After we all read the story, we'll share our observations and use them to create an exercise that will be the basis for short stories of our own.
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The Use of Force
William
Carlos Williams
They were new patients to me, all I had
was the name, Olson. Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter is very
sick.
When I arrived I was met by the mother,
a big startled looking woman, very clean and apologetic who merely said, Is
this the doctor? and let me in. In the back, she added. You must excuse us,
doctor, we have her in the kitchen where it is warm. It is very damp here
sometimes.
The child was fully dressed and sitting
on her father’s lap near the kitchen table. He tried to get up, but I motioned
for him not to bother, took off my overcoat and started to look things over. I
could see that they were all very nervous, eyeing me up and down distrustfully.
As often, in such cases, they weren’t telling me more than they had to, it was
up to me to tell them; that’s why they were spending three dollars on me.
The child was fairly eating me up with
her cold, steady eyes, and no expression to her face whatever. She did not move
and seemed, inwardly, quiet; an unusually attractive little thing, and as
strong as a heifer in appearance. But her face was flushed, she was breathing
rapidly, and I realized that she had a high fever. She had magnificent blonde
hair, in profusion. One of those picture children often reproduced in
advertising leaflets and the photogravure sections of the Sunday papers.
She’s had a fever for three days, began
the father and we don’t know what it comes from. My wife has given her things,
you know, like people do, but it don’t do no good. And there’s been a lot of
sickness around. So we tho’t you’d better look her over and tell us what is the
matter.
As doctors often do I took a trial shot
at it as a point of departure. Has she had a sore throat?
Both parents answered me together, No .
. . No, she says her throat don’t hurt her.
Does your throat hurt you? added the
mother to the child. But the little girl’s expression didn’t change nor did she
move her eyes from my face.
Have you looked?
I tried to, said the mother, but I
couldn’t see.
As it happens we had been having a
number of cases of diphtheria in the school to which this child went during
that month and we were all, quite apparently, thinking of that, though no one
had as yet spoken of the thing.
Well, I said, suppose we take a look at the
throat first. I smiled in my best professional manner and asking for the
child’s first name I said, come on, Mathilda, open your mouth and let’s take a
look at your throat.
Nothing doing.
Aw, come on, I coaxed, just open your
mouth wide and let me take a look. Look, I said opening both hands wide, I
haven’t anything in my hands. Just open up and let me see.
Such a nice man, put in the mother. Look
how kind he is to you. Come on, do what he tells you to. He won’t hurt you.
At that I ground my teeth in disgust. If
only they wouldn’t use the word “hurt” I might be able to get somewhere. But I
did not allow myself to be hurried or disturbed but speaking quietly and slowly
I approached the child again.
As I moved my chair a little nearer
suddenly with one catlike movement both her hands clawed instinctively for my
eyes and she almost reached them too. In fact she knocked my glasses flying and
they fell, though unbroken, several feet away from me on the kitchen floor.
Both the mother and father almost turned
themselves inside out in embarrassment and apology. You bad girl, said the
mother, taking her and shaking her by one arm. Look what you’ve done. The nice
man . . .
For heaven’s sake, I broke in. Don’t
call me a nice man to her. I’m here to look at her throat on the chance that
she might have diphtheria and possibly die of it. But that’s nothing to her.
Look here, I said to the child, we’re going to look at your throat. You’re old
enough to understand what I’m saying. Will you open it now by yourself or shall
we have to open it for you.
Not a move. Even her expression hadn’t
changed. Her breaths however were coming faster and faster. Then the battle
began. I had to do it. I had to have a throat culture for her own protection.
But first I told the parents that it was entirely up to them. I explained the
danger but said that I would not insist on a throat examination so long as they
would take the responsibility.
If you don’t do what the doctor says
you’ll have to go to the hospital, the mother admonished her severely.
Oh yeah? I had to smile to myself. After
all, I had already fallen in love with the savage brat, the parents were
contemptible to me. In the ensuing struggle they grew more and more abject,
crushed, exhausted while she surely rose to magnificent heights of insane fury
of effort bred of her terror of me.
The father tried his best, and he was a
big man but the fact that she was his daughter, his shame at her behavior and
his dread of hurting her made him release her just at the critical times when I
had almost achieved success, till I wanted to kill him. But his dread also that
she might have diphtheria made him tell me to go on, go on though he himself
was almost fainting, while the mother moved back and forth behind us raising
and lowering her hands in an agony of apprehension.
Put her in front of you on your lap, I
ordered, and hold both her wrists.
But
as soon as he did the child let out a scream. Don’t, you’re hurting me. Let go
of my hands. Let them go I tell you. Then she shrieked terrifyingly, hysterically.
Stop it! Stop it! You’re killing me!
Do you think she can stand it, doctor!
said the mother.
You get out, said the husband to his
wife. Do you want her to die of diphtheria?
Come on now, hold her, I said.
Then I grasped the child’s head with my left
hand and tried to get the wooden tongue depressor between her teeth. She
fought, with clenched teeth, desperately! But now I also had grown furious–at a
child. I tried to hold myself down but I couldn’t. I know how to expose a
throat for inspection. And I did my best. When finally I got the wooden spatula
behind the last teeth and just the point of it into the mouth cavity, she
opened up for an instant but before I could see anything she came down again
and gripping the wooden blade between her molars she reduced it to splinters
before I could get it out again.
Aren’t you ashamed, the mother yelled at
her. Aren’t you ashamed to act like that in front of the doctor?
Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some
sort, I told the mother. We’re going through with this. The child’s mouth was
already bleeding. Her tongue was cut and she was screaming in wild hysterical
shrieks. 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 got
beyond reason. I could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it.
It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning with it.
The damned little brat must be protected
against her own idiocy, one says to one’s self at such times.
Others
must be protected against her. It is a social necessity. And all these things
are true. But a blind fury, a feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for
muscular release are the operatives. One goes on to the end.
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. And there it was–both tonsils
covered with membrane.
She had fought valiantly to keep me from
knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at
least and lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.
Now truly she was furious. She had been
on the defensive before but now she attacked. Tried to get off her father’s lap
and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes.
[1938]
Popular
Mechanics
Raymond
Carver
Early that day the weather turned
and the snow was melting into dirty water. Streaks of it ran down from the
little shoulder-high window that faced the backyard. Cars slushed by on the
street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the
inside too.
He was in the bedroom pushing
clothes into a suitcase when she came to the door.
I’m glad you’re leaving! I’m glad
you’re leaving! she said. Do you hear?
He kept on putting his things into
the suitcase.
Son of a bitch! I’m so glad you’re
leaving! She began to cry. You can’t even look me in the face, can you?
Then she noticed the baby’s picture
on the bed and picked it up.
He looked at her and she wiped her
eyes and stared at him before turning and going back to the living room.
Bring that back, he said.
Just get your things and get out,
she said.
He did not answer. He fastened the
suitcase, put on his coat, looked around the bedroom before turning off the
light. Then he went out to the living room.
She stood in the doorway of the
little kitchen, holding the baby.
I want the baby, he said.
Are you crazy?
No, but I want the baby. I’ll get
someone to come for his things.
You’re not touching this baby, she
said. The baby had begun to cry and she uncovered the blanket from around his
head.
Oh, oh, she said, looking at the
baby.
He moved toward her.
For God’s sake! she said. She took a
step back into the kitchen.
I want the baby.
Get out of here!
She turned and tried to hold the
baby over in a corner behind the stove.
But he came up. He reached across
the stove and tightened his hands on the baby.
Let go of him, he said.
Get away, get away! she cried.
The baby was red-faced and
screaming. In the scuffle they knocked down a flowerpot that hung behind the
stove. He crowded her into the wall then, trying to break her grip. He held
onto the baby and pushed with all his weight.
Let go of him, he said.
Don’t, she said. You’re hurting the
baby, she said.
I’m not hurting the baby, he said.
The kitchen window gave no light. In
the near dark he worked on her fisted fingers with one hand and with the other
hand he gripped the screaming baby up under an arm near the shoulder.
She felt her fingers being forced
open. She felt the baby going from her.
No! she screamed just as her hands
came loose.
She would have it, this baby. She
grabbed for the baby’s other arm. She caught the baby around the wrist and
leaned back.
But he would not let go. He felt the
baby slipping out of his hands and he pulled back very hard.
In this manner, the issue was
decided.
[1981]
Class Created Exercise:
Write a story in first person in which the narrator is engaged in a vivid physical conflict (perhaps with a family member, perhaps not). Give the physical conflict an underlying emotional motivation. Use a lot of suggestive, descriptive detail. Include some dialogue (with or without quotation marks). (Make sure every time the speaker of dialogue changes you change start a new paragraph.) Give your story a title borrowed from something else, such as a magazine (like Popular Mechanics), a song, a movie, a website, etc. The relationship between your story and the title might be ironic or suggestive rather than literal.
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