“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can 't be any large-scale revolution until there 's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It 's got to happen inside first,” Jim Morrison. In the play, W;t by Margaret Edson we have a middle aged professor that is diagnosed with terminal cancer and we watch her deal with this disease, alone. We also witness her doctor’s resident, Dr. Jason Posner interact with her much life she has interacted with others in her life. At times we all forget the much needed human component to humanity and deal with subject matters that are …show more content…
Jason Posner in her approach to life. She is very rigid, dedicated, and resistance. In the end what brought her peace was not her wok she dedicated all her life to, but other people, which is voided from her life. I will look at the Dr. Vivian Bearing and Dr. Jason Posner and explore their similarities and the final realization that you really never really give up your ability to feel, but rather wore a mask to disguise it. Vivian and Jason are both scholars and have lived their lives of the mind giving up others in pursuit of intelligence. When Vivian is being informed of her advanced ovarian cancer and what she has to endure, her reply is, “ Oh, I have to be very tough. It appears to be a matter, as saying goes, of life and death. I know all about life and death. I am, after all, a scholar of Donne’s Holy Sonnets, which explore mortality in greater depth than any other body of work in the English language. I know I am tough. A demanding professor. Uncompromising. Never one to turn from a …show more content…
I think she does this because it brings her comfort and her whole life she dedicated to these works. It is almost as if it is a close friend of hers. As the treatment progresses and she is doing medically worse where the audience can now she the strain that she is under, we also see where she starts to realize the true meaning behind her work. The true meaning of life and suffering and death. The nurse, Susie is the first time that we see compassion from the medical team and Vivian responses of realizing that research and scholarly studies actually means very little in the larger scheme of life. Vivian actually realizes that life is about uncertainties and she cannot hide behind her scholar mask any longer and confides in Susie about her feelings. Vivian realizes a valuable lesson, that research is not the most important thing in life, but rather life, “I can’t believe my life has become so corny. But it can’t be helped. I don’t see any other way. We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract, either; we are discussing my life and my death, and my brain is dulling, and poor Susie’s was never so sharp to begin with, and I can’t conceive of any other..tone… now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness. I thought being extremely smart would take care of it. But I see that have been found out (Edson, 69) Vivian no longer finds comfort from scholarly sonnets, but rather
As we near the end of the book, however, we see a change in Vivian. “One day, to everyone’s shock and amazement except Molly’s, Vivian announces that she wants to get a computer” (Kline 263). This quote shows a little about Vivian opening up to the new world and she is no longer isolating herself.
Chapter Seven lightly touches upon the death of AIDS patients, and the stigmatism's and rejection they may face, but also exhibits the patients' ability to control their moment of death. The joy which a family can gain when there is an open acceptance of a loved ones death is visible in Chapter Eight as John's f...
?If you remain imprisoned in self denial then days, weeks, months, and years, will continue to be wasted.? In the play, 7 stories, Morris Panych exhibits this denial through each character differently. Man, is the only character who understands how meaningless life really is. All of the characters have lives devoid of real meaning or purpose, although they each have developed an absurd point or notion or focus to validate their own existence. In this play, the characters of Charlotte and Rodney, are avoiding the meaninglessness of their lives by having affairs, drinking, and pretending to kill each other to enhance excitement into their life.
One of the main themes of this novel is the fight against cancer. All three of the main characters struggle with cancer. Hazel struggles with her terminal lung cancer, and Isaac has to have his eyes removed because of cancer. Augustus, who has already lost a leg to Osteoscarcoma, struggles with his cancer returning. However, they all learn through this that their cancer does not control them. They still live their lives to the fullest that they can, and make the best of what they have.
"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter features an elderly woman named Ellen Weatherall who faces her last moments alive recounting her memories and regrets. "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner introduces the reader to Emily Grierson, a gothic southern belle who lacks charm and dies somewhat alone. Both Ellen Weatherall and Emily Grierson share traits, but they also contrast from one another throughout their stories. Each author's stream of consciousness writing style invites the reader straight into the different minds of Weatherall and Grierson. Comparing and Contrasting the two women shows their unqiue traits and eccentric ways.
The short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut follows the story of a man and his wife, George and Hazel, who live in a society where everyone is equal in every way possible. This is not necessarily a good advancement because the people cannot express their uniqueness and there are severe repercussions if something of that nature does transpire. George and Hazel Bergeron had their child, Harrison, taken away from them due to his retaliation to the odd equality, but they were not even allowed to properly mourn or analyze the situation because the government banned their freewill and ability to think deeply. These two people and everyone else who lives in this world are forced to abide by rules placed by the authority and have no say in what is done to them. This story artistically demonstrates what freedom is not. As proclaimed in the short story, “They were burdened with sash-weights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” The people who live in this futuristic world have the weight of those sacks restricting them and this can also be seen in the metaphorical sense where the weight of having to follow strict rules and not being free falls onto their shoulders. They also don’t have the freedom to get rid of the objects which prevent them from being themselves. Jim Morrison once stated, “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.” The people written into this story are not being who they are and quite literally have to make use of a mask. They are not experiencing this important freedom. The sash-weights, for example, cannot be removed. It is stated in the story “Two years in prison and two
She makes herself believe that as a “physician” he knows what’s best for her and, therefore, acts passively, letting John control her even though she gets “unreasonably angry with” him (Gilman40). Writing in her journal is the only thing that keeps her sane; yet John takes that away from her: “I must put this away-he hates to have me write” (Gilman 41). The narrator yearns to confess to John how she really feels, but she prefers to keep her feelings bottled up: “I think sometimes that if I were to write a little it would relieve the pressure of ideas and rest me” (Gilman 42). Instead, she is passive and hides her emotions. “I cry at nothing and cry most of the time.
Vivian is characterized as a smart, sly, but not necessarily noble woman. In the end, it appears that Marlowe respects, but does not care for her. She is a...
From flashbacks in the play, it is easy to depict that Vivian lived the life characterized by an inhuman lack of empathy. As the play opens, flashbacks of Vivian interactions with students show her having a serious problem. She lashes at a student for his failure to give feedbacks to her questions and she also denies giving another student an extension for the assignment. After the student explains that her grandmother died, this is what she says to her “do what you will but the paper is due when it is due” (63). This lack of empathy and arrogance apparently is unsocial, but she adopts it while pretending/believing to be advocating for excellence from her students and would not take fabricated excuses. This portrays her as a cynical person, and one who only cares about the success of what she does, therefore, does not make necessary compromises for healthy relationships. She thus suffers a high level of rudeness and arrogance that makes it extremely d...
Instead of caring for her, they learned from her. In one scene, around four medical students were all touching her stomach at once while trying to learn more about her disease. On the other hand, the nurses are there to care for the paitent. The only one in the film who was ever nice to Vivian was her nurse, Susan Monahan. In order for a hospital to function, there needs to be physicans, nurses, and an administration team. The nurses are there to make sure the patients remain emotionally and physically stable. Susan Monahan simply kept Vivian company. Whenever Vivian was nauseaus or felt overwhelemed with coming to terms with the illness, Susan would make sure to comfort her. She took the time to get to know her personally, and was the first to know that Vivian did not wish to be resisitated when her heart stopped beating. This was a very difficult decision that Vivian had to make, yet it was what she
...s a moment when she starts to see the true meaning but doesn’t want to accept it at first, which is evident from the groaning and “hiding.” However, at the end of the play and the end of her life, Vivian is ready to accept this truth that she herself is living out the same life as the speakers in Donne’s poems and begins “reaching for the light –“ (Edson 66).
changing attitudes toward life and the other characters in the play, particularly the women; and his reflection on the
She became a nurse because she was always interested in promoting and optimizing health and the prevention of illnesses. She wanted to be there for all others who were going through an illness to help alleviate their pain and help facilitate their healing process. Most importantly, She wanted to advocate for others who could not advocate for themselves, especially the elderly or those who suffer from a terminal illness like cancer. She wanted to be their voice and to make sure they got exactly what they wanted and desired. Ashly said “I wanted to be the compassionate and selfless nurse that any patient would want to have and I strive daily to be that person for my patients.” The reasons for me wanting to become a nurse are similar to Ashly’s reasons. When I do become a nurse, I want to be the best nurse possible. I never want to see a patient as an object. I want to treat each individual with the respect and care every human
At the beginning of the play, although Vivian knows she gets cancer, she does not become anxious and frustrated. On the contrary, she is calm and seems affirmative to defeat the cancer. She does not completely understand the complicated medical terms and treatments that Dr.Kelekian provides, but she still tries to use her knowledge to find lexical parallelism and doctor’s incorrect explanation of insidious. “Insidious means treacherous” (Edson 8). “Insidious. Hmm. Curious word choice. Cancer. Cancel” (Edson 8). Vivian does not want to admit her ignorance in medical, so she...
‘Whose life is it anyway?’ follows the story of ‘Ken Harrison’, a man who tries to exercise a choice over his own life or death after being completely paralysed from the head down. Harrison received these horrific injuries after being involved in a car accident 4 months before the story starts. He is now in constant care within the hospitals walls being treated and cared for by the medical profession. The play centres on Harrison’s determination to exercise a choice over his own life or death with the medical bureaucracy fiercely opposing. The play leads as he takes the medical staff to court to try and exercise this right officially.