” Country Doctor,’ written by Franz Kafka, is an intriguing story about a doctor who gets a call on a winter’s night to assist a patient in a nearby village. The short story depicts the difficulties, challenges, and frustrations that come with being a doctor. The protagonist of the story has to get to his destination to examine a young man, but he encounters several obstacles that throw him off course. In addition to the difficulties and challenges, there are themes in the story that relate to life. Working hard and having to accomplish feats that seem insurmountable are examples of the themes portrayed in the story. The story itself seems like a nightmare. At first there does not seem to be anything afflicting his patient, but soon after realizes his patient is severely wounded. ‘The Country Doctor’ is a complex story filled with difficulties, challenges, themes, and a nightmarish feel.
There are different challenges the protagonists faces in the story. First of all, the physician is waiting at his home to visit a patient, who lives some ten miles from his home. He has no means to get to his patient, as his only horse passed away the night before. Right away he is faced with an obstacle. He has no mode of transportation, and the distance and weather do not work in his favor. Ten miles in the dead of winter is a difficult task to overcome. The doctor was needed at a certain location, and had no practical way to get to work. The frustration level was presumably at a high. It appeared the protagonist received some divine intervention. As he was combing his sty, the doctor came across a strange groom, or stable helper, and two horses. Good and bad both came out of the miracle. He obtained a mode of transportation, but the groom was a bizarre character, and kissed the doctor’s maid, Rosa. He chastises the groom, but then comes to the realization that he cannot upset him; he is in debt. The groom does not travel with the doctor. He instead stays back to be with Rosa, who is terrified of him. A second challenge the doctor faces is dealing with his patient. When he reaches the patient, he finds the afflicted is a young boy. The boy says to him, ‘doctor, let me die.’ This alone is a difficult decision and challenge. What would a doctor do if presented with that question from a patient? It was a difficult situation, to say the very least, and the doctor had a terribly frustrating decision to make: help the boy or leave him to die. Although he thought he needed to make a choice, the doctor initially finds nothing wrong with the patient, and diagnoses the young man with a clean bill of health.
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The results from the study show that most of the patients are served within five minutes upon their arrival at the hospital. Taking an overview look on the results, it emerges that medical personnel in Netherlands serve their patients faster than their counterparts in Saudi Arabia. However, it is discouraging to find out that the percentage that is served beyond five minutes after the arrival is ...
A third challenge presented to the doctor was the boy’s actual affliction. The doctor notices the boy’s sister holding a towel drenched in blood. The doctor then discovers a deep wound in the boy’s right side. Imagine having to be responsible for mending a bloody, maggot-infested, gaping wound. The family of the patient is happy to see the doctor working, but it was not an easy task. The horses outside somehow broke free of their reigns, made loud noise and opened the windows, distracting the doctor from his work. The doctor determines that the wound is non-life threatening, and the boy will indeed live. The final challenge the doctor faces is betrayal. He feels humiliated by the people in the village, as they expect so much from him at all times and he is only a human being. His horses are now too tired and worn out to take him home, and he must now travel back on foot and in shame. Working for the community for practically his whole life and living in a society that is dependant on him and his medicine, the doctor is less than happy and feels abandoned by his environment.
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The Research Findings, writing in a dramatic situation in this short story there are some things to consider, i. e. (1) know who Ernest Hemingway, as a short story writer come from America, (2) where setting in that time he wrote in this short story, short story in this setting was in a hospital, in Milan Italy, and was happening in World War I, and the last (3) where was this short story included ...
As stated before, the story is very surreal, and becomes like a nightmare. At the beginning, the doctor is seen as the savior; the only person who can save this young man with a sickness. When he arrives, nothing is wrong, but upon further examination, the boy has a serious wound and it is disgusting. Not only is it a deep gash, there are maggots and worms inside it. Those types of creatures are generally associated with bad feelings and nightmares. The doctor goes from being the hero and savior to the shame and laughingstock of the town. Nightmares are often ‘good dreams gone bad,’ or in other words go from calm and serene to hellish. Along with the nightmarish atmosphere to the story, there are themes in the story. The first theme present is dependence. The whole community relies on the doctor so much that he needs to go ten miles for a call. The reliance however is not just on the doctor. Medicine in general is essential for life, and the concern for religion and God is basically set aside for the importance in society for medicine. Another theme that is relevant in this story is hard work. The doctor worked very hard to get to where he was, and unfortunately it was all for naught. He was paramount in the community, but the villagers ‘expected the impossible’ from him. Because of his status as a doctor, he ‘fell from grace,’ in a sense.
Overall, ” Country Doctor’ is a story filled with challenges, frustrations, difficulties, themes, and a nightmarish feel. At first he cannot reach his patient, as he has no way to get to him. The doctor then has to deal with the patient, who wants the doctor to end his life. After that, the doctor must cure the patient with the wound, and then be regarded as the shame of the town. Each challenge presented certain frustrations and difficulties, but the doctor seemed to have met them all. The nightmarish feel of the story remains constant, and the themes of dependence and hard work are present. ” Country Doctor’ is intriguing, and Kafka did a masterful job of placing the elements and themes into his work.
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Citations
Manson, Aaron. ” Theology of Illness: Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor.’ Literature and Medicine. Fall 2005. Vol. 24, issue two. P.297.
Aull, Felice and Coulehan, Jack. ‘Kafka, Franz: A Country Doctor.’ Literature Annotations. 1993. < http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=37>
Suchoff, David. “Ein Landarzt [A Country Doctor]”. The Literary Encyclopedia. 2 February 2007. [http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14611, accessed 25 November 2008.]
