Analysis Of ' T ' By Margaret Edson

Sometimes we heard moans from the back room and I helped wring out cloths and Doris brought water in a glass held to her mother’s lips (17-22)” it is the first time we see the children in a serious manner as they take care of Doris’s mother. While the war may be a faraway thought, Doris’s mother having cancer directly affects the children and they have to deal with reality for a short time.

Vivian’s physical suffering is caused by her illness, which slowly deteriorates her identity. In W;t, Vivian’s physical character is enhanced by her power through Language and it’s discourse. As time progresses, cancer slowly cause’s her to suffer physically, and therefore inverts her powerful identity. On page 25, Vivian’s body is clinically deconstructed, the

First performed in 1995, Margaret Edson’s play, W;t (Wit) journeys into the mind of Doctor Vivian Bearing, a scholar of Donne’s Holy Sonnets and terminally ill cancer patient. In her final two hours of life, Bearing recounts and reflects upon her attempts to reconcile the disease, her impending death, and her life as a professor. Through Bearing’s story, Edson reveals how disability generates various types of pain. Moreover, this pain translates to “salvation anxiety,” a term Jason Posner, Bearing’s clinical fellow and former student, coined in her class (Edson 75-76). In his article, “At Wit’s End,” Dr. Daniel Sulmasy describes “salvation anxiety” as fearing death and what comes after as well as struggling to even accept death (336). I argue that through its exploration of disability induced pain, Wit provides a venue for the audience to consider their own salvation anxiety, reactions to this anxiety, and practices to alleviate others’ suffering.

In the play “Wit,” highly esteemed professor of seventeenth century poetry, Vivian Bearing, finds out that she has stage four terminal cancer. The Doctor who tells her the diagnosis, does so in a very clinical and non-emotional way; he appears to describe her cancer and treatment comparable to how her college literature professor described her punctuation in her poem. He explained everything in medical terminology, which was not understandable by those outside of the medical field. A research study showed that even college educated patients struggled with understanding the meaning of certain words used by medical staff and based on these results it is recommended that Doctors should adjust their language to match the patient's cognition

The doctors clear the family to take Lia home and be with her during her last days. Although Lia’s family devoted themselves to making Lia as comfortable as possible, and keeping her alive for decades longer than the doctors expected, her parents blame Lia's doctors for their daughter's prognosis.

In Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, tells the story of Vivian’s experience with her cancer treatment. Through her treatment, Vivian recognizes her humanity and her lack of understanding life and death. By recognizing that being incredibly smart was not the answer to everything, Vivian looks back on her life and is able to reflect on her character. Edson’s use of aside, flashback, exposition, foreshadow, irony and foil allows Vivian to explore different themes. Through the use of these dramatic devices, Edson is able to convey themes of language, death and humanity.

Theresa visits him in the hospital even though he is not her patient for the shift. She keeps in touch with him and she still cares about him even though she is not responsible for him. She describes the situation of Ray as if he was standing on the train track waiting for the train he knew would eventually run him down, he needed someone to understand his pain and Theresa was that person to understand him. Dorothy is also one of the patients who stays in the hospital for a long time to get her treatment. Theresa describes her as a lighthearted woman and always keep a dish full of candies next to the door. Dorothy is well known in the hospital because of her candy dish that she offers nurses who take care of her some chocolate before they leave her room. When the attending physician announces that now Dorothy is ready to go home and asks someone to do the neutrophil dance for her. Everyone expects from Theresa to dance, she says “I realize there are worse things than embarrassing myself for her sake, a lot worse” (59) and she does the dance even though she doesn’t have to dance in front of her co-workers making herself look childish and embarrassed. But, she does it because she is happy that Dorothy is returning home after a long stay in the

She goes through rigorous treatments that most patients couldn’t possibly survive. However, Dr. Kelekian and Dr. Posner believe she will be the first to fully accept the treatments because she is so “strong.” She agrees with this in the beginning, feeling she is not like other patients and she will be able to handle it. Vivian refuses to quit. She is a tough, stubborn woman who upholds herself to a level of strength and perfection that others cannot possibly accomplish. As the story continues, it becomes evident that she cannot uphold this ideal. The treatments severely affect her, leaving her miserable. It is when she shows a more vulnerable side to Susie, choosing to not be resuscitated if her heart stops, and then asking her, “You’re still going to take care of me, aren’t you?” that she suddenly becomes a more relatable character; bringing the audience to feel sorry for her

This is portrayed in the scene in which Vivian goes back to her old college Professor, E.M. Ashford. Vivian’s fear is shown through the use of ellipsis’ as Vivian feels uncomfortable due to the fact that she can no longer hide behind words. Furthermore Vivian’s view on death is also conveyed in this scene as Vivian believes there is far more separating life and death than that of a comma, a breath, as said by E.M Ashford. Death, towards the end of the play, becomes an acceptance for Vivian as she finally embraces the true faith in which Donne had towards an afterlife and overcomes her salvation anxiety. Vivian begins to crave kindness and comfort when she never has before, this conveys Vivian’s change of heart. Through the quote ““It”: such a small word. In this case I think “it” signifies being alive” one can see that Vivian no longer feels the pull towards life as she did in the beginning of the play. The audience knows when Vivian is truly ready to die upon Vivian’s stage direction as she “attempts a grand summation” as if trying to conjure up her own ending. She then recites her original interpretation of John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” where only a breath separates life from death. Thus one can observe that through contextual connections that a greater understanding can be obtained in relation to the play Wit by Margaret Edson and the theme of death. Furthermore it is through these

Wit, a play written by Margaret Edson, has many themes incorporated into her text. The idea and control of power over herself and the influence over others is shown in this play, in the viewpoint of Vivian Bearing. It shifts in terms as the play continues on. At the beginning of the play we see Vivian as a witty, seventeenth-century poetry professor. She only knows things that are associated with her field of study. Yet, she holds a great deal of power over her students and the rest of the faculty. We can see this through the words of Jason Posner, who was once a student of hers, but is now one of her doctors. I believe that the scenes between Vivian and Kelekian and with Vivian and the technician showcase how one’s control over power, and

After all this time, the United States has stopped paying tribute to the Barbary Islands. Our country is finally standing up to the people whom have caused us much trouble. Some are saying we are brave, but others are saying we wish to fight a battle we might lose. Was the stopping of the tribute helpful to the United States, a way of showing how powerful we were?

Very depressed and afraid of night…. I try to write a page a day on another play. It is going to be called A Lesson In Dead Language. The main image is a girl in a white organdy dress covered with menstrual blood. (72) Here peters expresses Clara’s feelings of failure to establish her career as a playwright.

As the story starts out, the reader is not sure if the narrator is really ill. The antagonist of the story is the narrator’s husband. Being a doctor, he has prescribed her to rest and not work until she is well. He controls her situation by secluding her in a colonial mansion away from the disturbances he sees as causing her illness. The portrayal of this man is related to how men treated women in the nineteenth-century. The oppression the narrator feels comes from her husband and the world around her. What gives this story “its impelling force is the way the author places the narrator’s voice within a world that denies her the ability to live by her own lights” (Horowitz, H. L. 2010. p. 177). An example of her husband’s demeaning ways would be when he refers to her as ‘my blessed little goose’ and ‘little girl’. Readers of the story can speculate that her husband uses her illness as a way to control her. Even though he has prescribed her rest, she still writes in secret until she can’t think anymore. Her madness takes

Clearly, narrative voice--the unflattering depiction of the poor medical student--and characterization--Carol’s seeming superficiality and impatience--work hand-in-hand so to demonstrate how shallow Carol’s, and by extension many other similar young people’s, romantic expectations

Past experiences have the ability to greatly influence one’s actions and choices. In the play Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman, protagonist Paulina is shaped by her past experiences, transforming her outlook and personality throughout the course of the play. Playwright Ariel Dorfman uses various dramatic conventions in order to convey tensions of the past within Paulina’s character, as a means of expressing to the audience the influence of past experiences on one’s personality and outlook throughout life.