The Use of Force Critical Analysis

Amanda Tu

Professor Charara

ENGL 2305

7 May 2010

Critical Analysis

In “The Use of Force”, author William Carlos William’s describes a story of a doctor who saves a young girls life using as the title clearly suggests, force. Doctors, even to young children are supposed to be the people who would never hurt us. We trust that they will make everything better even if we are sick. But in this short story, we see that when it is a time of crisis, some people without a second thought resort to a bit more of a brutal method.

Using force doesn’t even have to apply to medical type examinations. It can even be used for good or bad purposes. There are a number of people in this world who use force to gain something or to get something accomplished whether it is by word of mouth or by physical means. The doctor in the short story uses force in order to pry the young Mathilda’s mouth open to see in fact if she does have diphtheria. The use of force did work in this situation as he ends up discovering her infected throat. But was this method worth the price of blood, screams, and tears from Mathilda as said in the passage here, “Tried to get off her father’s lap and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes” (Williams 1593).

When I hear the word force I feel the need to group it with rape only because that is what rape is. Rape, simply stated, is forced sex. Rape may be more of an extreme and serious situation compared to what happens between the doctor and Mathilda in the short story, but it is nonetheless related to the story. Women are most susceptible to being victims of rape. And it does not even stop at rape, because any type of sexual harassment is considered forced. A man trying to rape a woman will usually be stronger and in most situations will be using hands to hold down the woman to prevent her from moving. This situation resembles the situation with the doctor and Mathilda to a great extent as seen here, “Then I grasped the child’s head with my left...