In the poem "To the Doctor who Treated the Raped Baby and who Felt Despair" by Finuala Dowling, read the first statement: "I just wanted to say on...

Dowling becomes a voice of all the ordinary people going about their ordinary lives when she says she is speaking "on behalf of us all." The poem juxtaposes the horrible event of a doctor having to treat a raped baby with images of many good, ordinary people going about the business of their lives. Dowling is, she implies, speaking for the parent who has left "a light on in the hall," for a "nervous little sleeper." In other words, a parent exhibiting compassion for a child's night fears. She is also speaking for a simple shepherd singing a lullaby in "the veld" and women breastfeeding their babies and an uncle waking up "bleary-eyed" in the middle of the night to feed a baby. People read stories to children and a "grandpa" with "thin legs" walks around holding a fussy (colicky) baby. These acts all illustrate unselfishness, compassion, and sympathy for the young. All of these people, the poet says, rested easier--ie, "slept in trust," a phrase repeated twice for emphasis-- because the doctor was there to tend the baby. They are better off for the fact "that you [the doctor] would do what you did/that you would do what you did," a line also repeated twice for emphasis.

Although the poet never comes out and says that all these people thank the doctor, that gratitude is implied in the final lines that note what the doctor did. The poem is, in effect, a gift to the doctor, telling him not to despair as he asks the question "Where is God?"

The cumulative effect of the plural pronouns, coupled with the vignettes that capture, in a few vivid images, the contrast to a brutal rape through loving, nurturing people caring for children, becomes a chorus of sorts that counters the horror of what the doctor has just experienced. The doctor, quietly heroic, although just doing his job, fills these people with trust that they live in a society where an injured, abused child can get  care. Yes, there is horror in the world, but there are also other voices telling other stories that perhaps will alleviate the doctor's despair.