Wit by Margaret Edson: A Play on Vivian Bearing's Journey, Study notes of Literature

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Wit

Margaret Edson

Some details

• (^) Wit won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize.
• (^) It had a very successful run starring Judith Light.
• (^) Margaret Edson has written one other unproduced play, but is a sixth-grade social studies teacher by profession.
• (^) In 1985 she took a job as a clerk on an oncology/AIDS unit at a research hospital in Washington. The unit was doing clinical trials of the drug AZT for AIDS patients and developing new protocols for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Postmodern elements

• (^) This text demonstrates an awareness of

its own textuality. See Vivian on p. 30:

“If I were writing this scene, it would last

a full fifteen minutes.”

• (^) Even as the play invokes great English

literature, it acknowledges its own

status as literature.

Vivian Bearing, Ph.D.

• (^) Why is Vivian so isolated?
• (^) What do you know about her family

background?

• (^) What do we know about her,

personally?

• (^) For Vivian, intellectual progress and

imparting critical skills are the most

important things in life.

• (^) She continues to believe this, even as

she grows to understand the value of

compassion. She understands--even

respects--the fact that the doctors see

her as research.

Power Relationships

• (^) Vivian is a powerful character.
• (^) Over the course of the play she moves

from a position of control to a position of

dependency; the sphere of her power

shrinks.

• (^) Jason, her former student, becomes the

expert.

Vivian’s disease

• (^) Ovarian cancer is appropriate because:
  • (^) It calls attention to her femininity, which has always been repressed;
  • (^) It is extremely lethal, partly because it often goes diagnosed until late stages, like Vivian’s. That is why the doctors are so committed to her treatment as “research”-- this is a cancer for which there is no good treatment.

Susie

• (^) What is Susie’s role in the play?
  • (^) She is the voice of compassion.
  • (^) She is also the only person after the initial interview with Dr. Kelekian who gives Vivian any information.
  • (^) She defends Vivian’s choice to be DNR.
  • (^) Susie is the balance to Jason and Vivian.

Donne vs. Runaway Bunny

• (^) Emphasizes uncertainty;
• (^) Focuses on questions about God and salvation;
• (^) Driven by anxiety.
  • (^) Emphasizes certainty;
  • (^) Gives the comforting answer;
  • (^) Suggests that God is so self-evident that it becomes a non-issue (“have a carrot”).

Some Notes about Donne

• (^) John Donne is one of the metaphysical poets (17th c.). His poetry is characterized by paradoxes, irony, and dislocations.
• (^) He was an Anglican priest, somewhat against his will: King James I insisted that Donne take orders because he enjoyed Donne’s sermons so much.
• (^) Lucy, Countess of Bedford, was Donne’s patroness.