Franklin Díaz Mirás
Professor Cynthia Pittmann
INGL 3104-134
15 March 2018

“The Use of Force” Reflection 

The story “The Use of Force” by William Carlos William is about a doctor who examined a little girl named Mathilda Olson. He asked Mathilda to open her mouth, but she insisted to keep it shut. The doctor and Mathilda’s parents kept persuading her to do as the doctor said. They forced her from the simplest way by asking nicely, to the hardest way by holding her hands, feet and her body. They forced her to open her mouth. The situation that made the three adults to use their strength to make the little girl open her mouth became a very violent situation.

  In the story, there were many sides of manipulation. First was the manipulation

done by the doctor and Mr. and Mrs. Olson towards Mathilda; second was the

manipulation done by Mathilda towards the three adults. The purpose of manipulation was to change other person’s perception or behavior. Here, the manipulation done by the doctor and Mathilda’s parents was to make Mathilda open her mouth to be examined. On the other hand, Mathilda has the opposite purpose. She did that to make her parents and the doctor not to examine her. The main point in the analysis of this short story is not how the  three adults demanded a little girl to open her mouth to be examined, but how a little girl made the three adults use their strength to force her to open her mouth.

          A very important theme is that we should cooperate with doctors, even if they seem threatening to you. No matter what a person thinks of a doctor, their job is to help and cure a person from any medical problem. If not for a doctor how would society be able to live as long as we do. Williams story shows us the view of what a doctor does and how sometimes force on a person just might save a person's life.

The final part is different from traditional short story, which often arranges a paragraph or two to describe the collapsing ending, but this short story goes away from traditions and seems to start another new conflict, basically the main climax, when the girl tries to fight back. This type of ending leave the reader thinking about what happened after. Is an ending open for many conclusions.

Works Cited

Cynthia, Pittmann. Reflection of “The Use of Force”. University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras

          Campus. 15 April 2018.

Carlos William, William. The Use of Force, 1938.