The Effect of Soliloquy in "Wit"

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A soliloquy is a literary device most popular among playwrights. A character conveys his/her thoughts and feelings without speaking to any of the other characters. In the play Wit, the author, Margaret Edson, employs the soliloquy as a tool used to demonstrate the feelings of the main character, Vivian Bearing, who often breaks the fourth wall in order to speak directly to the audience. Margaret Edson uses the soliloquy to give Vivian Bearing a chance to express how she is feeling and what she is thinking throughout the play. By using the soliloquy Margaret Edson manages to invoke sympathy, rather than pity, in the audience towards the constant struggle that Vivian faces. Rather than merely watching Vivian suffer through her painful ordeals, they are subjected to vivid recollections of her suffering as she exposes her thoughts to the audience.

Since it is a play, some would say that Edson’s use of the soliloquy is not very effective because the audience is seeing Vivian’s pain with their own eyes. However, the soliloquies undoubtedly add to the viewer’s experience as Vivian breaks the fourth wall to express her feelings and describe the agony she is facing. Without Vivian’s monologues, the audience may see Vivian suffer, but they would not be able to truly sympathize with her. By putting Vivian’s torment into words rather than having it acted out on stage, Edson causes the lead character to transcend the stage and become a presence which the audience can understand rather than a fictional character that the viewer pities.

The play actually begins with a very important and informative soliloquy. In the opening soliloquy, Vivian Bearing establishes her character and the plot while introducing the audience to her situation. L...

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...er than sympathize with her as more than just a character on stage. The audience therefore witnesses firsthand the breakdown of a strong and independent character as her torment trumps her.

Margaret Edson sets up Vivian’s soliloquies in a way that tracks the character’s decay. In the earlier soliloquies, Vivian establishes herself as a great literary scholar with an immense ego. However, throughout the play, viewers are exposed to increasingly morbid passages in which Vivian breaks the fourth wall in order to speak directly to the audience to convey her ever-increasing affliction. As the play progresses we witness Vivian’s destruction as her situation gets the best of her. Margaret Edson’s use of soliloquies greatly aids the audience in capturing the essence of Vivian Bearing’s suffering.

Works Cited
Edson, Margaret. Wit A Play. London: Faber & Faber, 1999. Print.

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