Wednesday, October 15, 2008
"The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams is a short story written from the point of view of a physician that encounters a child, who is unwilling to have her throat examined. What starts out as a routine examination quickly turns extremely violent. The girl strikes the first blow by knocking the doctor's glasses off and closes her mouth firmly. As the struggle ensues the doctor becomes more and more fired up. He seems to be truly enjoying the violence, though he never fully looses control of himself and is still able to address the parents in a professional manner. The terms in which the struggle is described are reminiscent of a rape, with the completion of the examination - an allegory for the orgasm. The story uses very sexual language to describe the struggle, the doctor even describes himself as "longing for muscular release" at one point. In the end his guilt of enjoying the process of inflicting pain on the child is subdued when he finds that the girl is truly sick and in danger. This story was written in 1933 when the field of psychology was quickly gaining popularity with Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach that is heavily rooted in sexual and violent themes at different stages of development . This story begs for a Freudian analysis of the characters and their interaction.
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2 comments:
One of the points that you make concerning violence led me to think about the difference between violence and force. Violence is defined as "unjust force" whereas the definition of force is "to constrain to do or to forbear, by the exertion of a power not resistible." So the little girl did 'violence' to the doctor, but the doctor used 'force' (not violence) on the girl. But, is power, as Orwell would say, merely the ability to inflict pain? Or does it also possess the ability to heal? In Williams' story, the doctor does both, and legitimately too.
Well, I do encourage you to look as "deeply" into this sexual imagery as the story will bear (deep into the diseased darkness of the throat, so to speak).
But with some cautions (see below--the sexual topic is taken up in the final comment)
Below are some comments from "Previous Blogs," which should give you some more specific points of focus; to address some of the story's thematic issues noted below, focus on key scenes, character and setting descriptions, the contrasting use of language (parents v. doctor), etc:
Think about what those characters represent? The story does explore questions of power, resistance, authority,ec. How many different levels of conflict can you find in the story? We have a child and adult, doctor and patient, etc. How does the story explore conflicts between various aspects of our culture? how are those various "forces" characterized?
The strangeness, or extraordinariness of the doctor's reactions may lead to some interesting discussion of the doctor-patient relationship, but beyond that, questions of power, authority, cultural roles v. human nature, etc. think about what the various characters represent.
Sexuality is an important "force" in the story; dicsusing it in this context will avoid the trap of judging the doctor as "perverted," which of course is not the issue. In this "nature" V. "culture" dichotomy--which the story suggests is no "dichotomy" at all--the story does give us a glimpse at what underlies our socio-cultural roles, one of which is the stereotype of "professionalism"; we often call this the "dark" side of "human nature"--dark, of course, because we often hide (from) it, exclude it from light.
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