the country doctor by francis Kafkas (Essay Sample)

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8 October 2009.
A Country Doctor
Challenges
‘A Country Doctor’ is a short story set using first person narrative. The reader is transitioned through the various experiences and predicaments in one evening of a doctor life. The story begins when the doctor is called to tend to a patient. The story then unravels various obstacles which hinder the attempts of the doctor to access and tend to the patient. The doctor has to address all these obstacles if he is to succeed in his duty as a doctor and employer.
The first challenge comes from lack of transportation. The doctor is distressed over the fact that he cannot get to the patient. The story is set in a remote environment and there is a snow storm. This implies that the doctor cannot travel on foot. The only other alternative form of transport is his horse but the doctor cannot use it because it is dead (Kafka & Gazaeva 40).
The second challenge comes after the doctor manages to reach the patient. The doctor suspects that the patient who is a young man is feigning illness. Nevertheless the young mans’ family still expects the doctor to heal him (Kafka & Gazaeva 41). The young man has given up and wants to die. However the doctor has to pretend to heal him.
The third challenge comes after the doctor unravels the source of the young mans’ ailment. After inspecting the young man, the doctor observes a festering wound on the young mans’ side. When the patient sees the wound, tables turn and the patient no longer wants to die. The doctor knows that futility of the situation but he pretends to be busy administering patient care so as to give the family hope. This seems to work and the young mans’ family seems to relax.
The fourth challenge the doctor faces in the story is how to save his servant girl from a supernatural being called the groom. The doctor leaves the servant girl, Rose, at home and goes to tend to the patient. Rose is a loyal servant girl and is depicted as a brave and caring character. She goes outside in the middle of a snow storm to find a means for the doctor to use to travel to his patient. The groom was behind the doctor means of transport after converting pigs to horses. The doctor perceives that he cannot save the servant girl from such a powerful being.
Frustrations
The doctor is frustrated when it appears that he cannot reach the patient due to the snow storm. The doctor is flustered because he has no means of transport after he discovers his horse is dead. Chances of seeing the patient and tending to him, narrow considerably after his servant girl fails to acquire another horse from the village. The doctor cannot travel by foot because of the snow storm and the long distance to the young man’s home.
The patients’ family expects the doctor to heal the patient. In the beginning of the examination the doctor suspects that the young man is feigning illness. The young man confides that he wants to die but the doctor has to pretend to heal him so as not to break patient confidentiality (Kafka & Gazaeva 32). The doctor is frustrated when he has to pretend that the patient is sick even though he is not sick.
Later on the doctor discovers a festering terminal wound on the young mans’ side. The young man no longer wants to die and he pleads with the doctor to heal him. This time the doctor is powerless. The doctor has to pretend that he is treating him so as to offer the patient and his family some solace.
The doctor is frustrated when he has to choose between leaving the servant girl Rose, with the groom and seeing his patient. The doctor realizes that he cannot overpower the groom and therefore he has little choice when the groom insists on being left with Rose. The transportation of the doctor back to his house depends on the grooms’ supernatural powers. The doctor is frustrated when he realizes that he cannot save his servant girl (Grey 183).
Country Doctor as a Nightmare
The ‘country doctor’ qualifies as a night mare. The story unfolds from a number of interwoven events similar to a dream. It unravels a number of interconnected events. The ‘country doctor’ qualifies as a nightmare because it unravels several frustrations in a doctors’ life and offers no reprieve from the predicaments (Weiss 235).
Themes
The story highlights responsibility to duty (Weiss 242). Rose goes to the village in the middle of a blizzard to g...