The Use of Force on an Animal

"The child was fairly eating me up with her cold, steady eyes, and no expression to her face whatever. She did not move and seemed, inwardly, quiet; an unusually attractive little thing, and as strong as a heifer in appearance. but her face was flushed, she was breathing rapidly, and I realized that she had a high fever. She had magnificent blonde hair, in profusion. One of those picture children often reproduced in advertising leaflets and the photogravure sections of the Sunday papers...I have already fallen in love with the savage brat...But now I also had grown furious-at a child...I tried to hold myself down but I couldn't..."(Bohner and Grant 1170-172).

In "The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams, while a lot of people interpreted the doctor's feeling towards the girl more of a luscious one, making the doctor a kind of a pediphile figure and the act as rape-like. However, I took his feeling more like a feeling a person might have towards an animal-as if the girl is one. When he first saw her and the girl was eating him up with her eyes, it was as if an animal, especially one that would be a pet, was deeply observing him. The way he thinks how she has magnificent hair and so forth is as if he is talking about a beautiful doll-as if he is dehumanizing the figure. He feels the want to force the investigation of her throat, like the feeling of wanting to get control over his/her pet or an animal. It is like the determination one has when he/she decides to do anything to get control over an animal. Although I was thinking of the animal being more dog-like than anything else, I think it could be anything. Anyhow, I felt that the doctor wasn't feeling pleasure for the girl, but he was more dehumanizing the girl. The mother and the father was annoying to him because he thought he is able to control the "animal" and their talking was interfering with his process. Because she was dehumanized in his eyes, he was able to force the examination.