Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Use of Force
Many children are afraid of doctors. Many children will lie to their parents to avoid seeing one. Here we have a very typical child when it comes to a doctor. Uncooperative and fiesty. The child, Mathilda is young but old enough to be in school. Old enough to perhaps remember a bad experience with a doctor. Is this why she is hiding her sore throat? Perhaps she is old enough to be conscious of what she may have, diphtheria,and is afraid to know for sure. The doctor had mentioned there had already been a number of cases at her school. He also mentioned that he had seen a couple of dead children from it. It is possible that she knows one of the dead children. This could be a reason she would be so afraid to hear she has the same sickness. The doctor is more impressed by the child than her parents. I though it interesting that he likens her to animals in several descriptions "as strong as a heifer in appearance." As he moves closer to her to examine her throat "with one catlike movement both her hands clawed." He also calls her a "savage brat." Still even as he starts to grow impatient with her and says he could tear her apart and enjoy it, there seems to be an understanding of why she is acting so. Her parents become contemptible to him and become "crushed and exhausted" in the challenge of the examination while Mathilda "rose to magnificent heights of insane fury." I think he admires her stubbornness. The doctors terminology sometimes has sexual overtones such as the afore mentioned "magnificent heights." That part left me slightly uncomfortable but I don't think they're supposed to be truly sexual in nature. Geez, at least I hope not.
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1 comment:
analyzing the animal similes/metaphors cna be productive.
Below are some comments from "Previous Blogs," which should give you some more specific points of focus, and provide a framework for considering such textual details; 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:
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; dicsusing 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" dicotomy--which the story suggests is no "dicotomy" 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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