TO READ THE STORY www.classicshorts.com/stories/force.html
This month’s story is quite short, but very thought provoking. In ‘The Use of Force’ by William Carlos Williams, we meet a doctor who is attending a young patient and trying to make a diagnosis. This proves more difficult than expected. As always, you will get the most out of this masterclass if you read the story for yourself: www.classicshorts.com/stories/force.html
Firstly, let’s think about the overall writing style of this piece. It is told in first person from the doctor’s point of view and in quite a straightforward way. Notice the way that dialogue is presented without quotation marks, sometimes leaving room for interpretation of whether words are said aloud or remain just thoughts. We can imagine some of it being the sort of thing a doctor might write following a consultation, and – fun fact – William Carlos Williams was in fact a doctor as well as a writer.
Although the story is told from the doctor’s point
