Clement 1

Haylie Clement
Mr. Hackney
English 101 Rhetoric
14 November 2014
The Bad Heart
Social classes are inevitable. There will always be a division amongst them. It is a
constant battle of discriminations, highlighting on the haves and the have-nots. The
structure of social classes is particularly seen in The Girl with a Pimply Face by William
Carlos Williams. The short story begins with a rich doctor being called to an apartment to check
on a familys baby. In this run down neighborhood, the doctor is greeted by a young, pimplefaced teenaged girl who he is immediately attracted to. She does not attend school. The doctor
returns later to the house when the Russian mother is home, to examine the sick baby. The baby,
according to the doctor, has a bad heart. The mother goes ballistic, offering the doctor all of the
money she has, even though this family has no money at all. When returning upon the doctors
colleagues, they classify the mother as a drunk. When the doctor has the final appointment with
the family, he tells the family the baby is better but in reality the heart is completely the same.
The young girl now attends school and has an acne-free face due to the ointment the doctor
provided, free of charge. In the short story, William Carlos Williams incorporates imagery,
point of view, and stereotypes to distinguish between a wealthy doctor and the views of a poor
Russian family.
Imagery such as the description of a pimply faced girl highlights on the quality of the
poor family. The teenage girl had dirt all on her body, along with a pimpled face. When the
doctor describes her, it is like she has not washed herself in some time. The doctor told her that

Clement 2
she had what they call acne all those blackheads and pimples(Williams 313). This suggests
a lack of personal hygiene the young girl portrays. Unlike a clean, middle to upper class person,
the girl feeds into the common image of a dirty and poor individual. Lois Tyson suggests in his
novel, Critical Theory Today, that the lower classes is naturally shiftless, lazy, and
irresponsible while those from a higher social class are presented as intelligent, trustworthy,
and responsible (55). The poorly cleaned girl would show and support Tysons idea of an
irresponsible person, due to the lack of cleansing herself. Thus, her appearance would show a
difference between her and the well put together doctor.
Similarly to imagery, the point of view from the doctor also demonstrates the differences
in social classes. The doctor, when arriving on the scene of the house, described the view from
his perspective. He illustrates the sights of smashed mailboxes on one side and a dark stair
leading straight up (Williams 311). In other words, the house has old, run down characteristics
that the doctor is not used to seeing. From his perspective, the view is ugly and is treated in a
poor light. Since he is a doctor and lives life with wealth, this sight is not to his amusement. On
the contrary, if an individual from this poor lifestyle were to see this house and describe it, they
would consider it normal. Lois Tyson explains in his novel that through present ideologies there
is a certain viewpoint people use to describe the world around them. Tyson states there are
natural ways of seeing the world by the people who subscribe to them (53). Moreover, Tyson
suggests that indeed the viewpoint of the rich doctor on a poor neighborhood would put a line
between his normal and the life of someone less fortunate. The point of view plays a role in the
perception of what is seen.
Although imagery and point of view distinguish between the rich and the poor,
stereotypes of the Russian family prove that there is a definite line in not only the social but

Clement 3
ethnic class. The drug addict who called the doctor for the sick baby, warned him by stating,
theyre foreigners and you know how they are (Williams 311). The intent of the caller was to
classify this family as outsiders. Rather than recognizing them only as a poor family, he used
their ethnicity as their main identifier. After the doctor had taken care of the family, he was
discussing personality of the mother with his colleagues. He finally realized that she had been
drinking (Williams 319), explaining her extreme measure of different behaviors. According to
one of the doctors colleagues, the mothers drunkenness was due to her Russian culture of
whiskey appetite (Williams 320). To further clarify, there is a relatively known stereotype for
Russians and their obsession of alcohol. Even if the mother was a drunk, using a stereotype
shows discrimination of her ethnicity. This in turn causes imperialism amongst culture (Tyson
50). Tyson explains that within imperialism, there is a need of domination of one nation to
another (Tyson 50). This would suggests that the rich doctor felt the dominant power when
discriminating against the Russian woman. The intolerance of the mother causes a split between
the two worlds.
Naturally, there are inevitable social divisions amongst classes. In The Girl with a
Pimply Face by William Carlos Williams, the author is able to provide a distinguishment
between the rich doctor and poor Russian family by using imagery, point of view, and
stereotypes. The doctor and the family will never be able to be presented under the same
spotlight because there are far too many differences seen within them, all due to their social
class.
Works Cited
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. New York: Garland, 1999. Print.
Williams, William Carlos. "The Girl with a Pimply Face." The Oxford Book of American Short

Clement 4
Stories. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. 310-22. Print.