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Mathilda Olson is the only character in the story whose full name is known, yet the narrator refers to her as “the child” or “the girl” except in one case, when he first asks her to open her mouth. The doctor reports Mathilda’s behaviors and her single outburst of words, and he interprets her motivations from his own point of view, guided by his own unquestioned assumptions. Because everything in the story is narrated through the limited lens of a possibly unreliable first-person narrator, readers must determine how completely to accept as accurate the doctor’s explanations of Mathilda’s behaviors.
The doctor describes the child as “unusually attractive” and “strong as a heifer.” Beyond these apparently objective details, however, the doctor’s portrayal of Mathilda strays into subjectivity when he not only reports what she does but makes unquestioned assumptions about why she does it. His assumptions are partly accurate—Mathilda clearly fears the doctor, and her illness has put her on guard. The doctor’s perspective of Mathilda is contradictory. He admires her strength of will and persistence so much that he falls “in love” with her, but he also sees her as savage, wild, and deceitful. On the one hand, he knows that the threat of diphtheria is nothing to her, and on the other, he convinces himself that she lied to her parents to avoid the diagnosis.
The Olsons’ reactions to Mathilda’s resistance suggest that she glimpses her ability to make them her allies in the battle with the doctor. As a child, she can’t fathom the terror that compels them to help the doctor complete an examination that violates her physical integrity and frightens her so deeply that her instinct for self-preservation causes her to fight the only way a powerless child can: kicking, screaming, writhing, and hitting.
