The doctor instantly takes a genuine and sympathetic interest in the older sister, who impresses him as a person of fine self-possession and innate intelligence, despite her coarse exterior.
[5][6][7] “The Girl With a Pimply Face”, one of Williams “doctor stories.” contrasts two sides of “institutional modern medicine,” represented on one hand by the physician-narrator, and his cynical medical colleagues on the other.
The narrator, while recognizing the backwardness of the poor Russian immigrant family he treats, discerns great potential in the character of their adolescent daughter, despite her blemished face and tough demeanor.
Literary critic Vivienne Koch detects the thematic center of the story: In "The Girl With the Pimply Face" there is a struggle between two sets of values.
It is this type of subtle revaluation of a crass popular morality, which reveals Williams as a writer with the greatest responsiveness to the questions of social ethics.”[8]Literary critic Marjorie Perloff notes the “fine irony” that closes “The Girl With a Pimply Face.”[9] The doctor-narrator, despite never receiving his two-dollar house call payment, is abundantly compensated for his “charity,” which gratifies and sustains him as a genuine health practitioner.