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The use of force by william carlos williams interpretation
The use of force by william carlos williams interpretation
The use of force by william carlos williams interpretation
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The Use of Force is a short story by William Carlos Williams that is very powerful and leaves the readers with an ethical dilemma. The following social issues can be debated on it: Can physical for good purpose be justified?, What compels the use of force isn’t simply altruism, difference of two separating two different tasks, a dark side persists in every individual, parents concern for their children, use of force as sympathy care for a patient.
The greatest question the story presents is if using force for a good cause is justified. William Carlos was a doctor in real life and so the story presents a situation that can be looked by a different perspective by different individuals. The story shows a combat between the doctor and the patient; the patient is reluctant to open her throat for check up before the doctor. Their combat became verbal, in fact brutal by end. However, the doctor justifies his act by naming it his medical obligation. He says, “But I’ve seen two children lying dead the week of diphtheria because of neglect, I was not about to let that happen so it was diagnosed now or never.” He is right, but the brutality that was caused can never be justified by such.
The doctor emerges as sympathetic and keen to human behavior, which is the characteristic that we all know about a good doctor. However, he appears prejudiced and undeniably blunt. The writer’s selection to use interior monologue as reflects his understanding about conversation and gives an insight into the characters of some of his patients, and his assessment of his experiences. The writer uses pathos to depict the parents as cooperative yet distrustful and nervous, which the doctor finds obstructive. However, his respect for the parents changes since the...
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...or members of the society to understand the role of the doctor and avoid creating disruptive working environments for them.
Works Cited
Cooper, John. “William Carlos Williams” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 54: American Poets, 1880-1945, Third Series. Dictionary of Literary Biography.Web. 25 Oct 2013
May, Charles E. "The Use Of Force." Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.
Williams, William Carlos. "Use of Force" By William Williams: Poetry Foundation. Poetry
Foundation, 2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.
Yang, Vincent. "The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams." Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series (1989): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
Christensen, Paul. “William Carlos Williams” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 16: The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America.Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
The author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing
Stanton, Stephen. "Introduction." Tennessee Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall, 1977. 1-16.
This internal conflict is a result of the mistakes a physician makes, and the ability to move on from it is regarded as almost unreachable. For example, in the essay, “When Doctors Make Mistakes”, Gawande is standing over his patient Louise Williams, viewing her “lips blue, her throat swollen, bloody, and suddenly closed passage” (73). The imagery of the patient’s lifeless body gives a larger meaning to the doctor’s daily preoccupations. Gawande’s use of morbid language helps the reader identify that death is, unfortunately, a facet of a physician’s career. However, Gawande does not leave the reader to ponder of what emotions went through him after witnessing the loss of his patient. He writes, “Perhaps a backup suction device should always be at hand, and better light more easily available. Perhaps the institutions could have trained me better for such crises” (“When Doctors Make Mistakes” 73). The repetition of “perhaps” only epitomizes the inability to move on from making a mistake. However, this repetitive language also demonstrates the ends a doctor will meet to save a patient’s life (73). Therefore, it is not the doctor, but medicine itself that can be seen as the gateway from life to death or vice versa. Although the limitations of medicine can allow for the death of a patient to occur, a doctor will still experience emotional turmoil after losing someone he was trying to
Litz, A. Walton. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 2, Part 2. New York: Charles
Conflict is constant. It is everywhere. It exists within one’s own mind, different desires fighting for dominance. It exists outside in nature, different animals fighting for the limited resources available, and it exists in human society, in the courts. It can occur subtly, making small changes that do not register consciously, and it can occur directly and violently, the use of pure strength, whether physical, social, economic, or academic, to assert dominance and achieve one’s goals; this is the use of force. Yet, with the use of force, the user of force is destined to be one day felled by it. “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”
"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. .
William C. Bryant unable to support himself as a poet, opened a law partnership in 1816 into the the 1820s as a lawyer. In 1821, he was wedded to Frances Fairchild and fathered two daughters. Within the same year, the reading of his poem, “The Ages,” on the progress of liberty at Harvard College, stimulated him to publish his “Poems” later that year. In addition to being a lawyer, he was also the editor of the New York Review and Atheneum Magazine in New York City. In the peak of his success, Bryant traveled within the country and abroad, writing essays on his experience traveling and also published a number of volumes of poetry between 1832 and 1876. The publication of his collected of his poems in 1876 placed a crown on his career. In 1878, Bryant died after giving...
Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 04 Dec. 2013. The "Biography of Langston Hughes." Poemhunter.com.
“Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe. In this short story “Dead Men’s Path,” Chinua Achebe gives the protagonist an exciting chance to fulfill his dream. Michael Obi was officially headmaster of Ndume Central School, which was backward in every sense. He had to turn the school into a progressive one, however the school received a bad report when the supervisor came to inspect.
3. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 51: Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Trudier Harris, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Gale Group, 1987. pp. 133-145.
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.
Smith, David Lionel. “The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics.” American Literary History. 3.1 (Spring 1991): 94-109.
We are taught in medical school how to care for individuals. These are important lessons we should not forget. However, I came now to understand that there are many examples where both the problem and solution lie outside the physician’s office; it was very frustrating that I was not able to conduct the medical care I learnt and I was aspiring to do. smoking; obesity; heart disease; consanguineous marriages; war; refugees; poverty and violence.
...to doctor affected her relationship with her dad. They got closer and she was surprise that when her dad heard the news from his doctor, they didn’t have to tie him down in fact of his aggressive behavior “I sat beside him. This was my father” (Olds 440). She was expecting her dad to act crazy since she had always known him as an aggressive person but she did not get that from him. However, his attitude changed instantly and starts and the way her daughter viewed him as an alcoholic changed her perception of her dad.
Margolies, Edward. “History as Blues: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1968. 127-148. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski and Roger Matuz. Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale, 1989. 115-119. Print.