Student notes on William Carlos Williams’ Doctor Stories

(MOToole)

The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams is a collection of semi-autobiographical tales. The book details the ordinary lives of the inhabitants of New Jersey during the depression of the 1930’s and 40’s as seen through the eyes of a doctor. The writing style is free and descriptive. It easily moves between the events of outside world and the narrator’s internal thoughts, dialogues and conflicts. This style creates different and somewhat opposed versions of the protagonist as calm altruistic doctor, observer poet and a man subject to the same emotional turmoil as us.

Girl with the Pimply Face
This anecdote is about a foreign baby from a poor area who is in “pretty bad condition” however the main focus of this story is the baby’s older sister. William’s poetic side has an immediate affiliation with this 15 year old girl. Although she is physically described in an unflattering light – “she had one of those small squeezed up faces, snub nose, overhanging eyebrows, low brow and a terrible complexion, pimply and coarse” – the narrator is “crazy about”  her strength and vigour in the face of her difficult surroundings. She is still free to become whatever she wills. In fact his obsession almost clouds his judgement as a doctor. He could even seem to neglect his true patient, failing to do much more than glance at “it”, the sick child. Then again perhaps this is all that is feasible without the mother about and lacking any information about the problem, information which his “wonderful” girl seems uninterested in helping with.

When he next visits the house we meet the “bulky” mother who is greatly distressed about her baby’s health. Although William diagnosis the baby as being “no good [and] never would be” the desperate woman ignores or doesn’t understand that “she has a bad heart that will never be better” and begs William to fix her baby. When the narrator thinks to himself – “Hell! God damnit. These sons of bitches. Why do these things have to be?” -  we are left wondering whether he is angry at the bothersome mother or the sad state of affairs caused by poverty and misfortune.

Williams colleagues in the hospital speak ill of the family even slandering his beloved girl as a “pimply faced bitch”. He is told “you make ‘em pay you” and although William seems in agreement he visits yet again. Maybe this is out of his poetic love for this girl’s vigour or maybe it is out of his generous nature. This is something that is left open for us to ponder.

Use of Force
Here our storyteller again encounters an “unusually attractive” girl. This time she is his patient, suffering from diphtheria. He wants to examine her throat, seeking to make a clear diagnosis. However the child is resistant and stubborn, knocking his glass to the floor when he tries to get close.

When reasoning has been exhausted William begins with the use of force. We follow a graphic description of the doctor as he tries to pull open her jaw to get a clear view of her throat. “He could have torn her apart in [his] fury”, driven mad by her resistance. With memories of “two other children lying dead in bed of neglect” he is sent ‘beyond his reason’. When her secret is reveal, “both tonsils covered by membrane”, she is heartbreakingly defeated, left crying in the face of the truth she did not wish to accept.  Although he has fallen in love with “the savage brat”, once again for her determination, we are left we left unsettled and with many questions, amidst the blood and splinters of this horrific battle.

Jean Beicke
In this final story Williams is working in the children’s ward of a hospital. The place is full of ‘brats’ brought in sick, sometimes because of “deliberate neglect”, and then abandoned there. The narrator sees the diligent nurses “break their hearts over those kids”, treating them like “they were worth a million bucks” but he himself wonders if medicine is wrong to try to help at all. He sees how the poverty these poor ‘wretches’ were born into will define the paths of their lives. They are “born garbage hustlers” and “cheap prostitutes”, fated from the start.

However once again our protagonist becomes enthralled by a little baby of eleven moths old called Jean Beicke. The child looked only 5 moths old, deformed and suffering on arrival, with broncho-pneumonia. They “all expected her to die from exhaustion before she’d gone far” but she was “a hungry baby”. This trait is one that has fascinated our hero throughout these short accounts. He loves to see that strength of character that strives for survival.

However “Jean didn’t get well”. In a defeated tone William tells us “we did everything we knew how”. He tries to defend himself from this attachment with phrases like “anyhow she died” but in truth “he hated to see that kid go”. When the autopsy shows that purulent mastoidistis was the cause of death Williams calls the ear man. In this last encounter we are once again left with many questions. The ear man thinks the child could have been saved but Williams asks him why – just to have another vote for the “Communist ticket”. This smart remark possibly hints to me that our narrator doesn’t agree with his own words. The ear man’s retort “Would it have made us any dumber?” compounds this feeling. The suggestion of inadequacy here calls into question the idea of the difference between Williams’ life and the lives that the children of the depression might lead. This soaks the black and white of a good and bad life in shades of grey. Williams himself is imperfect, a fact which he makes abundantly and purposefully clear to us throughout. The ear man asks him and us – could we not learn and improve, and is this not enough to make the struggle of life valid?

Conclusion
William Carlos Williams portrays a dirty and impoverished world where everyone is struggling to survive. The persona of the narrator is flawed and human. He experience anger that swells in his mind, attraction that sways his actions, and empathy and attachment that he supresses to save pain. He analyses people, and puts down his uncensored train of thought, such that we, in turn, can analyse him. He provides us with insight and questions but gives us no answers. These we have to find ourselves.

 

Student presentation on Williams’ Doctor Stories

[by aibarret]

THE GIRL WITH A PIMPLY FACE

CHARACTER PROFILES

The Doctor
•    Caring: He goes and visits the family despite the fact that it is his lunch hour. Also, he does not seem to be too worried about his financial reward for doing this call-out – he is more worried about his patient.
•    Captivated by the 15 year old sister: He sees her as a very interesting character. “I fell for her immediately.” He is amused by her strong will, her apparent toughness and her honesty. He also says “For the moment at least I had lost all interest in the baby”- strange comment for a doctor to make! He pays a lot more interest in her during this visit than to the baby, the person whom he came to see. Even when he breaks the news to the family about the baby’s heart defect, he moves quickly on to writing a prescription for the teenager for her legs.
•    Quite abrupt and irritated when dealing with the mother of the child: He seems to be annoyed by the exaggerated, over the top ways of the mother. He seems to want to “cut her short” when she is weeping and wailing about her daughter and does not seem to do much to allay her fears about her child. He is blunt when he is breaking the news to her: “She’s got a bad heart,” –and that’s it. He then spends ages trying to get away from her, instead of talking her through her anxieties.
•    Doesn’t remember the name of the baby: Apparently the teenager has fascinated the doctor so much that he neglected to ask the family what the profession of the father is or even the name of the baby. This is a bit strange… he doesn’t even know the name of his patient!
•    Cynical: It’s evident that the doctor has a healthy amount of cynicism. For example, he says that he thinks that the baby’s mother loves the baby more for it being “the worst bet in the lot”.
•    Eye for detail: Despite him not knowing the baby’s name, we are given detailed descriptions of the members of the family, which are very lyrical.
•    Loyal to his patients: He is loyal to the Russian family he is treating when the other doctor starts gossiping about them. He defends them against the accusations the other doctors make and even lies to the other doctor about the issue of the mother’s alcoholism.

The Teenage Girl
•    Characteristics as seen through the doctor’s eyes: Tough, hard, straight, as fresh as paint, physical description, non-presumptive, a tough little nut
•    Trusting: She lets the doctor in to look at her sister without a question.
•    Indifferent towards her sister: She doesn’t seem to know or care too much about the welfare of her baby sister: the baby’s bottle is lying discarded behind the baby’s head. She also refers to the child as a girl primarily and her sister secondarily.
•    Indifferent towards her looks: She didn’t wash off the dirt on her foot, it wasn’t important to her. She does seem to be a bit worried about her acne though and obviously makes the effort to reduce it when the doctor tells her what to do to help it.
•    Doesn’t want to go to school: The importance of getting an education is unfortunately lost on her- she prefers to be out earning her keep with the Jews across the hallway.
•    Shrewd: The girl is obviously streetwise and knows that money to buy her soap for her face will be hard to come by. She is prepared to bargain for it.
•    Second doctor’s comments: The second doctor, with whom the protagonist is having a conversation, calls her a “pimply faced little bitch” and says that she has “a dozen wise guys” after her every night. He makes other lewd accusations against her as well.

THE MOTHER
•    Unconcerned about her children: There is evidence to suggest this in the fact that she left a 15 year old to look after a baby. Also the careless abandonment of the baby’s bottle. However once the doctor comes she is the epitome of the concerned mother, completely over the top in her worry. This draws a parallel with the story that the doctor’s wife told of her beating of one of her children for not looking after the younger kid.
•    The doctor’s visit as a special occasion: We see that the younger woman who is interpreting for the mother is dressed up for the occasion and the mother is also aware that she must make the most of her time with the doctor as well.
•    Very talkative: The mother spends most of her time during the doctor’s visit complaining about her situation and weeping and wailing about the bad things that have befallen her. She is irritating to say the least!
•    Easily embarrassed: She doesn’t want the doctor to see her baby naked and tries to keep her covered during the examination.
•    Upset: The woman is in anguish and is extremely upset when she finds out what is wrong with her child, which is completely understandable. The doctor doesn’t do much to allay her fears, as previously mentioned.
•    Alcoholic: The doctor realises during his second-last visit that the woman is an alcoholic. Strangely enough, this changes his attitude towards her: he now sees her as an object of pity. The other doctor knows about her drinking too, she is obviously notorious around town.
•    The ”ringleader”: The second doctor refers to the mother as the ”ringleader” of the operation to not pay for the family’s medical bills.

THE SECOND DOCTOR
•    Dog medicine: The second doctor doesn’t want to pay for the medicine to save his dog’s life. Complicated to draw parallels. He is letting his dog die because it is too expensive to keep him alive: a cavalier attitude towards life is displayed. Can you put a price on it?
•    Supposed truth about the Russian family: He says that the father of the family is actually earning more than he disclosed and would be able to pay the fees. He insinuates that all of their money is being spent on alcohol. A harsh attitude is displayed here- this carelessness about life is being shown again as the doctor refused to treat the baby because the parents couldn’t afford it. “I had that much satisfaction out of them anyway”.
•    Harsh criticism of the family: He seems to be uncaring as to their plight and has no reservations about passing on the local gossip to the protagonist. He makes allegations against them and calls the mother a drunkard and the teenage girl promiscuous. Breach of confidentiality.

The Message
•    There are a number of key messages we can take from this.
•    Key issue of the doctor’s relationship with the teenage girl- professional or unprofessional?:
Professional: He was merely taking a special interest in the sister of a patient and helped cure her acne. A doctor’s life can get monotonous and it’s perfectly natural to gravitate towards the more unusual patients one sees.
Unprofessional: It was completely wrong for the doctor to take such an interest in a young girl. It was an unnatural relationship and quite inappropriate. He neglected his duties towards the baby he was supposed to be treating in favour of helping the teenager with her acne and demonstrated unsuitable characteristics in a good doctor.
•    Was the treatment of the baby’s mother ethically correct?
The doctor was admittedly quite short and impatient with the mother of the baby he was treating. Was he justified in his behaviour, considering that the woman was a drunkard, or was he out of order?
•    Did the socio-economic status of the family affect the quality of the medical treatment they received?
With the protagonist, definitely not. Whatever you can say about his behaviour towards the sister and the mother, he certainly made every effort to come out to them. He sacrificed his lunch hour and basically worked for free to help cure the baby girl.
There is a different story to be found with the other doctor. It’s clear that there was some prejudice there and that he was not willing to make any concessions towards the family. His attitude was “you make them pay you”. He was indifferent to the plight of the poor family and ignored the key concept of medicine: that as doctors, our job is to help.
•    Were there breaches of confidentiality?
Of course there were. The first came when the doctor discussed the case with his wife. (The point could be argued that this is perfectly natural, that you have to share your thoughts with somebody or else you’ll go mad?) Another clear breach of doctor-patient confidentiality came with the conversation between the two doctors at the end of the story. The second doctor has no problem with recounting his experience with the Russian family and shares his rather shocking views (“pimply faced little bitch”). This kind of behaviour is clearly not to be emulated amongst us medical students!

THE USE OF FORCE

CHARACTER PROFILES

THE DOCTOR
•    Impressed by the girl: From the very first description we get of her, we realise that the doctor is extremely impressed by the patient he has come to see and appears to have a fascination with her in the same way that the doctor in the previous story did. He calls her a “savage brat”… but in a good way.
•    Not so impressed with the parents: As in the previous story, this doctor is quite irritated with the behaviour of the parents and their apologetic nature. He is annoyed by their embarrassment. “The parents were contemptible to me”.
•    Blunt personality: He tells the parents not to pretend to their doctor that he is a “nice man”. He also, perhaps foolishly, raises the point that she could die from the disease she has most likely contracted, which seems quite unprofessional.
•    Violent tendency: In the main thrust of the plot we see a more deranged side of the doctor as he grows furious at the uncooperative child. He realises that he is doing wrong and going over the top even as he keeps on doing it. He acknowledges that perhaps he should have “come back in an hour or more” but he attempts to justify his behaviour with the excuse that he had “seen at least two children lying dead in bed of neglect in such cases” and that he felt compelled to continue. He describes his fury and admits that he “had got beyond reason.” He describes the worrying sentiment that “it was a pleasure to attack her”. This is definitely not the right attitude for a doctor to have and is extremely questionable, to say the least. He continues to attempt to justify his behaviour but there really is no justification.

THE PATIENT
•    Fighting spirit: We don’t really hear the patient speak but it is clear that she is an extremely feisty kid who is so terrified of the doctor that she will go to any lengths to keep him from finding out that she has a sore throat. We can admire this girl’s spirit but we can also appreciate how frustrating it must have been for the doctor to deal with her.

THE PARENTS
•    Negative characteristics: Apologetic, embarrassed, weak-mannered, frustrating, ashamed to be hurting their child.

JEAN BEICKE

CHARACTER PROFILES

THE DOCTOR
•    Unprofessional with a shocking attitude towards his young patients: There can be no doubt but that this is true. Right from the start this short story is peppered with unprofessional references and quips about patients, and at times this doctor portrays a pretty shocking attitude to his job.
No. 1- He describes how the doctors would bet on the weights of the twins.
No. 2- He seems disappointed that the spot on the Hungarian child’s lip was something as unexciting as a birthmark.
No. 3- He seems to think that it is okay for parents to abandon their children if they have a tough life of their own.
No. 4- He says that he wishes some of the children would “never get well”. It’s a despicable attitude for a doctor to have.
No. 5- He makes really inappropriate jokes about saving the children’s lives just for them to “grow up into a cheap prostitute… the country needs you, brat”.
No. 6- He makes light of Jean’s situation by covering up her legs and getting doctors to guess how long her legs are, as they are unusually long.
No. 7- This line is absolutely awful- “She was such a scrawny, misshapen, worthless piece of humanity that I had said many times that somebody ought to chuck her in the garbage chute”. This type of attitude is completely despicable in any person, let alone somebody with as much standing as a doctor.
No. 8- Although this is admittedly secondary to this doctor’s many other faults, it must be noted that he does very little to help Jean’s mother and aunt through this difficult time and goes straight for the jugular in asking for an autopsy, as he doesn’t want all of his work in trying to diagnose the patient to go to waste…
No. 9- The story ends with the lasting chilling exchange between the doctor and the ear man, where the doctor asks what the point would have been in saving her anyway.
So, the question is: is this the true attitude of the doctor or is this a defence mechanism to deal with the horrors he must contend with on a daily basis? Is it a product of a realistic man?
•    Some redeeming aspects: He does seem to be very thorough in his diagnoses and treatment of his patients. He does express his shock at the worst of the stories and his anger at the other doctors who exploit the parents of the sick children. In his dealings with Jean he seems to be very tender and caring towards her and professes himself to be “crazy about Jean”. He makes sure that the ear man comes back for follow ups and does seem to be quite regretful that he missed the problem that Jean had. “I hated to see that kid go.”

THE NURSES
•    Caring: They are extremely caring and dedicated with the children on the wards. We learn that one became extremely mad at irresponsible parents and another one felt “as if they’re my own”.

 

William Carlos Williams on homo sapiens medica

William Carlos Williams’ Doctor Stories (in particular the ones we dealt with in class, The Girl with the Pimply Face, The Use of Force and Jean Beicke) give us a very direct look at the reactions of a doctor to the difficulties faced “in the field”: sexual attraction, physical challenge and repulsion dealt with frankly and genuinely. The doctor is first and foremost a human being. Human beings are animals. Some behaviour is instinctual and evolutionary; some is understandable in the context of our surroundings and what we have to deal with; some seems to rise above survival instincts and shows us the potential in human beings to care about and for one another in a self-sacrificing (“irrational”?) way, or at least a generational sacrificing way (- the older giving way to the younger).

Hysteria came up as a word in the context of the behaviour of the mother in the first story, and the Wikipedia article here is worth reading for more information on the origins of the word and the changing attitudes to the diagnosis.

Cynical also came up in relation to the attitude of the doctor in the Girl with the Pimply Face. In what ways was he sceptical about the motives others? His colleagues at the hospital would probably call him an innocent in how they perceived he was dealing with the Russian family. But we know from his thoughts that he was not fooled by the mother and was merely playing along to be able to do his work and gain access to the lives that fascinated him so much: a “healthy dose” of scepticism necessary to deal with the inevitable (natural) self-serving behaviour (cynicism) he encountered every day, perhaps.

Williams wrote in his autobiography: “I have never had a money practice; it would have been impossible for me. But the actual calling on people, at all times and under all conditions, the coming to grips with the intimate conditions of their lives, when they were being born, when they were dying, watching them die, watching them get well when they were ill, has always absorbed me.”

You might find another student’s thoughts on the stories here useful >>>

You can order a copy online here >>>

 

Thoughts on William Carlos Williams’ ‘The Doctor Stories’

by parkerje

William Carlos Williams himself was born in the late 19th century, and attended the University Of Pennsylvania Medical School straight from High School, where he met the famous poet Ezra Pound, who he remained friends with for life. He went on to become a Paediatrician and practiced Medicine for about forty years. He’s best known as a poet, but is also recognised for his prose and play-writing (although in his lifetime, he received mostly lukewarm criticism). Interestingly enough, as an aside, he was diagnosed with and treated for clinical depression and I believe this can be seen throughout some of his work that I’ve read.

“The Doctor Stories” are a collection of short stories by William Carlos Williams which are concerned with the poverty, suffering and means of survival among the ordinary, working class people of his native New Jersey. The stories are semi-autobiographical, documenting not only his life as a Doctor, but also showing us some of his deepest thoughts and emotions, and teaching us about his genuine connection with his patients. A deep sense of humanity and altruism seems to pervade his work. I have reviewed only three of the stories; “The Girl with a Pimply Face”, “The Use of Force” and “Jean Beicke”, although I also read through “The Insane” and “Verbal Transcription- 6AM”. I very much so enjoyed them all, but the first one, “The Girl with a Pimply Face” was my favourite.

1. The Girl with a Pimply Face

In this story, William Carlos Williams brings us straight into his life as a Doctor; he is reviling in a break from his duties and sitting down to lunch when he’s asked to make a house call to see a baby who’s in “pretty bad condition”. He wastes no time filling us in on his patient; she is foreign, from a poor area and seems rather unwell. However, it is not really this ill child who is his main focus in the story, but rather the baby’s older sister who’s about 15 years old. He first encounters this enchanting girl at the family home and although he describes her appearance in a somewhat negative light, saying “one of her eyelids drooped a little as she spoke” and “she had one of those small, squeezed up faces, snub nose, overhanging eyebrows, low brow and a terrible complexion, pimply and coarse” he is completely dumbfounded by her- “Boy, she was tough and no kidding but I fell for her immediately. There was that hard, straight thing about her that in itself gives an impression of excellence.” The young girl seems rather uninteresting in my opinion, she’s utterly indifferent to the wellbeing of the baby, apathetically chewing gum and shrugging her shoulders, yet the writer becomes almost obsessed with her. He spends much more time on his first house visit talking to her and giving her medical advice for her mosquito-bitten legs and severe acne than he spends checking the baby. He undoubtedly sexualises her quite a bit, which I found quite odd, saying “She had breasts you knew would be like small stones to the hand” and later describing her in her swimming gear.

On a second house call later that same day to check up on the sick baby, we encounter the mother who’s a middle aged stereotype- “bulky” with a “long seamed face”- who’s very worked up about the state of her youngest child, She explains to us that the baby was in hospital until that morning, at which stage they’d taken her home as her condition was worsening and she was implicating on the family, financially- “I got no money”. She bargains with the Doctor, seeing him as some sort of magical healer who can “save” her baby no matter what’s wrong with her- “I pay you. I pay you everything”. She explains that the child caught some form of hospital bug which resulted in her constantly vomiting and getting diarrhoea, which was obviously very upsetting. William Carlos Williams on examining the baby, however, sees that this all pales in comparison to what’s really wrong with her; she’s failing to thrive because of a congenital heart defect, coupled with improper feeding and an impoverished, poor quality of life.

At the time within which the story’s based, there wouldn’t have been much treatment out there for a child in this state, and so Williams describes the baby as being “no good, never would be” and explains to the Mother that “she’s got a bad heart. That will never be any better.” The Mother really doesn’t understand and continues to plead with the Doctor to “fix” her baby. Nowadays, what with all the advancements in the world of Medicine, patients with this sort of a problem can go on to lead very normal and healthy lives. It’s a subject I’ve got a bit of personal experience with myself, as a close friend of mine recently underwent major open heart surgery for the same thing and it was very successful.

Then, it aspires that the Mother cannot even afford to pay the Doctor for visiting, but he seems to be too altruistic to bat an eyelid at this. In fact, he actually gives money to the 15 year old girl so that she can buy herself an acne lotion- and he later boasts about her to his wife. He thinks she’s simply “wonderful”, a “tough baby” who he’s “crazy about”.
On the third visit to the home of the sick baby, we meet the father, who reports that the baby is “no better” than before. This time, Williams notices that the now “absolutely inconsolable” Mother has been drinking. The Katter still doesn’t seem to understand the implications of congenital heart disease and assumes the Doctor will be able to make her baby better. Perhaps he should have clarified the situation further, but he does say that “There was no use my talking”. He seems quite upset himself, exclaiming “Hell! God damnit. The sons of bitches. Why do these things have to be?”

Now, we switch back to the hospital where, without summarising the story too much, another Doctor is ranting about the family that Williams is working with, telling us he was never paid and describing them as down-and-outs, essentially. He tells Williams to stand his ground and demand payment, calling the Mother “the slickest customer you ever saw”. He slanders the 15 year old girl that Williams has become so fond of calling her “That thing!” and a “pimply faced little bitch”. From this meeting, it’s clear that William Carlos Williams sees the good in people and neither judges by hearsay nor focuses in on the negative aspects of people’s lives or characters.

Finally, we’re brought back to the flat for a final visit and the story concludes on a somewhat positive note; the baby has improved greatly and the young girl’s skin is much better and she’s decided to go back to school. All in all, although there was very little action in the story, I really enjoyed it and found it engaging. The vernacular and idiomatic style of writing was very accessible and appealing to me, and also the soft and caring Doctor grabbed my attention from the word “go” and maintained it throughout.

2. The Use of Force

This second peculiar story was quite similar to “The Girl with a Pimply Face” in many ways, although it was much shorter. Here, Williams chronicles a house visit to see a young girl who’s suffering from diphtheria Again, he is extremely taken with the child in this story and breezes over her symptoms to write about her “magnificent blonde hair” and to tell us that she’s “unusually attractive”, like a child pictured in ads in Sunday papers.

Williams is worried that she may have diphtheria, which we find out eventually that she does, and is adamant to examine the girl’s throat, However, she is unresponsive and won’t so much as reply to her parents or the Doctor, never mind open her mouth. She’s overly defensive, knocking off the Doctor’s glasses when he tries to get near her.
Getting her to open her mouth is a battle as she downright refuses to comply. One would imagine that Williams would get very mad at this point- I know I probably would if I was in his situation- yet her determination attracts him- “I had already fallen in love with the savage brat”. He eventually prises her mouth open with a spoon and writes that “It was a please to attack her”, explaining himself by saying “The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy”.

On the other hand, the parents grate on him. He finds them “contemptible” and annoying. He hates that they’re unable to get their daughter to do as she’s told and generally being overly concerned rather than helpful. It’s quite odd, in my opinion, that Williams seems only obsessive with the children in his stories as opposed to the adults. It’s a strange trait for a paediatrician, without a doubt!

This story concludes with the child finally being diagnosed with the horrible illness that is diphtheria. She’d been hiding it and is absolutely furious her secret’s been revealed, so decides to attack Williams as some sort of a relief. The story is a short snapshot of Williams’’ life as a Doctor, but it’s clear that this little girl had a huge impact on him.

3. Jean Beicke

Jean Beicke is another story detailing Williams’ life as a paediatrician. This story, unlike the previous two, is set in a hospital environment but similar to the others, features a child with whom he is obsessed- Jean Beicke.

The story begins with Williams discussing some of the patients he’s had to care for in the hospital, mostly neglected or abandoned children- “and sometimes the kids are not only dirty and neglected, but sick and ready to die”. He is clearly very fond of his patients, as shown throughout his work, and really pities their plight- “Poor kids! You really wonder sometimes if medicine isn’t all wrong to try to do anything for them at all. You actually want to see them pass out, especially when they’re deformed or- they’re awful sometimes”. I think that he believes that the children he cares for deserve a life better than the one they’ve been predisposed to. Even though he jokes about how some of the kids will grow up to be Prostitutes and thugs, it’s clear that he’s oddly fond of them all at the same time.

After a little while, we are introduced to Jean Beicke. She is an oddly misshapen 11 month old who comes into the hospital in very bad condition. Everything seemed to be wrong with the child, and she burst into fits of tears if you were to so much as touch her, yet Williams becomes very attached to her, describing her as “one of the damndest looking kids I’ve ever seen”. Despite all of his efforts, he could not diagnose her illness. The longer she stays in the hospital, the more attached to her he becomes, as do all the nurses- “We all got to be crazy about Jean”. Eventually, the poor child dies and Williams is upset that he didn’t catch her illness in time. Jean’s background was a dismal one, her mother seems to be a bit of a down and out, and her Father had abandoned them, so her Auntie who’s in the hospital just before the infant’s death doesn’t seem in any way upset that her niece is about to die- in fact, she sees it as being almost for the best and has absolutely no issues with Williams and the other hospital staff performing a post-mortem on the child when she passes. The whole point of the story, as far as I could see, was to reiterate Williams’ bond with the children he treats. Again, the Doctor-Patient relationship is a strange and somewhat thwarted one, but nonetheless quite touching.

To conclude, I really enjoyed reading William Carlos Williams’ collection of stories, and even went on to read some of his poetry such as “The Red Wheelbarrow” which I found equally as enjoyable. The way in which he describes his patients, although extremely bizarre a lot of the time, is quite touching. He seems to genuinely connect with the children he cares for, and they seem to impact on his thought process quite a lot. He is not some sort of cold man of Medicine, but a warm Doctor whose mission is to help the masses. The way in which he writes really attracted me as well, as it was accessible, vernacular and colloquial, which makes for much easier reading than complex and stilted writing.