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
William Carlos Williams’ passion and dedication of medicine can be seen through his literary contributions of short stories and poems. The Doctor Stories use interior monologue in a stream-of-consciousness as a tool to reflect each narrator’s experience and gives insight into the character and his appraisal of each of the situations encountered. It is through this stream-of-consciousness that we come to realize the observational nature of this doctor’s actions and thoughts.
Though the men reacted in violent ways in different situations, O’Brian’s violent act was something that stayed with him for the rest of his life and completely changed who he was as a person. “The Man I Killed” describes in detail the man and his life Tim O’Brien killed on a path in the jungle, even though he obviously did not know the man’s personal background, but mimicked it after his own. This description shows O’Brien’s life came to an end at his first act of violence, mirrored in the loss of the man’s life. After O’Brien’s incident on the pathway, he became cold and exemplified this new disposition after Jorgenson almost allowed O’Brien to die from a bullet wound, and in turn O’Brien needed pay back by scaring him in the middle of the night. The war may have physically killed many, but in this sense it damaged every soldier mentally.
The final theme I notice between Tim O’Brien and the Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam videos is the blame or guilt every soldier felt between things going wrong on missions or losing their friends. In “The Things They Carried”, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross takes the blame for the death of his soldier Ted Levander. In the story it states “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war”. Lt. Jimmy Cross often caught himself dreaming about a girl he loved to escape the war. He possibly thought about her too much which is why he took the blame. But in all reality, Lavender was shot while using the bathroom and that’s that. The only blame for that would be the war itself. In the video 60 Minutes: “My Lai Massacre”, a report on a very brutal attack on a Vietnamese village by U.S Soldiers, Hugh Thomson is a hero for saving many Vietnamese civilians from an awful fate. More than 150 women and children were marched
Tim O’Brien wrote a memoir, in which he wrote about his life as a Vietnam soldier, called If I Die in a Combat Zone. Raised in Worthington, Minnesota, Tim O’Brien was influenced by wars while growing up (particularly the Korean War). Soon landing in the training facility at Fort Lewis in Washington, O’Brien’s life was about to change. In If I Die in a Combat Zone, author Tim O'Brien argued that the Vietnam War was full of courage through how the soldiers chose to stay and battle for their nation, his depictions of Plato, and through O’Brien’s experiences of his fellow soldier’s deaths.
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell is able to accomplish so many thing with so little lines-mainly through the use of metaphor and diction. It explains the terrors of wars in gruesome detail and explains the ways in which wars, in a sense “breed” and “birth” death. To some, this poem is seen as the ultimate poem of war, and rightly
At the same time, O’Brien struggles with destructiveness of the conflicting images of violence and peace in death through the juxtaposition of the imagery of the dead man. While “his one eye was shut, the other eye was a star-shaped hole.” The dead man has one shut eye that resembles a peaceful sleep, while the other side is obliterated by the grenade into a star-shaped hole. The image of the star-shaped hole in the dead soldier’s eye represents the hopes that he once had when he was alive: “He hoped the Americans would go away. Soon, he hoped. He kept hoping and hoping, always” (119). Furthermore, “his right cheek was smooth and hairless,” an image of untouched innocence that contrasts with his left cheek, which was “peeled back in three ragged strips,” destroyed by the violence O’Brien inflicts upon it. The juxtaposition of the butterfly that settles on his chin and the fatal wound on his neck, “open to the spinal cord…blood…thick and shiny” illustrate the complexity and ambiguity of the unnaturalness of war, depicted by the image of the dead man’s wrung neck, contrasted with the ironic peace and naturalism of death in the image of the fragile butterfly. These select images are also those that O’Brien chooses to fixate upon and develop throughout the chapter as he struggles to comprehend the moral implications of his actions. The innocence of the “slim, dead, almost dainty young man” is further reinforced when O’Brien describes his wrists as “wrists of a
The Viet Nam War has been the most reviled conflict in United States history for many reasons, but it has produced some great literature. For some reason the emotion and depredation of war kindle in some people the ability to express themselves in a way that they may not have been able to do otherwise. Movies of the time period are great, but they are not able to elicit, seeing the extremely limited time crunch, the same images and charge that a well-written book can. In writing of this war, Tim O'Brien put himself and his memories in the forefront of the experiences his characters go through, and his writing is better for it. He produced a great work of art not only because he experienced the war first hand, but because he is able to convey the lives around him in such vivid detail. He writes a group of fictional works that have a great deal of truth mixed in with them. This style of writing and certain aspects of the book are the topics of this reflective paper.
Death defines life; it has the ability to reinvent the living for better or worse. “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, provides a non-linear, semi-fictitious account of the Vietnam War that poignantly depicts the complicated relationship between life and death. His account breathes subtle vitality and realism into the lingering presence of the dead, intimating that the memories they impart have as profound an impact as the living.
Hundreds of bodies littered the ground. Sounds of explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, with their uniforms splashed in crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their main objective, which was to win the battle, took a backseat to their newfound desperation to stay alive. After all, war is not a game, especially one such as the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and left its survivors haunted by a multitude of atrocious events. Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, who were two fictional characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America”, respectively, were veterans of the Vietnam War. The differences and similarities between Terry’s father and George Robinson are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.
In Carlos Williams’s short story, “The Use of Force,” the doctor’s use of force is portrayed in a way that is controversial. Controversial in that it could easily be argued either that the doctor has complete reason to use force upon the girl, or that the doctor has no right to use any amount of force upon the girl without her consent. It could also be argued either that the results of the doctor’s use of force is a success or a failure. I feel that the doctor has reason to use force upon the girl in order to check her tonsils for a number of reasons. I believe this because the doctor has reason to use force because he believes that the girl has diphtheria based on his knowledge of numbers of other children at her
He first tries to be accommodating by asking the girl for her name in order to get her to cooperate in opening her mouth, but she does not budge. The doctor assures Mathilda that he has nothing in his hands and that she should open up. “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.” The mother’s helpfulness in assuring the girl that the doctor is trying to help enrages the doctor; as he puts it, “At that I ground my teeth in disgust.” The doctor then shows frustration, “If only they wouldn’t sue use the word ‘Hurt’ I might be able to get somewhere.” (par. 16) Despite this he continues to get his diagnosis. As the doctor reaches again for the girl, she swipes his glasses and the parents light up in embarrassment. They apologize and chastise the girl and assures assure her that he is a nice man. The doctor lashes out to the parents, “For heaven’s sake, I broke in. Don’t call me a nice man to her.” (par. 19) He states to the parents that he is strictly there to check her throat to see if she has diphtheria and that she could die from it. It is apparent at this point that the doctor may not care what the parents and child think of him, just as long as he checks the girls (should it be girl's? I didn't correct you, because I'm not actually sure which is right)
In the short story the doctor was trying to pry mathilda’s mouth open. May a doctor have more power on whether to lie to his patient’s or to tell them the truth. A physician should respect the patient’s wishes on whether to live or whether to die. “The Use of Force’’ by William Carlos Williams brings up the question if it is ever justifiable for a medical professional to use force.
In William Carlos Williams short story, The Use of Force, he presents a doctor who uses force, believing that he is trying to save a girls' life. He uses point of view and symbolism to display how people have a difficult time separating their emotions and standards. Williams incorporates a sinister tone to show how people in higher power lose their humanity when they take advantage of the power they have over others. In The Use of Force, the first person point of view allows the reader to be conscious of the doctors' thoughts while he is forcing the girl to open her mouth. In the beginning, the professional doctor is concerned about the health of his patient, but as the story progresses, he finds pleasure in forcing the girl to open
How would you react if a doctor that you had never met before walked into your house and attempted to get a swab of your throat? In the short fiction story “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams, a Doctor and Mathilda’s parents are trying to get a sample from her throat that is possibly infected. With Mathilda’s personality she created a battle out of the situation. Mathilda is an angry girl that is stubborn and disrespectful. Mathilda is an angry girl throughout the story.
At the start of the story we read about assorted atrocities committed during the Vietnam War by a nameless man, who is the main character. They include