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While reading through Wit I found the emphasis on words and their meaning to be an integral part of the play. Keaveney’s article further cemented many of the connections I had drawn between the ways Vivian would deconstruct meanings and how those around her showed their intent through their manner of addressing her. I had missed the initial switch between Kelekian’s addressing her as Miss to Doctor but found that to be a great illustration of his new perspective on his patient. Vivian’s attitude and ability face down tragedy with grim humor was endearing in a Sherlock Holmes/ Dr. House sort of way. Over the course of the play, she gradually breaks down physically and emotionally, in her final moments she is extremely vulnerable with Susie and it is a greatly emotional scene, bringing together her past and present nicely. While I found the final scene to be exceedingly brutal it really showed how Vivian’s struggle between life and death was irrelevant in the grander scheme of things. Continuing the theme of naming, Susie tries to stop the Code Team, telling them she is DNR. To Susie, Vivian was an individual with her own wishes and volition. Jason refers to Vivian as research. She’s simply a puzzle to be solved, a culture sample of this “awesome” cancer. Jason’s horror at his mistake is one that I find intriguing. The play itself does not go into detail on why he is reacting as he does. Is it the realization that he has scarred his career with this mistake? The fact that he is desecrating and violating this corpse by his actions. Perhaps it’s because he sees how disconnected he has been from his patients. I like to think it’s a combination of these reasons.
ReplyDeleteEnrique Perez
In dissecting Margaret Edson’s ‘Wit’ and the accompanying article I found copious amounts of irony. I found it ironic that despite Dr. Bearing being a logophile, it is words that begin to fail her as her body deteriorates. This break down of language and the physical form serve to gradually humanize Vivian, leaving her former, tough as nails professor persona to fall by the wayside. At the outset of the play and sprinkled throughout in flashbacks we are confronted by Vivian’s lack of empathy. The irony of how she is treated in the hospital was not lost on me. The staff, with the exception of Susie, treat Vivian as more of a number than an actual person, much the way she treated her students. It is also apparent with the number of visitors that come, or rather, don’t come to visit that she is a bit of a hard customer. One could also glean that her treatment by her former student reflects how she treated him and therefore he treats her with a somewhat cold bedside manner. At first, I had a hard time empathizing with Vivian but in the end, empathy was all I would feel for her. This week’s play hits very close to home as my best friend is dying from Stage IV metastatic bone and breast cancer. She has been fighting this disease off and on for nearly twenty-four years, but it is now apparent that she will indeed succumb to this painful, debilitating, destructive, and ultimately deadly disease. Watching her body deteriorate as she musters all her strength to keep fighting is both heartbreaking and inspirational. The difference here is that while both Dr. Bearing and my friend Ronnie are both educators and are both dying from cancer Ronnie has led a life full of compassion and has always been the one to put a smile on every face that she’s encountered. Ronnie sometimes gets so many visitors to her bedside that her sisters have to turn folks away. My heart broke for Vivian in the final scenes thinking about her lonely departure from this world without friends or family to comfort her. I suppose you get what you give in the end. I know for a fact that on the day that my best friend makes her transition to the afterlife she will be surrounded by friends and family unlike Vivian.
ReplyDeleteJulietta Rivera
The best art gives us a glimpse into the human condition in ways that could profoundly change our outlook, and in Margaret Edson’s “Wit,” Dr. Bearing has devoted her whole life to this cause by studying the inscrutable metaphysical poetry of John Donne, whose arcane texts require just as many footnotes to even attempt to decipher its byzantine themes. In one scene Vivian ruminates on how instead of suffering from terminal cancer, she could be lecturing students, short-circuiting their brains with Donne’s poetry, to which she remarks, “I could be so powerful” (540). However, Vivian’s prognosis and excruciating cancer treatments have enervated her body, mind, and spirit, slowly deteriorating her faculty for language, and as a result, her lifeforce. Her desire to obfuscate students mirrors the doctors use of jargon that is both clinical and impersonal. As Keaveney illustrates, “Her one and only real connection with Dr. Jason Posner is when she questions him about his fascination with cancer” (43). Every prior interaction between Jason and Vivian has operated under the pretenses of familiarity and cordiality, though the medical terminology has created a distance that Vivian tries to break through, as she attempts to decipher their coded language as she has done with Donne. Similarly, Jason’s unrelenting (and unethical) cancer research is driven by the desire to unlock the mystery of cancer, the most daunting of puzzles that has yet to be cracked. As Vivian inches closer to death in the play, language for her no longer revolves around erudite matters, but rather towards the interpersonal, and as capacity for words diminishes, her desire for simple human connection takes precedent. However, very early on Vivian chose “uncompromising scholarly standards” (522) over meaningful human interaction, and thus, only has Donne’s poems as a form of solace.
ReplyDelete- Christian Martinez
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure what to say about Margaret's Edson's play, “Wit”. There were some problems I encountered while reading the play. I notcied that the play kept trying to disguise itself as a non fiction story but in reality it's merely a work of fiction. I wanted to sympathize with the fictitious character Vivian, but Edson wrote the play in first person. In the article it said she worked as a unit clerk in an aids and cancer treatment wing of research. I can see that's where the got the ideas for her characters Jason, Susie and Kelekian. I failed to connect with the play in an emotional level, maybe if it was changed to third person like at the end. In the article Keaveney talks about out how the play uses language and humor to help the reader deal with death. There was a part in the play I found funny where Vivian uses her English professor powers and attempts to correct Dr. Kelekian interpretation on insidious, “insidious means treacherous.” (517). Also I like how Vivian talks to the audience and let's them what's going to happen in the upcoming scene. Edson also has this line where Vivian jokes about tragedy in a play, “and I was dismayed to discover that the play would contain elements of….humor. “(516). This reminded me of Aristotle's/Plato idea of tragedy. Where u need pathos, some sort of sympathy for the one undergoing the pathos /suffering. I maybe would have sympathized more if the play was in third person and was true.
Danny Olivarez
Wit is somewhat different from all the other plays that we have studied up to this point. It is hard for me to identify it, for it has a way of delivering a message. The protagonist, Dr. Vivian Bearing, a rather unempathetic, aloof, and callused, becomes a victim of her own thought process as she herself is treated with indifference and as science project by most of the medical staff. It is a tragic play in which Vivian soon realizes that logic, practicality and intellect cannot save her like she thought it could, and she yearns for that human connection that she probably lacked for most of her life. To be treated with such apathy by others similar to herself gave her a drastic wake up time in her time of needing basic human comfort and decency. The most tragic part is that even if death it took time for them to let her go, with Jason saying that would lose “research” if they let her die, even when Vivian requested that they not resuscitate her.
ReplyDeleteThe point of view was a bit confusing for me at some parts and I’m not sure I buy completely into it. At the same time, I think I know what the author was trying to do; having Vivian become part time self-aware narrator of her own story of how she died to better relate to the audience and have them sympathize with her. The message of life and death also better correlates because these subjects are something we all have in common, which is fearing death. And this makes the play all the more powerful.
Mirella Martinez
Margaret Edson’s “Wit” is by far my favorite play of the course so far, a tough role to take I would say considering that “Zoot Suit” is a longtime favorite. I must admit that at first glance I felt an odd disconnect to the structure of the piece, specifically how seemingly aware of the dramatic nature of her own story that Vivian possessed. However, considering the interweaving themes of John Donne’s poetry and Vivian’s own studies the aforementioned element felt fitting.
ReplyDeleteKeaveney summarizes the nature of Vivian’s monologue rich, I am purposely neglecting use of the term “heavy” here, exploration of her final scenes as it were with the following statement: “In addition to. being able to use words as companions in times of difficulty, the language also helps her to face her own impending death.” (Page 5 of 6). I’m suggesting that this is a direct parallel to the metaphysical poetry, specifically Donne’s own poetry, of Vivian’s studies. The reader gets the clearest sense of this during the discussion that Vivian has with one of her students on page 547, in which the student starts to make the connection that perhaps Donne lived in the “agile wit” of his poetry as a means to hide from the fear and confusion; the student too suggests that it could all be put more simply.
Phrased differently, Vivian is struggling with her draw to wit and word as a means to understand her fate in contrast to the “physical and psychological and language connection” made with Susie as means of reprieve/understanding.
Joaquin Castillo Jr
One aspect of the play I found intriguing after reading Keaveney’s article is how language is used to show character development. Bearing’s character does develop as a character mostly due to how she learns “ultimately, what it means to be human” (Keaveney 1). Her character is shown at first as someone who understands Donne’s works, and literature overall, but does not understand “the whole human being” (Al-Solaylee). However, there are small instances when we are able to see how she slowly starts dealing with and understanding her mortality.
ReplyDeleteSome of the biggest instances where readers see character development is through Bearing’s exchanges with Susie. Readers see until halfway through the play Bearing is not too friendly or comfortable with other’s friendliness. This is shown when Susie touches Vivian’s arm and offers to check up on Bearing once in a while, since she does not have visitors but is said to be “Uncomfortable with kindness” (Edson 532). However, as Bearing’s pain worsens, she is forced to interact with others to figure out how to deal with her confusion about mortality. Bearing initially allows Susie to call her “sweetheart”, implying she normally would have corrected her (549). She also allows Susie to call her “honey,” hold her and shares a popsicle with her. Despite this, she still thinks her life has turned “corny” (551).
Bearing’s growth is also furthered through her conversation with Susie about being labeled DNR. Susie helps her decide to not be resuscitated. Bearing’s character is shown to grow the moment she realizes there is no more time for “verbal swordplay” and instead needs “simplicity” and even possibly “kindness”(552). One of her last dialogue exchanges with Susie marks the change of character. The two laugh about Susie and the word soporific. Rather than to remain serious, Bearing laughs it off and accepts pain relief, morphine, that Susie injects without fighting it. Her final actions show she has learned about and accepted death.
Zugay Trevino
I’ve met a couple of individuals who remind me of Vivian Bearing, our main character in Margaret Edson’s Wit. Meaning, there a more than a handful of people who possess remarkable and admirable levels of thought and knowledge for their areas of expertise, but they can come off as a kind of awkward (for lack of a better word) or aren’t the most welcoming people when it comes to casual conversation. The only thing that can put some spark into the conversation is to mention about anything about what they love, in this case, Bearing has quite the fascination with John Donne and his works. This is just something I found amusing as I was reading.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, it’s clear that Bearing has undergone years of studying and teaching to be a scholar of Donne and literature. This then brings up my post to talk about a sub-theme that I found within the work, and that theme is sacrifice mixed with a bit of reflection. Bearing at times seems to get lost in her own thoughts, especially in the beginning where she addresses the audience and brings up what the literary device of irony is. In addition, she will recite a poem with no textual references to look at and it’s like if she is reading strictly from memory. What I’m getting at here, is that throughout the play she will reminisce and flashback to a particular moment, most notably instances that will reinforce why she even fell in love with literature in the first place. However, the memory of her and E.M. Ashford shows some character development for Bearing because when Ashford advises that she should “go out” and enjoy some time with her friends, she immediately goes back to the library to redo her paper. This similar action is mirrored by Jason when Bearing asks, “Do you ever miss people?” (545). This shows that those who sacrifice themselves to their craft or jobs are at risk of losing interaction with others. In addition, the article even makes note of the exchange between Vivian and Jason when she asks him about what he thinks of cancer. As Keaveney states, that’s Vivian’s “one and only real connection” with the doctor (43).
P.J. Hernandez
Delete"When, for the first time, Vivian admits she is scared, Susie names her "honey," generally considered a term of endearment. (52). And, after Vivian cries, Susie addresses her as Vivian; at that point, they are two women on a first name basis." Madeline M Keaveney
ReplyDeleteI honestly didn't even realize the importance of the naming in "Wit" prior to reading the article. Looking back, however, I'm starting to see the importance of the nicknames and titles and what it shows about their characters. It is stated early on that Vivian is unmarried and childless, though I didn't once think: "The Miss is referring to the importance of the lonely life that she has lived." Because that does seem to be exactly what this is referring to. I originally just envisioned the titles as the typical "proper" ways that doctors refer to their patients. They seem to avoid the first-name speech until they've established a close enough relationship. Susie beginning that first-name relationship not only expresses their close relationship, but also shows that Vivian has finally overcome that loneliness. She's no longer a "Miss" that others recognize for her status as unmarried and childless, but rather the "Vivian" that is expressed through her mannerisms.
However, Susie referring to Vivian as "sweetheart" and Vivian speaking in a childlike manner when being offered a Popsicle shows that their relationship may be much different than a simple friendship. Without her parents both deceased and very little other family, who can Vivian rely on for comfort? The sheer loneliness of her situation seems to give her much more security that a simple friendship.
Michael McCormick