"The Use of Force" by Williams

"The use of force" is a novel that talks about a doctor that makes a house visit to see a child who is possibly suffering from Diphtheria. The child is unwilling to show her throat for examination, which results in a physical altercation between the doctor and her. What I really enjoyed from the short story is the description of emotions specifically emotions of frustration and fury. It was a first person narration from the point of view of the doctor. His description of the child shifts from a quiet and beautiful child sitting on her fathers lap, to a "brat," which by itself indicates the frustration of the doctor. He keeps fighting her, until her tongue bleeds using a spoon. What weird is that the doctor enjoys forcing the child to open her mouth, because he stoops to her level and tries to assert his power. He stops thinking rationally or being patient. He is frustrated and he seems more driven with emotion. And I found the description of emotions very interesting because it is something we call all relate to and it was written really well.

War by Luigi Pirandello

This is a heart-wrenching story that gives perspective into the characters and lives of people affected by war. The author begins by describing the woman and man entering the vehicle, taking care to bring their physical and emotionally appearance to light. The dialogue amongst the passengers further shows the inner conflict within each person, and the conflict amongst themselves. The purpose to child-bearing is questioned, and allegiance to their country is no longer clear. The man who lost his son tries to be strong but this makes him appear to be in a phase of denial. The author does an excellent job in showing the distraught condition of the passengers through their physical appearance and dialogue.

"War" by Luigi Pirandello

What I love about this story is how well Pirandello is able to characterize the husband and wife in just a few short pages. We get a good idea of who they are simply from the few sentences describing their physical appearances at the beginning of the story. Even though the wife never actually speaks the verbs Pirandello chooses to use when describing her actions work perfectly to show us her personality. We see how torn up she is about her son leaving and at the same time we see that she understands the pain that the other people on the train are going through and wishes that her husband would simply stop talking. Her husband on the other hand is greatly characterized through his words. He truly believes that his son going off to war is worse than anyone else's child going off to war. He keeps trying to get the others to understand this, even long after they have all explained to him what is so terrible about their situations.

Characters in "The Use of Force," by William Carlos Williams

“The Use of Force,”   by William Carlos Williams

  Williams’ use of description is well done in this short story.   For such a short story I felt as if I came to know each of the characters.  The doctor is the power figure who exerts his power by giving orders.   He gives orders to the father, “Put her in front of you on your lap, I ordered, and hold both her wrists.”  He gives orders to the mother, “Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some sort, I told the mother.”  He eventually has to exert his power with the child, “In a final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child’s neck and jaws.  I forced the heavy silver spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged.” 

The parents of Mathilda who seem to be fearful of being judged by the doctor and who at the same time are distrustful of him, “I could see that they were all very nervous, eyeing me up and down distrustfully.” It seems that they are feeling that the doctor may think that they have been neglectful concerning the child’s health so the father asserts, “My wife has given her things, you know, like people do, but it don’t do no good.”  The nervousness of the parents can be felt in the way that Williams describes their interactions with the doctor.

There is Mathilda, the sick and frightened child who insists on hiding the fact that she has a sore throat from her parents and from the doctor.  She puts up a fight to protect her secret.  But in the end her secret is revealed, “And there it was—both tonsils covered with membrane.  She had fought valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret.”  For a little girl Mathilda put a lot of thought into hiding and keeping a secret from the adults involved. 

I enjoyed reading the story and being in anticipation of the ending.  It was not obvious that the doctor would be able to get Mathilda cooperate or not.  The use of force was necessary to save the life of the child.  A great story with a happy ending.

On War by Luigi Pirandello

This story is a classic example of why a strong title can make a story flow perfectly. The internal conflict of the mother who lost her only son to the Country juxtaposed with the "fat man with bad teeth's " realization that his son is in fact dead was established perfectly through the title. Both characters were experiencing an internal war from the lost of their sons. It was interesting to see the characterization of both the man with the bad teeth and the woman who sat quietly in the corner listening because their common connection was their pain. Each of the other characters were in a sense disillusioned by pride of winning an argument of who had the most love for their son, and not displaying hurt and pain. The man and women, however were speaking from a place of pain, and were the only ones who would allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to publicly display that pain. The ending really struck me as powerful because of the agency that Priandello allowed the woman to have. He wrote this piece in 1934, a time period where women were not really allowed to speak out, let alone bring a man to tears.

Diction and Irony in "The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams

The first thing I noticed about this piece was the diction.  Williams does not use quotation marks to indicate dialogue, which gives his piece the feel of one person telling a story to another person or group of people.  He also really doesn't need quotation marks as it's very clear who is talking when.  He makes that clear by regularly reminding us of who is speaking.

The other thing that struck me about this piece was the use of dramatic irony.  The three-year-old doesn't tell anyone that her throat is sore.  That would be quite unusual for a three-year-old, especially one who is very sick.  Three-year-olds aren't the best at keeping secrets or knowing what they should or shouldn't say.  Somehow, this one knows that she doesn't want to have diphtheria.  She has probably seen someone in her family die of diphtheria and knows that the way it begins is that they let a doctor look at their throat and then some time later, they die.  This is a good example of dramatic irony because life and death is at stake and the little girl has it totally wrong.  The doctor isn't the one who will cause her demise but the only one who can potentially save her, yet she is fighting him with everything she's got.

The Use of Force

The Use of Force starts with a character we immediately are told is a doctor, and the fact that this doctor narrates (and perhaps also that a doctor would be expected to be proper and responsible) meant when the parents eyed him 'up and down distrustfully' I wrote off their concern and sided immediately with the doctor, though by the end of the story I wonder if they'd picked up on something odd about his character! The doctor has strange relationship to the patient - 'I had fallen in love with the savage brat', 'it was a pleasure to attack her' and this direct access to his thoughts mean we see he battles himself as much as her & her half-compliant parents in trying to obtain the swab - convincing himself and the parents it is all in the name of the child's health, and trying to appear rational and restrained while we see he is whipped up in enjoyment of the violence. 

The child's mutism until halfway through the story invites the question of her motivation in not allowing a simple procedure - is she just scared of the instrument or the doctor? After all the frantic shrieking and splintering and bleeding and assault in second half, with the fear that the rising tension might result in serious harm to the girl, the reveal is an odd kind of calm - the doctor finally sees what he was looking for, but it was not what he wanted to see, and could well be fatal for her. I finally discover the girl's motivation is more complex than I'd expected, and 'tears of defeat blinded her eyes' works so well as the last sentence: from the experience of crying as a release of tension, to the association of 'defeat' with finality, to her eyes blinding with tears as a filmic vision of the scene dissolving to black.