I apologize for the lengths I’ve written on my Indian life. It must be getting kind of old. Its just something I needed to get out. Lahiri is a fantastic writer. She is to me the master of short stories. She knows the perfect words use in every work she writes. Its simple yet engrossing.
In class the other day, my group presented the short story The Use of Force. After presenting I thought of the story a little more. I noticed we gave a whole lot of judgement towards the doctor and even more sympathy towards the girl. We went as far as describing the doctor as a rapist. Later on I started to think the doctor deserved a little more sympathy. He was only trying to help this girl who could have been dying. He had probably seen a bunch of patients die from the disease and didn’t want the same fate for her. All she was doing was being kind of annoying by refusing to simply open her mouth. In the end we realize she kept her diphtheria a secret and was lying to her parents about her throat. Oh and not to mention her parents who were no help at all to the doctor! I now can see why he was kind of going crazy.
so true, but I still ma not sure if there is an answer to the use of force. He felt so badly about acting that way. Was it worth it? I guess so, but it does not seem right that everyone involved felt awful after the episode. Shouldn't doing good feel better?
ReplyDeletealso: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Top_10_Indian_Writers_in_English-nid-95583-cid-29.html
I am a big fan of many of these writers--I have an Arundhati Roy book in our library that was AWESOME. not all write about being American and Indian at the same time though