Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Use of Force!
One would have thought this would be a normal check up, but turned out to be much more. William Williams exposes a psychological covert about the characters he writes about. William writes “Oh yeah? I had to smile to myself. After all, I had Already Fallen in love with the savage brat”. What does this exactly mean? In my opinion, he enjoyed struggling with the little girl, it turned him on. It made him feel good overpowering her. What’s your opinion, do you think he was just being a kind, worried doctor or he had different intentions? I would like to know what you guys think?
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1 comment:
Well, to say the girl "just turned him on" is a bit too easy to say, and is implying something short of the story's significant conflicts.
Below are some comments from "Previous Blogs," which should give you some more specific points of focus; to address some of the story's thematic issues noted below, focus on key scenes, character and setting descriptions, the contrasting use of language (parents v. doctor), etc:
A close reading of the story will reveal that the narrator doesn't always keep his "composure" or keep things "professional" (in the usual sense of the term)--in fact, this is the source of the character's internal and external conflicts in the story (for a distinction between internal and external conflict, see your glossary handout).
One thing the story questions is this stereotype of "professionalism"; this is one of the "cultural roles" mentioned below, which the story qestions/explores.
Think about what those characters represent? The story does explore questions of power, resistance, authority,ec. How many different levels of conflict can you find in the story? We have a child and adult, doctor and patient, etc. How does the story explore conflicts between various aspects of our culture? how are those various "forces" characterized?
The strangeness, or extraordinariness of the doctor's reactions may lead to some interesting discussion of the doctor-patient relationship, but beyond that, questions of power, authority, cultural roles v. human nature, etc. think about what the various characters represent.
Sexuality is an important "force" in the story; discussing it in this context will avoid the trap of judging the doctor as "perverted," which of course is not the issue. In this "nature" V. "culture" dichotomy--which the story suggests is no "dichotomy" at all--the story does give us a glimpse at what underlies our socio-cultural roles, one of which is the stereotype of "professionalism"; we often call this the "dark" side of "human nature"--dark, of course, because we often hide (from) it, exclude it from light.
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