The Use of Force

(William Carlos Williams)

Study

            Origin

William Carlos Williams is a pediatrician yet worked harder at being a writer, but excelled in both field. He tried to invent an entirely fresh form of poetry, centered on everyday circumstances of the lives of common people.

           

Form and Structure

The story uses a language of emotions and of reasons, since the characters were faced by different emotions that lead them to conflicts which serve as reasons of actions. The language used help reader to better understand the “how” and “why” as what narrator tried to convey to the reader. The weak part of this story is the failure of the writer to quote the dialogues of the characters that may mislead the reader into false interpretation.

           

Genre

Use of Force is a short story narrating a significant human conflict that is resolve in such a way as to imply a comment on human values (altruism - ethics), feelings (shame – pleasure) and attitudes (necessity – professionalism).

           

            Theory

Deconstruction theory was used in this short story for it presented human conflicts like that of the weakness of the parent’s part – the eagerness to cooperate, yet, nervous seeing their child in pain; the annoying feeling for their child’s stubbornness and at the same time the feeling of fear for her fatal case of diphtheria. The doctor also faced conflicting feelings between ethics and professionalism and the frustration he felt because of necessity to use of force for the benefit of the child.  

Analyze

The speaker of the story is the doctor, might as well the writer of the story. It is taken into account of one of his experiences in the practiced as a pediatrician, which served as his concept in creating the story.

Interpret

The speaker’s view that there are reasons often justifiable, what compels the use of force against others isn’t simply altruism alone.