. They don't know how to calm her or restrain her from fighting the doctor off. It is a strange dynamic, but one that they do not seem to know how to deal with, and it is clear they feel helpless in the face of an unfamiliar situation.
Themes of the story:
The Spread of Diseases
An underlying theme of the novel is the spread of diseases. The child is suspected to have diphtheria, a highly communicable disease that could be passed between children and that was actually life-threatening.
Theme: Empathy
The doctor understands Mathilda’s perspective on his visit. He knows she won’t respond logically to the situation. He inwardly reacts with disgust when her mother says “He won’t hurt you”, knowing that all the child will focus on is the word “hurt”. In this state of annoyance, he has an outburst when the mother calls him a “nice man”. From Mathilda’s view there’s nothing nice about him; he’s a stranger trying to force her mouth open. As a child, she also doesn’t understand the seriousness of having diphtheria and the necessity of the exam. Knowing her mindset, the doctor doesn’t expect cooperation.
Theme: Justifiable Violence
There’s a reasonable chance that Mathilda has diphtheria, a fatal illness if left untreated. The stakes being this high, the parents agree that the examination should continue.
While the violence is justified, it’s only in a very specific set of circumstances: it’s for the child’s own good. If the risk to the child was minimal, the force would be easy to argue against. Alternatively, if the doctor had walked in and immediately used the maximum force, the reader would form a very different opinion of him, questioning his mental balance and fitness for his job.
Irony in this story:
The doctor’s first impressions of Mathilda suggest she will be pleasant to deal with—she’s very nice looking and seems quiet. She ends up being a terror.
The mother refers to the doctor as nice and kind, but Mathilda won’t see him like that.
The mother assures Mathilda that the doctor won’t hurt her, but he would, if necessary.
The mother says Mathilda should be ashamed of her behavior, but she’s the only one in the story who doesn’t feel ashamed at some point.
The doctor says he had “already fallen in love with the savage brat, the parents were contemptible to me”, but he ends up furiously battling Mathilda while enlisting the parent’s help.
Mathilda shrieks “You’re killing me!”, when the adults are working to save her life.