What three words describe the setting of "The Use of Force" by William Carlos Williams?

Three words that describe the setting in William Carlos Williams's "The Use of Force" are "remote," "rural," and "hostile."

The short story takes place in a remote setting. The narrator is a country doctor who is attempting to offer in-home care to a child who is potentially sick with diphtheria. There has been an outbreak at the local school, but there seems to be a lack of a centralized location for medical care. This means the doctor must be the one to travel to see those who may need help.

Another word, somewhat related to the first one, that describes the setting is "rural." William Carlos Williams provides a glimpse at life in a very small town, where doctors make house calls and offer help with whatever they have with them. The reader can almost see the country doctor, traveling with a small bag of possible remedies, attempting to cure nearly anything under the sun in the best way that the doctor can. If a patient would need something other than what the doctor has brought, it will mean another trip to the house, which could mean that the patient's condition would worsen before the doctor manages to return. Because of the rural setting, the reader is able to see a way of life that used to exist, and still exists for many with less privilege.

Finally, the setting feels very hostile. The patient, a young child, is immediately adversarial to the doctor because she is scared. While the doctor attempts to be empathetic and understanding, he begins to react more and more aggressively, and eventually even in a primal fashion, toward the child. Meanwhile the two parents are also being very hostile, attempting to shame the child into better behavior. All of these approaches devolve into a very physical struggle, and by the end of the story the doctor has gotten his answer, but he is ashamed for the way in which he went about obtaining it.

What is the setting of "The Use of Force"?

Although "The Use of Force" is a work of fiction, it is based on the actual experiences of William Carlos Williams, who was a doctor, specializing in pediatrics and family medicine, as well as a writer. It was originally published in a collection of short stories Life Along the Passaic River in 1938.

The story is set in Rutherford, New Jersey, where Williams lived and practiced, a then somewhat rural part of New Jersey relatively close to New York City. Its setting was "contemporary," in the sense of being contemporaneous with the period in which it was written (i.e., the late 1930s).

The action of the story takes place in the kitchen of the Olsen family farmhouse. The doctor is making a house call to a poor rural family. The kitchen is the warmest room in the house and serves as a center of family life for rural families.

What is the setting of "The Use of Force"?

The setting of the story is the kitchen of the Olson house in the mid- to late-thirties. 

Their Olson’s little girl Matilda is sick, so they call a doctor.  The girl is in the kitchen because that is the warmest place in the house.  This indicates that the story takes place a long time ago, before there was central heat.  The doctor’s visit only costs three dollars, but that is a lot to the family.  The story was published in 1938, so that fits.

They were new patients to me, all I had was the name, Olson. Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter is very sick.

An important part of the story is the presence of diphtheria, a dangerous respiratory bacterial disease, in the child’s school.  Without the diphtheria and the poverty, the story would likely have been very different.  It was the danger of the situation that caused the parents to allow the doctor to be so forceful with their child that he actually caused bleeding in her mouth.  The fact that the doctor was getting pleasure from hurting the little girl aside, the parents were much more worried that she was sick.

The setting is also important because the fact that the child is hiding the diphtheria is likely due to the barbaric nature of the procedure, from examining her throat to removing the membrane on her tonsils.