Richard Selzer's "The Discus Thrower" uses extremely visual language. One of the images that the doctor uses is that he spies on his patients. Furthermore the title "The Discus Thrower" is giving the reader a vision of what the patient looked like when he threw his breakfast plate across the room. Word choices that stuck in my head for days after reading are used when the doctor is inspecting the patients wounds and he talks about what the patient is probably thinking .These visualizations give the reader a more in-depth view of what is going on in the story and helps them to imagine what it would be like to actually be there.
             All doctors monitor their patients, especially patients that are in bad health like the patient in "The Discus Thrower", who had recently had his legs amputated. Richard Selzer refers to this monitoring as spying because the patients are unaware of his presence. His word choice gives the reader a notion that he would rather not have the patients see him, almost like he wants to get his work done, but not get too personal. The reason he does not get too personal with his patient is that he knows that the man will die soon, and doctors cannot be depressed about someone dying because it could affect their work performance.
             The patient had given up on life. He seemed dull and sad for most of the story. He had also tried to stop eating. When food came he would open it, look at it, probe it, and then throw it against the wall. Then he laughs. It seems that the only way that he can find joy is to throw plates at walls. This is where Selzer's word choice for the title comes from, because when the man is throwing the plate "He lifts the plate in both hands, sets it on the palm of his right hand, centers it, balances it. He hefts it up and down slightly, getting the feel of it. Abruptly, he draws back his right are as far as he can." (264-265) The patient is using tech...