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Article Excerpt
Abstract: This paper analyzes both the play and the HBO special dramatization of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize winning drama Wit, inspired by her work as an AIDS-oncology clerk. The play features the first-person narrative of Dr. Vivian Bearing, a specialist in John Donne and metaphysical poetry, who, in the course of the play, dies as the result of terminal metastic ovarian cancer. Although the drama is an uncompromisingly serious look at death, it also shows how language and humor can help us to deal with tragedy, even when that tragedy. This paper looks at how language structures the world of Wit through an examination of the power of naming in language, the capacity of language to inform as well as obfuscate, the use of language to create humor and to provide emotional comfort and connection.
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Atlanta kindergarten teacher Margaret Edson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999 for her wrenching 1991 play Wit. Her first and only play, Wit was inspired by work that Edson did as a clerk in an AIDS-oncology unit in a Washington-area research hospital. It features the first-person narrative of Dr. Vivian Bearing, a professor with a specialty in the 17th century metaphysical poetry of John Donne, a highly intellectual poetry that responded, in part, to what was perceived as the oversentimental stance of poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge. Metaphysical poetry often characterized by the yoking violently disparate elements; the resulting discordance was meant to create meaning and insight. Bearing uses her intelligence, wit, and love of John Donne, and occasionally Shakespeare, to cope with what is, ultimately, terminal metastatic ovarian cancer. Although the drama is, in many ways, an uncompromisingly serious look at death, it also shows how language and humor can help deal with tragedy, even that our own impending death.
In addition to the stage production, we also have in an HBO special dramatization that starred Emma Thompson. The play and TV version differ somewhat providing different dramatic emphases. In general, however, the two versions create a similar impression and communicate essentially similar messages.
This paper looks at how language structures the world of Wit through an examination of the power of naming in language, the capacity of language to inform as well as obfuscate; the use of language to create humor that helps us cope; and, finally, the use of language to provide emotional comfort and connection. Through the language in Wit, we gain insight into the worlds of medicine and literature and, ultimately, what it means to be human.
First, a brief plot summary: Dr. Vivian Bearing is a noted scholar of 17th Century Metaphysical poetry and a specialist in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, "the poet's most intense exploration of grand themes such as life and death. (Al-Solaylee). Ironically that she has also dedicated her life to Donne; "A scholar who dedicates herself to the mind of John Donne is ignoring the fact he was a man of enormous emotional and physical appetite.... In her fixation on him, Vivian has stayed with his words on the page, not the whole human being." (Al-Solaylee). "This tough mind and her uncompromising nature help her deal with the initial diagnosis of Stage Four metatastic ovarian cancer. She has been referred to Dr. Harvey Kelekian, a noted cancer research scientist, for inclusion in experimental trials designed, hopefully, to increase her chances of survival. She is to be included in eight months of monthly treatments, to try to shrink her tumors; for one week each month, she will be hospitalized for treatment with particularly aggressive drugs that produce, as Kelekian describes them, "profound side effects."
The play, and the TV special, take us from Beating's first meeting with Kelekian, at which he enlists her participation in the experimental studies, to months later when she dies as the result of the cancer and the treatments. The play/TV special presents us with Bearing's progressive deterioration in the hospital as well as flashback scenes to key moments in her life. Presented mostly as monologues, usually given directly to the audience, the play looks at the issues of life and death in an uncompromising fashion. As a 17th century scholar, Dr. Bearing was fascinated by wit,...
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