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William Carlos Williams's The Use Of Force

Decent Essays

The theme of The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams is about the use of force and asks the age old question, is it justifiable? Williams uses the first person point of view to help the reader judge if is acceptable or not. First person view gives the reader insight into the doctor’s thoughts and feelings towards the patient. For example, he mentions that he thought the little girl was attractive and even says, “I have already fallen in love with the savage brat,” (Williams p.425). As a result, the reader was able to interpret that the doctor knew what he was doing was wrong when he mentions he should have come back in an hour, “perhaps I should have desisted…”(Williams p.426) So, in the end, the doctor diagnosed the little girl with diphtheria but his use of force was not justifiable since he could have taken a different approach. Incidentally, the viewpoint is important because if it was written in the third person or in over the shoulder the reader would have lost the importance of the doctor knowing he was in the wrong if it was not written in this tense. Of course, if the story was written in omniscient would have been interesting, but for the reader to know what the little girl was thinking or even the parents would not have given such a strong point of the theme.

The theme of The Man I Killed by Tim Obrien is life verse death. The author uses an objective point of view which worked well for the story. The Vietnam soldier’s dead body was described several times

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