On The Use of Force

I think perhaps the most interesting, yet disturbing, aspects of “The Use of

Force” by Williams is the doctors slowly growing rage at the child who refuses to

allow him the ability to discover the cause of her sickness. But within it, grows

almost a paradox: the doctor is both obviously not a proponent to the Use of

Force, and yet, as he is driven more and more to the point where it is required,

he seems to almost enjoy it.

The author cultivates within me the sense that, as

we give into our baser instincts, even with the noblest of intentions (be it saving a

child from a potentially life threatening disease), we become baser creatures. “It

was a pleasure to attack her,” (Williams, 59) the doctor said, and yet given his

profession we can only assume that he is not a violent man, given to causing

pain – but rather – as a doctor, he is supposed to alleviate it.

And in such a

situation where it becomes unavoidable to cause pain in order to cure it, there

exists this intrinsic paradox. Where are the lines drawn? When is the use of

force condoned? While the doctor might very well have saved the child’s life,

there is a deeper damage caused by his method of doing so. “Now,” he writes,

“truly she was furious. She … tried to get off her father’s lap and fly at me while

tears of defeat blinded her eyes,” (Williams, 60).

And yet, even as the doctor is driven to such extreme measures, he

speaks in a bittersweet way. Not loving, nor caring, but instead direct and

concise. But his words belie his true emotions – torn between appealing to the

child, and appealing to the parents. His concealed thoughts, shown to the

reader through the writing, reveal a very different picture from what the parents

saw. “After all, I had already fallen in love with the savage brat, the parents were

contemptible to me,” (Williams, 58).

The paradox of the situation is reflected in

this statement. He had “fallen in love” – denoting this compassionate and caring

individual; followed by “with this savage brat”, an almost snide and cutting

remark. Together these two portions completely circumscribe the event. While

both doing what was best for her, having her own best interests in him, he was

also giving into his own primal and savage nature against this girl.

Still more troubling is the event in which the doctor describes his actions

as he forcibly opens the child’s mouth.

“Perhaps I should have desisted and come back in an hour or more. No doubt

it would have been better. But I have seen at least two children lying dead in

bed of neglect in such cases, and feeling that I must get a diagnosis now or never

I went at it again. But the worst of it was that I too had gone beyond reason. I

could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it… a blind fury,

a feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for muscular release… one goes on

to the end…” (Williams, 59).

This passage again represents the duality of the doctor, the situation, and

perhaps of humanity as a whole. He attempted to rationalize it, and yet he

could also see that in his own frustration he had given into something darker.

The weight of the deaths upon his own shoulder, and the frustration that this

single child would deny him his own sense of repentance by saving her. It

brought him deep into the pits of despair, and there, he found that “blind fury”.

Something encoded deeply and secretly inside of every human. That fury within

us, “one goes on to the end…”