Patience

(Image from http://www.nasdaq.com/article/patience-is-not-standard-entrepreneurial-equipment-cm401356)

     The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams tells the story of a doctor who goes on a house call to check a young girl with questionable symptoms. As the doctor begins to examine the girl, she is very resistant. For this, she is called a “brat.” To her stubbornness, the doctor loses his patience. Throughout the story, the theme of patience is presented. At first, the doctor is patient with the stubborn girl, as well as her parents. The parents begin to lose patience first but try to maintain their decorum. They scold the girl respectfully and ask her to cooperate. The doctor is the first one to completely lose his patience.

     The doctor has mixed feelings towards the girl. On one hand, he says that she is attractive, and on the other, he can’t handle her stubbornness anymore. When the doctor loses his patience, he even yells at the parents. This was surprising to me. The doctor seemed so calm and decorous that his behavior was quite unexpected and added an interesting twist into his already peculiar personality. He then seeks to force her into submission for the examination. He creates excuses for his actions. He says that it’s for the girl’s own good and for the good of society. However, he still recognizes that he is doing it out of joy. It is at this point that the girl starts yelling and the mother becomes stressed. She yells for them to stop holding the girl. Then, the father loses his patience as well and tells the mother to leave. They hold down the girl and find out that she had been lying about not having a sore throat. Now the girl loses her patience and attacks the doctor, crying while she does it. The girl had also been struggling with maintaining her patience. She was lying and trying to get away with it. In general, they all eventually lost their patience and depended on “the use of force” to get what they wanted.

     Throughout the story, the entire family struggles with their patience. They eventually all end up losing their patience and reacting harshly. The mother, however, is the one who stays more in control. The doctor’s loss of patience was the most unexpected. As a doctor, he is expected to be able to handle those kinds of situations in a professional manner. He, however, was not able to do so, lost his patience and let his animalistic instincts take control of his actions in order to get what he wanted. There are many stressful situations in which one can easily lose one's patience. However, we must always try our hardest to stay in control, especially in professional situations, in order to have civil interactions.

__________

If you have not read the story, you can find it here.