"The Use of Force" is a work of short fiction by the American author William Carlos Williams.[1] It was first published in his short story collection Life Along the Passaic River (1938); it is also available in The Doctor Stories (1984), a collection of Williams' fiction.[2]
While most of Williams’s short stories remain relatively unknown, “The Use of Force” has been widely anthologized since 1950, establishing it as part of the American literary canon.[3] “The Use of Force” has been termed “Williams’s most popular story.”[4]
