April 17th, 2018.
Sobe-Lynn Bassett
Professor Downum
Course: WRIT 106_AZ
Perspective of Life.
The play “Wit” by Margaret Edson, deals with the painful struggle that Dr. Vivian Bearing has to endure during her final stage of ovarian cancer. “Wit” inspires the audience and/or reader to immerse themselves into a deeper perspective on life and what is most valuable in our lives. I feel that the play tries to strongly represent how much we take life for granted, all the moments of possibility that we have to accomplish, and the goals it is offering us. The professional mindset that Dr. Bearing had was the same as the doctors who were treating her, they were all so engrossed in their
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research and academic experiences, that they ultimately indulged themselves into this way of life. And it is sad to read because they are furthering the advancement of a human being and losing that emotional human aspect of who they are. This way of thinking or action of being does not better the outcome of who you are, who you will be and how your life is lived. Both Bearing and her doctors misunderstood that there is more to life than what we box ourselves into, and this makes her feelings of later regret in the play significantly more powerful. Dr.
Vivian Bearing is the only character throughout the entire play who addresses the audience and explains to them (us) that she will be describing her transition from life to death. The play gives Bearing the opportunity to express what is going on in her mind and how she is dealing with this experience. Although we may be reading a sad tale about a woman who is suffering from cancer and nearing the end of her life, there are moments where you see her personality shine through as well as her sarcasm, and that makes her more than just a patient in a hospital who is waiting for death. Another aspect of Dr. Bearing that I enjoyed, was her love of the English literature. Throughout the play Dr. Bearing continuously reflects on her life as an English professor, even at a young age she had established a strong infatuation for the English language. Dr. Bearing’s most memorable moments of her childhood had been when her father would read to her, and as she got older her passion for English literature and poetry had only grown. She also had a very passionate hold on the poet, John Donne. His poetic work is so complex that it would take years before Dr. Bearing came to a full understanding of what he was trying to convey through his poems. Dr. Bearing herself, says: “The scholarly study of poetic texts requires a capacity for scrupulously detailed examination, particularly the poetry of John Donne.” (Edson, 532). Dr. Bearing’s work surrounded John Donne’s poems throughout most of her years as an English professor, his poems speak heavily on the comprehension and representation of death. In a way, this is a cruel irony that goes along with what she is going through, which I believe she understands this irony from the moment she was told she had cancer, and that made her sarcasm throughout the play that much more enjoyable. However, there is a part during the play when Dr. Bearing has a flashback to twenty-eight years ago when she was in college and had done an
essay on one of John Donne’s poems, Holy Sonnet Six. Dr. Bearing’s professor, E. M. Ashford, was not fond of her interpretation of the poem, Professor Ashford reprimanded Dr. Bearing: “You take this too lightly, Miss Bearing. This is Metaphysical Poetry, not The Modern Novel. The standards of scholarship and critical reading which one would apply to any other text are simply insufficient. The effort must be total for the results to be meaningful. Do you think the punctuation of the last line of this sonnet is merely an insignificant detail? The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life. In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation: And Death---capital D---shall be no more---semicolon! Death---capital D---comma---thou shalt die---exclamation point!”. (Edson, Page 529). In Dr. Bearing’s edition of John Donne’s famous line, “And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die”, she chose to use a semicolon compared to that of Professor Ashford, who used a simple comma. By using a semicolon for that specific line, it is creating a shield from everything that is both life and death, “Death thou shalt die” implies that death will eventually come to us one day, our mortality will only protect us from the truth for so long before we have to face that inevitable fear. This is the point Professor Ashford is trying to make to Dr. Bearing, but in order for Professor Ashford’s explanation of this line to be understood, she furthers her point by hinting at the comma: “Nothing but a breath---a comma---separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause. This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from this poem, wouldn’t you say? Life, death, soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma.” (Edson, page 530). Professor Ashford is describing Dr. Bearing’s most distinct weakness; the fear of her mortality and loneliness. Dr. Bearing uses her sarcasm and witty attitude as a defense mechanism to hide the weakness and loneliness, to not show vulnerability, and that correlates to the semicolon that Professor Ashford refers to as a barrier. Dr. Bearing has worked hard to shelter that aspect of herself for many years and when she is faced with this incurable ovarian cancer and undergoing various treatments, she begins to understand that death, weakness, and loneliness are “foes” she must face head-on. Therefore, the regret I mentioned earlier on that she experiences throughout the play, is the sad reality that she has not done much to achieve any social or personable relationships with other people, started a family of her own or had the time to truly appreciate John Donne’s admiration of death. I found this to be a very realistic mindset for a cancer patient to be in. There have been a number of times where I have noticed that during movies, television shows, and books, the creators or writers tend to downplay the mental toll that any cancer has on a person by using actors who are “happy-go-lucky”, or individuals who are constantly positive and uplifting. This takes away from the real and painful understanding of what cancer really does to a person. By Dr. Bearing being vulnerable and showing that regret for not doing more in her life and standing still in her social environment rather than going forward, demonstrates relatable to her character and makes me understand her feelings a little more. Everyone has regretted not doing or saying something in their life, and each person has reached a point where they look back and wish they took the other opportunity to see what would have changed the outcome of their life. I think Margaret Edson took a brilliant route with giving Bearing the freedom of displaying that raw human emotion, it really brings together what a cancer patient is sadly reliving towards the end of their life, and quite frankly that is something I rarely see in any platform of a character with the movies, shows, and books of the 21st century. Works Cited Edson, Margaret, “Wit”. The Seagull Reader: Plays, edited by Joseph Kelly, W. W Norton, 2015, pp. 529-532.
The play “Cosi” by Louis Nowra is the story of a university student who is set the task of producing a play in a mental institute. The play uses many dramatic techniques including, but not limited to; the setting of the play, humour, and tension as well as role, to help draw the audience into the world of the play, the world of these ‘mental patients.’ The play also helps to bring forward people’s feelings and attitudes towards the mentally ill and people’s attitudes towards love and cheating, to further draw the audience into the world of the play, and the world of the 1970’s, when people with any kind of mental illness where treated as ‘outcasts’ and were not accepted as socially acceptable.
Is it possible to misunderstand something, yet still be guided toward its claims? Is it possible for something that ultimately has the greatest impact on your life to be unnoticed until the last possible moment? In most cases, a true revelation does not present itself until later in a person’s life. In the play Wit, by Margaret Edson, the character of Professor Vivian Bearing reaches a profound realization concerning one of the great impacts in her own life. Vivian, self-proclaimed intellectual and widely-feared professor, essentially devotes her life to the works of John Donne, a renowned metaphysical poet. She tirelessly prides herself on her exceptional skills and experience with analyzing Donne’s works, even in the midst of being diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer. During her stay in the hospital, Vivian unwillingly sees that her lifetime analysis in Donne’s writings has only scratched the surface in comparison to the truth that she discovers in the last hours of her life. For the first time, she is able to personally relate to the speaker in the sonnets that she was supposedly so familiar with.
created the play as a comedy, showing how the world might be in the times of the
McGlinn addresses the third dialectic taking hold of Blanche: illusion versus reality. McGlinn points out that, like all the women in Williams’s plays between 1940 and 1950, Blanche “refuses to accept the reality of her life and attempts to live under illusion.” [Tharpe, 513]. Although McGlinn is accurate in noting Blanche’s conflict between gentility and promiscuity, the result of which is “self-defeat instead of survival” [Tharpe, 513], she fails to see that Blanche lives in both illusion and reality simultaneously, and it is this dialectic that is the slow poison which destroys her. This death-instinct gives us the fourth and last dialectic in Blanche: her struggle between death and desire.”
Dr. Bearing, the protagonist of the play undergoes substantial changes in character before the end of the play. As discussed, the flashbacks show how unemotional Vivian was as a teacher. She, however, starts to notice the weaknesses in her character and makes changes to her character very friendly and sociable. This is facilitated by Jason, a doctor at the hospital who behaves the way she used to behave towards her students, and Susie, a nurse who is totally opposite to Jason in character. This change of character has been extensively used by the playwright to build her theme of redemption as Vivian is redeemed from arrogance and rudeness brought about by the excess value she attaches to intellect.
As women's studies programs have proliferated throughout American universities, feminist "re-readings" of certain classic authors have provided us with the most nonsensical interpretations of these authors' texts. A case in point is that of Kathleen Margaret Lant's interpretation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in her essay entitled "A Streetcar Named Misogyny." Throughout the essay, she continually misreads Williams' intention, which of course causes her to misunderstand the play itself. Claiming that the play "has proved vexing to audiences, directors, actors, readers, and critics" (Lant 227), she fails to see that it is she herself who finds the play vexing, because it does not fit nicely into the warped feminist structure she would try to impose upon it.
To conclude, the author portrays Blanche’s deteriorating mental state throughout the play and by the end it has disappeared, she is in such a mental state that doctors take her away. Even at this stage she is still completely un-aware of her surroundings and the state she is in herself.
She passionately raves at length about the horrible deaths and her experience of loved ones dying around her; “all of those deaths… Father, Mother, Margaret, that dreadful way!” The horrific visions of bloated bodies and “the struggle for breath and breathing” have clearly cast a permanent effect on Blanche’s mind. She talks of the quiet funerals and the “gorgeous boxes” that were the coffins, with bitter, black humour. The deaths of Blanche and Stella’s family are important to the play as they highlight the desperation of Blanche’s situation through the fact that she has no other relative to turn to. This makes Stella’s decision at the end of the play seem even harsher than if Blanche had just simply shown up on her doorstep instead of going elsewhere.
More so, the purpose of this play was to illustrate the common bond between women, even in the face of the law. It proves that in hard times people of a common bond usually stick together, and written in the face of the up and coming women’s suffrage movement provides the reader with a real understanding of the motivation and the dedication these women put into their work.
In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the suicide of Blanche's husband to illuminate Blanche's insecurities and immoral behavior. When something terrible happens to someone, it often reveals who he or she truly is. Blanche falls victim to this behavior, and she fails to face her demons. This displays how the play links a character’s illogical choices and their inner struggles.
...ve been suffering mental abuse by their husband. This play presents the voice of feminism and tries to illustrate that the power of women is slightly different, but can be strong enough to influence the male dominated society. Although all women are being oppressed in the patriarchal society at that time, Glaspell uses this play as a feminist glory in a witty way to win over men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters solve the crime by reflecting on Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage that leads her to murdering. Using the relationship between female and male characters throughout the play, Glaspell speaks up to emphasize how the patriarchal society underestimated women’s rights and restricted women’s desires.
First of all, the speaker starts her poem personifying death as a kind gentleman who comes to pick her up for her death journey. It is obvious if the reader looks at “He kindly stopped me” (2). This kind of personification makes the reader feel that death is something normal and dealing with it is just like people dealing with each other.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Death is an unstoppable event that occurs in every individual’s life, and yet it is a very taboo topic as people rarely broach the subject because it causes incredible distress; it is certainly not a comical topic of conversation and one that is very seldom and rarely congratulated. Yet Oscar Wilde manages to deliver the ever present looming topic of death as if it held the same gravity as a bad hairdo in his comedic play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Instead of expressing support, sorrow and sympathy for the victims of Death and for the relatives, Wilde treats Death in comparison to a result of an impromptu action; no more serious than if a person was to walk into another, due to lack of observation in where they were going; The Importance of
Dickinson doesn’t have the speaker complain about dying and be trying to avoid it instead she is calm and just riding along with death. She sort of goes on a date with him and is driving around taking their time to get wherever they need to go. When you get to the end you realize that she is already dead, and that’s why she wasn’t fighting it, because she was already there. The speaker had come to terms with what had happened and was reliving the moment when it happened. As one would expect, dealing with death, it was darker than her poem about hope. This poem was really able to capture emotion of death and portray it in an easy way to
Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.