William Carlos Williams 'The Use Of Force'

A physician visits a household to inspect a young girl, Mathilda. The girl’s looks and behavior towards the doctor leaves an impression on him. The parents are distrustful of the doctor. The father informs the doctor that his child has had a fever for three days with no complaints of a sore throat. The doctor has an inkling that it is diphtheria because of other cases at the girl’s school so he asks to look at the girl’s throat. The girl does not want to be examined even after coaxing from her parents and the doctor. The situation becomes unprofessional as the doctor uses the child’s father and his strength to finally pry the girl’s mouth open. The central idea is the desire to help others might be met with resistance. Being a doctor might

William Carlos Williams wrote the dialogue in the text causing it to be confusing. “When I arrived I was met by the mother, a big startled looking woman, very clean and apologetic who merely said, Is this the doctor?” The author continues this dialogue type throughout the short story. The dialogue could be this way to symbolize how confusing it can be for the patient when they can not comprehend what is happening, making them more difficult to treat. Williams also uses situation irony when the doctor tries to pry Mathilda’s mouth open with a wooden spatula. “Then I grasped the child’s head with my left hand and tried to get the wooden tongue depressor between her teeth.” This event ties back to the central idea by the semi-violent actions of the doctor to possibly save someone that he had grown to care about. The child’s reaction towards the doctor is also used as a symbol of resistance towards the unknown. The child realizes that she is sick. She does not tell her parents about her sore throat. “She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at least and lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.” She desperately fights with the doctor because she is frightened at the fact that she could be deathly ill. This fear made her lash out when the doctor finally was able to examine her throat. She came flying “at me while tears of defeat blinded her