A spoon (symbol)
“A smooth-handled spoon” is a symbol of violence. The doctor did his best to persuade the child to open her mouth, so that he could have a look at a throat. It didn’t work; the girl was too stubborn for her own good. He tried to get “the wooden tongue depressor between her teeth,” but she fought “desperately.” The man started to grow “furious” at the child. Her mouth was “already bleeding” when he made up his mind to go “through with this.” “Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some sort,” he said and the battle began.
The child (allegory)
The child is allegory of defiance. The girl was “very sick,” high fever, fatigue, and a burning throat were bad signs. Children were dying of diphtheria everywhere. Though she felt bad, the girl refused to tell her parents that her throat was “sore.” She “fought valiantly” to keep the doctor “from knowing her secret.” She had been hiding a sore throat “for three days at least and lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.” She could die but it didn’t seem to bother her at all.
Violence (motif)
The doctor wanted to help that “savage brat,” but the child had already risen “to magnificent heights of insane fury of effort bred of her terror.” The doctor had already seen “two children lying dead in bed of neglect in such cases,” so he felt that he had to get to a diagnosis “now or never.” “But the worst of it” was that he “too had got beyond reason.” The doctor felt that he “could have torn the child apart” in his own “fury” and “enjoyed it.” It was “pleasure to attack her.” His face was “burning with it.”
