A Country Doctor

In these two stories “The Country doctor” and “A Country Doctor,” it is possible to derive a sense of stress the doctor’s faced in their profession. Both doctors tend to go out of their way to fulfill their duty as a doctor. The stories describe the crazy journey taken by the doctors to reach their patient so they could be treated. This sense of stress and determination that the country doctor is put through can be seen in Turgenev’s and Kafka’s parable. The weather plays a crucial part to br

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When the doctor finds the groom with his two fantastic horses, he is pleased, but afraid of what this “brute” is going to do to his servant girl. The family of this young boy eagerly waits for the doctor to put an ease to the boys pain, who are "always expecting the impossible from the doctor" (Kafka 13). His attempt to escape leaves him stranded in the waste of winter, unable ever again to reach his home and office--naked, exposed to the elements, drifting aimlessly--lost, deserted, betrayed. “I am no world reformer and so I let him lie. With this it can be seen that the country doctors in these two stories share a common trend of anxiety as well as acceptance of what their work leads them to do without much satisfaction in the end. Kafka could have used Turgenev’s story to show that a doctor is always held to be responsible and it has been going on this way for centuries. Turgenev brings about the emotional terror the doctor goes through knowing he could not cure his patient whom he loved. The country doctor being stranded in a snowstorm, knowing that the ordinary means of transportation have broken down, and sending his servant girl out for help, who comes back without success--all these make us think of the country doctor as a beleaguered fellow human being. Note the doctor's determination to treat the ominous and surreal as if it were normal--to give due acknowledgment to the satisfactory or "correct" aspects of experience: "A magnificent pair of horses, I observed, such as I had never sat behind, and I climbed in happily" (Kafka 11).

The doctors in both stories tend to reflect upon a certain situation that anguishes them and leads to their feeling of complete hopelessness in their profession. The realization that the patient is left on hope and the doctor can not do anything to be the savior, scares the doctor. The doctor fears that he is going to lose her, and understands that not much could be done without Gods help. The country doctor at first is unable to figure out his patient’s condition. The weather is mentioned in Kafka’s story as well.

Common topics in this essay:
Turgenevs Kafkas, Country Doctor, Kafka Turgenevs, Franz Kafka, , country doctor, fulfill duty, duty doctor, sense stress, kafka wrote, doctor stories, gods help, stories share, short stories, turgenev 2,

Approximate Word count = 1182
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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