Analysis of the Use of Force
During the year of 1938, there was a serious epidemic of diphtheria. A number of cases of diphtheria had happened in the school and most of the patients who had diphtheria were facing death. Therefore, doctors were in demand and they had to cure their patients in an efficient time in order to help more patients. However, in order to finish the examination quickly, the doctors sometimes would ignore their patients’ emotions easily. Therefore, it would create the conflict between the doctors and the patients. William Carlos Williams focused this problem in his story “the Use of Force”. Although the doctor in the story meant to help the sick girl Mathilda who had diphtheria, he is not justified
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in his actions and he does go too far because he treats the girl’s parents disrespectfully, assaults her, and he confesses his guilt. The doctor of the story is a good man and he has a doctor’s professionalism in the beginning. He is patient with the girl who is recalcitrant from the start. He does what the doctors usually do. For example, he asks the girl “come on, Mathilda, open your mouth and let’s take a look at your throat” (2). Even though the little girl does not cooperate with the doctor at all, he still remains in his best professional manner and keeps trying to make the girl open her mouth. So far the progression of the doctor has been through the classical modes of appeal. However, because the girl keeps resisting, his patience and his professionalism is breaking down little by little. Since he loses his patience, he treats the sick girl’s parents disrespectfully. When the little girl always resists to be examined, her parents keeps blaming her and telling her the doctor is a “nice man.” (P2) The doctor does not like being called a “nice man” and he even disrupts them rudely to stop calling him this name. When the doctor decides to open the little girl’s mouth forcibly, he “ordered” the father to put her in front of him on his lap. (3) As a doctor, he does not ask the worried parents for help patiently but to “order” them. We can see that he is so impatient and disrespectful. Moreover, in the doctor’s narration, he expresses how much he hates the parents. He think the parents are “abject, crushed, and exhausted” and he even wants to kill the father. (3) He does not try to understand the parents’ anxiety. He puts his feeling to come first and this makes him lose his professionalism. Except being rude to the little girl’s parents, in particular, the doctor does go too far because he assaults the girl. There are clear sexual undertones to the act of violence that the doctor directly against the child. When the doctor first meets her, he describes her as “an unusually attractive little thing.” (1) As it is, the doctor acknowledges early the physical attractiveness of the child and the fact that “[he] already fallen in love with the savage brat”. (3) The girl is so unappreciative, hostile to the doctor's help that whatever her parents and the doctor do, she can keep her jaw locked. This defiance in turn dries up the doctor’s patience and initial good humor. Moreover, the girl’s spirit motivates the doctor to have a competition with this girl. He wants to defeat the girl’s ignorance and rebarbative attitude even by violated ways. Therefore, when the doctor gets closer to the girl, she feels so uncomfortable that “she knocked [his] glasses flying and they fell.” (2) However, he still does not stop the examination. In contrast, he told her “you’re old enough to understand what I’m saying” fiercely, which makes the girl’s breath become faster and faster. (2) In addition, the girl is “shrieked, terrifyingly, hysterically.” To win this competition, the doctor ignores her crying rudely. He “grasped the child’s head with [his] left hand and tried to get the wooden tongue depressor between her teeth”. (3) When he tries the first time, he fails. This makes the girl’s mouth to bleed and she feels pain and hurt. The doctor should have stopped the examination here; however, the doctor cannot stop his terrible ambition to win her. In addition, the girl’s parents cannot stop the doctor’s assaults because they are afraid she maybe dies of diphtheria. The worst thing is that he enjoys assaulting her and seeing the depression from the girl. Finally, he “overpowered the child’s neck and jaws” and “[he] forced the heavy silver spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged.” (4) At this point, he does not look like a doctor anymore, but a possessive man trying to rape. His ambition to revenge makes him lose himself and leads him to the impulse situation. Because the doctor keeps assaulting the girl and using the force unreasonably, we can see that he “too had got beyond reason.” (4) Moreover, actually he does confess his mistakes and he admits he goes too far. Different with the furious man image the doctor is showed in the story, he is calm and controlled in telling the story. Instead of trying to hide his violent behavior, he tells the story’s details honestly and he admits his unprofessional assault. When he assaults the little girl, he admits that “I too had got beyond reason” and “It was a pleasure to attack her.” (4) If the doctor wants to cover his mistakes, he can say that he forces the little girl because only he does that, the girl has chance to avoid dying. Instead of that, he acknowledges that he uses force and overpowers to the girl. In other words, he confesses he does go too far. For example, when the girl’s tongue is cut and she is screaming, he knows that “[he] should have desisted and come back in an hour or more.” (4) The reason why the author employs confession as a literary device is because he wants to face his mistakes honestly, and then makes himself feel better. He wants to be forgiven by the girl and her parents. Also, only he admits his guilt, he can learn from the mistakes. From his story, we can see that he really feels guilty about his unprofessionalism and to the little girl. When the girl fight against the doctor’s assault, he tries to hold himself down but he cannot. In addition, when he realizes that as a doctor, he actually enjoyed assaulting his sick patient, “[his] face was burning with it.” (4) What’s more, before a final unreasoning assault, he does have “a feeling of adult shame.” (4) Therefore, from the doctor’s narration, we can strongly feel that he is shamed of his loss of self-discipline and feel guilty to the little girl. Hence, according to the doctor’s confession, we can say that he does go too far. As can be seen, William’s story contains several thematic elements that identify Modernist literature.
Firstly, he applies that the idea of esthetic order is abandoned or radically modified as he does not use quotation marks for the conversation in the story. He works with the unfamiliar form, which disturbs the audience. Writing without quotation marks is a sign of division from traditional culture to the new one. This writing style shows that the author wants to inform he is the leader to found a new writing style. Secondly, the author writes in the form of shock. As a doctor, he uses the force to assault the little sick girl regardless of her furious unwilling and physical hurt because of the revenge to her resistance. The doctors have the stereotype that they are always patient, helpful. However, in William’s story, the doctor’s image becomes contemptible and horrible that he has a battle with the girl, which makes the audiences shocked. Also, he writes in the form of surprise. In the beginning of the story, from his narration, it seems like this story is to blame the girl since she lacks of obedience. Surprisingly, when we finish reading the story, we can consider the story as the speaker’s confession. He expresses his guilty to the hurt girl and his own unprofessionalism. Instead of blaming the girl’s stubbornness, he writes the details honestly and admits his great sense of joy in defeating the restless patient, which makes the audiences feel surprised in the end. Therefore, we can see that the writer successfully shows the audiences the form of surprise and
shock. This story leads us to think about that if we were the doctor, what we would do; to finish the examination quickly even by using force or to wait for the patients to feel comfortable. This is still an open question. However, the more important thing we learned from this story is that remaining polite, patient and understanding isn’t solely for the doctor’s office, it’s a way of life.
Diligence is a virtue. This is a theme Atul Gawande presents to the reader throughout Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. In each story, Gawande provides insight on medical studies he has previously embarked upon. For example, in “The Mop-up” the author tells us about a time when he went to India to observe the efforts to eradicate polio. Gawande explains how he followed a supervisor around and how vaccinations were performed. Additionally, in another chapter he debates on whether physicians should take part in death sentences. Throughout his adventures Gawande provides numerous enriching personal accounts of controversial events and what it is like to be a doctor; each with diligence playing a key part.
...mother realize the identity of her daughter's rapist before the Marquise, establishing irony and advancing engagement between reader and text. It is also clear to the reader that by the conclusion of The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator has become maniacal.
Although the author portrays a bitter tone throughout the text, there are many occasions in which there are multiple tones being used at the same time. For instance, when the author was in the ambulance, he was perceived as having a critical tone. He was criticizing and finding fault in what the paramedics and doctors were doing as he began to lose his feeling of personalization. Diction begins to tie into here as it also reflects onto the tone through complex word choice. Once in the hospital, he began to compare the hospital with prison by using a depressed yet confused tone. He compares them by telling the audience about the infamous Tower of London. Sacks became delirious and was unsure of what was going on. Adding such tone entices the audience though the effect of depersonalization on Sacks. However, after being told about the operation, Sacks’ tone went from constrained to incredulous and unsure. He claims of having “hallucinatory vividness” which ties back to the incredulous tone. This tone adds the suspicion to the hospital because such distinctness is not a normal occurrence. As explained, tone plays a crucial role in exemplifying the negative connotation and subject of the passage by using pathos and feelings of the author to reflect in the
Utilizing adverbs such as “tremulous” to amplify “shake” and “violently” to amplify “move” create a perceivable image of interaction; here, the violent move is not truly an actual motion, rather, it is a physical manifestation of the intangible mental shock that the narrator experiences. However, it is important to note that, to the narrator, the most physically shocking and moving thing in this interaction was not the “finger” of this stranger, but the tone, the intangible abstraction of the “solemn admonition” in the “low whisper”. This abstraction had the electrical current of a “galvanic battery” to “shock” the non-physical soul of the protagonist. The complexity of this excerpt is seen through the multiple dependent clauses, lists of adjectives, and conjunctions; this complex and “serious” style is what Allen Tate, in his essay found in “Modern Criticism”, believes “makes the reading of more than one story an almost insuperable task” (Foster 389). However, this failed criticism does not truly comment on the Poe’s style, but rather, comments on the reader’s interpretation. This style doesn’t create an insuperable task of reading, but rather creates a gradually intensifying sense of Poe’s methodical complexity that incentivizes the reader to keep reading, while providing specific ambiguities through indirect concretizations like the aforementioned “shock” to
In contrast, syntax provides a new perspective to the narrator s behavior as sentence structure draws attention to her erratic behavior. By her last entry, the narrator s sentences have become short and simple. Paragraphs 227 through 238 contain few adjectives resulting in limited descriptions yet her short sentences emphasize her actions providing plenty of imagery. The syntax quickly pulls the reader through the end as the narrator reaches an end to her madness.
In this piece Williams uses very effective persuasion. She starts off by telling you about how all the females in her family suffers from breast cancer. This brings a lot of emotion out of the audience that leads to added sympathy fro the author. I know I felt sorry for her. I was on her side from the start of the piece. Her tone was very sentimental. Then she goes on to state facts. Nothing wins an argument better than sound, strong fa...
Besides the ending of story, we can also figure out the contradiction what the narrator said from the front depiction. Above all, in the first paragragh, the narrator told us he was “very, very dreadfully nervous”, and it was the “disease” that had sharpened his senses. Moreover, this “disease” had a serious impact on his sense of hearing.
"The Use of Force--William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)." Classic Short Stories. B&L Associates, Bangor, Maine, U.S.A., 1995-2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .
During his employment as a medical official the reality of reservation life could not be ignored. Although he must have wanted to help his people there were many difficulties of the time. They were far away from Western civilization and supply to medical equipment. The epidemics of small pox, measles, and influenza were attacking the people. He could not al...
“The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence,” Robert Peel. The use of force for police officers is something I find to be justified and right, because it can possible help save the officers life and any witnesses lives.
The Use of Force, written by William Carlos Williams is a story about a conflicted unnamed doctor using physical force to determine a diagnosis. The question that is brought up is whether or not the doctor’s use of force was one of ethical duty or infuriating violence. The doctor makes it his duty to save the patient, Mathilda as she does not cooperate he makes a choice to go on and use force to open her mouth to determine her diagnosis. The choice of using force isn’t necessarily the questionable part, the motive on using physical force is debatable. The ultimate question that the short story, the Use of Force asks is whether or not the doctor’s motives become one of dutiful compassion or desirable violence.
...me; it give me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together. Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me" (p. 72). She explains that it is through writing down her shocks that she both makes them real and takes away their pain. Viewing her memoir in this context, it is no surprise that she writes more to herself than to any audience. The simple act of writing about these shocks is possibly her greatest pleasure.
• The Use of Force is about a girl who may have Diphtheria, but refuses to open her mouth to let the doctor look at her throat. After much struggle, emotional and physical, the doctor forces her to open her mouth and it turns out she does indeed have the disease.
What is considered force in law enforcement? Force is the amount of physical interaction between individuals or objects. Law enforcement officers use force when it is necessary, in order to protect individuals from each other. Police officers have the discretion to use force in situations that they see as necessary. What is the limit that law enforcement officers are able to use physical force? The amount used is dependent on the law enforcement officer in the situation. The use of force can be categorized into soft hands, presence, hard hands, baton, and deadly force. We have seen from current events that law enforcement has used the wrong judgment in the force they apply to a situation. Society has have made the image of law enforcement look
Coercive Use Of Force Wedny Francois CJE 1000 – Introduction To Law Enforcement Dr. Anthony Berrios The use of coercive authority by members of law enforcement is a widely debated issue both here in the United States and in countries around the world. Growing up in Haiti, I witnessed many instances of coercive, or excessive, tactics by authority figures. When a child would commit a crime, many times all of the kids in the neighborhood were punished, even if they had no part in or knowledge of the wrongdoing. Police officers and other government agents sometime exceed the appropriate level of authority they are authorized to use.