Margaret Edson's Wit

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Individuals use different coping mechanisms to deal with their problems. They can either be seen through emotions or their physical demeanor. This can be seen in Margaret Edson's play Wit, where the main character is faced with the fact that she has stage four metastatic ovarian cancer. Edson uses alienating techniques such as characterization, language, and irony to exhibit Vivian Bearing's actions, and reveal the thoughts she holds to show the effects her situation has on her. Edson uses characterization to show how Vivian uses her skills as a professor and researcher to reinterpret her hospital stay. For instance, Vivian acknowledges this is a play about herself and speaks of ideas of death found in her world of poetry. Vivian feels because she …show more content…

We begin to see her gain new insight into her problems after her encounters with fellow Posner. Vivian asks Posner, "Do you miss people?," (Edson, n.p). We begin to see how much Vivian has given away basic human contact because she'd rather be dealing with something she felt had more importance to her and now she sees Posner going down the same path she has. "The young doctor, like the senior scholar prefers to humanity. At the same time...the senior scholar, in her pathetic state as simpering victim...wishes the young doctor would take more interest in personal contact. Now, I suppose we shall see how the senior scholar...ruthlessly denied her simpering students...the touch of human kindness she now seeks," (Edson, n.p). During the latter half of the play, Dr. Bearing begins to shift away from her cold, wily ways. Vivian has been placed in a situation where she reevaluates her life and how much she wished she could've been a completely different person due to her negligence to accept other human beings that weren't on her intellectual

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