?The Insane?

Discussion questions: Williams, "The Insane" (first publ. 1938)

1. Is this story about how young doctors learn empathy? About problems with modern life? About wisdom being passed from one generation to the next? About our expanding medical knowledge?

2. The 21st-century reader probably knows a lot more about schizophrenia than either of these doctors, and may also have some issues with the representation of the mother as an easily shocked, ignorant figure on the periphery of things. Can this story still work today, despite those old-fashioned touches?

3. Why might Williams have chosen not to use quotation marks or even identify the speaker in most of his stories' dialogue?