Essay on "Williams' the Use of Force and Mulvey"
Essay 3 pages (1063 words) Sources: 2
[EXCERPT] . . . .
Williams' "The use of force" and Mulvey's patriarchal gazeA naive reading of William Carlos Williams' short story "The use of force" accepts the stated premise of the story: a little girl will die unless a wise and kindly doctor forcibly looks into her throat. Read as such, the doctor is the voice of scientific reasoning, and the young girl must accept his physical intrusion or else she will die. Viewed through the lens of Laura Mulvey's analysis of cinema's patriarchal gaze, the story takes on a different resonance. The prying open of the girl's mouth and violation of her privacy becomes a rite of female passage. The forcible action of the male becomes read as beneficial and healing only because of social norms. Reading the story, the female reader is forced to take on the male perspective and persona, thereby shutting out the young girl's point-of-view. A female or male reader cannot ask: Why is the doctor not gentler? Why does he not reason with the girl? Why is the girl so stubborn and determined?
The story does not prompt the reader to ask such questions, because it is told through the male's perspective. The child's gaze is only observed by the doctor. "The child was fairly eating me up with her cold, steady eyes," he says. This comment conceals the fact that the actual gaze the reader perceives is that of the child through the eyes of the doctor. "Fetishistic scopophilia," writes Mulvey, is perhaps the most pleasurable and least anxiety-provoking manifestation of the male, patriarchal gaze of culture because it is simply a gaze: the onlooker looks at the woman, rather than becomes uncomfortably a part of what is dangerously 'not-male' and 'not phallic' through interco
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To liken "The use of force" to scopophilia, or pleasure of gazing in the cinema may initially seem odd, given that pain rather than pleasure is the reason that the doctor forces the girl's mouth open: the girl is in pain, he wishes to heal her suffering. There is pleasure, however, one could argue, in being the administrator of medical authority as well as what a more Freudian interpretation could call a kind of simulated rape, where a female is penetrated by a male 'for her own good' with a phallic symbol. Rape is given medical authority in the symbolism of the work, and underlined in the title, which approves "use of force." The child's only defense is silence and having a closed mouth, so the reader cannot hear her speak, and the doctor's omniscient first-person narrator tells the reader the girl is a picture, not a human being: "One of those picture children often reproduced in advertising leaflets and the photogravure sections of the Sunday papers." A feminist might argue that in a patriarchal medical system a woman, throughout her life will be silenced and penetrated. A woman is taught that her natural functions are diseases, such as menstruation (which is characterized as painful), given intrusive gynecological examinations as an adolescent,… READ MORE
Quoted Instructions for "Williams' the Use of Force and Mulvey" Assignment:
“Part One: read *****The Use of Force***** by William Carlos Williams (See attached)
Part two: reconsider and reread *****The Use of Force***** to prove/interrogate Laura Mulvey*****s theory
of the patriarchal gaze.
Reconsider the psychoanalytic theory derived from Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan that Laura Mulvey uses to support her theory of the gaze in the 1975 essay *****"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.*****" Mulvey argues that meaning is defined largely by men who associate their power to name, define, and control reality with their masculinity. Your essay should therefore reveal an awareness of the ways in which the story reflects the language of patriarchy and encodes the ideology that all patriarchy is founded on. Laura Mulvey believes the one who looks has the power. Since Mulvey*****s theory is essentially a *****film theory,***** you must adapt its premises of a *****"masculine*****" subject position -- WOMAN AS IMAGE, MAN AS BEARER OF THE LOOK ***** and apply it to the narrative structure of the story. The challenge for you is to find the connection between this simple story of a little girl*****s interaction with her doctor and Mulvey*****s gender politics. Mulvey identifies two processes that transform *****the look***** into a sexual gaze: voyeurism and fetishistic scopophilia. Use these not only as a feminine (or feminist) *****˜way of looking*****, but also as a feminine/feminist way of reading and analyzing *****The Use of Force.***** Rather than simply assuming that there is only one *****˜truth***** (your initial reading) proceed from a woman*****s point of view and throughout your essay, determine how this new identifying point affects your analysis. *****
How to Reference "Williams' the Use of Force and Mulvey" Essay in a Bibliography
“Williams' the Use of Force and Mulvey.” A1-TermPaper.com, 2010, https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/williams-use-force/9325602. Accessed 28 Sep 2024.
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