Redemption in Wit

1167 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An essay on academic motivation

Redemption in Wit Margaret Edson explores an unpopular theme (redemption) using the changes in the character of the protagonist, Dr. Bearing. After her ovarian cancer diagnoses, she realizes that she lives an incomplete life with excess devotion to her career and academics and less regard for humanity. She faces heart breaking loneliness that makes her regret the fact that she listened to and followed her English professor’s advice that scholars are unsentimental. Margaret Edson’s “W; t”, therefore, has a thematic bias on the redemption of Dr. Bearing as she tries to emerge from her arrogant self and shed her unsociable character. Dr. Bearing interacts with two contrasting characters in the play that leads her to a state of self realization making her change for the best. From flashbacks in the play, it is easy to depict that Vivian lived the life characterized by an inhuman lack of empathy. As the play opens, flashbacks of Vivian interactions with students show her having a serious problem. She lashes at a student for his failure to give feedbacks to her questions and she also denies giving another student an extension for the assignment. After the student explains that her grandmother died, this is what she says to her “do what you will but the paper is due when it is due” (63). This lack of empathy and arrogance apparently is unsocial, but she adopts it while pretending/believing to be advocating for excellence from her students and would not take fabricated excuses. This portrays her as a cynical person, and one who only cares about the success of what she does, therefore, does not make necessary compromises for healthy relationships. She thus suffers a high level of rudeness and arrogance that makes it extremely d... ... middle of paper ... ...in her character during her stay at the hospital. Susie realizes that her patient is afraid of dying and thus she comforts her as she weeps and makes her feel loved. 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.

Show More
Related

  • Divisions in Rayson's Inheritance

    1164 Words  | 3 Pages

    To an extent, the characters in the play represent aspects of the Australian identity and experience. However, Rayson's vivid grasp of speech patterns to evoke character, and her ability to manipulate the audience with humour and pathos move the text beyond mere polemic and stereotype. In an almost Brechtian way, she positions us to analyse as we are entertained and moved.

    Read More

  • Molly And Vivian's Relationship In Orphan Train By Christina Baker Kline

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    As we near the end of the book, however, we see a change in Vivian. “One day, to everyone’s shock and amazement except Molly’s, Vivian announces that she wants to get a computer” (Kline 263). This quote shows a little about Vivian opening up to the new world and she is no longer isolating herself.

    Read More

  • The Orphan Train Quotes

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    As we near the end of the book, however, we see a change in Vivian. “One day, to everyone’s shock and amazement except Molly’s, Vivian announces that she wants to get a computer” (Kline 263). This quote shows a little about how Vivian is opening up to the new world and no longer isolating herself. As we know, Vivian gave up her only biological child and she jokes lightly in the book by saying, “I suppose this is why people have children, isn’t it? So somebody will care about the stuff they leave behind” (Kline 52). However, later on, Vivian gives to Molly one of her prized possessions, the book Anne of Green Gables. This is a very important moment in their relationship because Vivian is passing on a piece of herself to Molly and it shows that Vivian is starting to see Molly as more than a random girl. She may even see her as a pseudo daughter as in the end of the book she lets Molly stay with her instead of going to another foster home. Vivian has opened up greatly throughout the story, but she only did so in reflection to Molly’s

    Read More

  • Dealing With Grief In The Lovely Bones

    1807 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jack Salmon, Susie’s father, is most vocal about his sorrow for losing his daughter. However, his initial reaction was much different. Upon hearing that Susie’s ski hat had been found, he immediately retreats upstairs because “he [is] too devastated to reach out to [Abigail] sitting on the carpet…he could not let [her] see him” (Sebold 32). Jack retreats initially because he did not know what to do or say to console his family and he did not want them to see him upset. This first reaction, although it is small, is the first indicator of the marital problems to come. After recovering from the initial shock, Jack decides that he must bring justice for his daughter’s sake and allows this goal to completely engulf his life. He is both an intuitive and instrumental griever, experiencing outbursts of uncontrolled emotions then channeling that emotion into capturing the killer. He focuses his efforts in such an e...

    Read More

  • Bad Choices in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1582 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...f one defies the natural law and strives to recover the loss, he or she is already on the road to a tragic end. More ironically, the efforts draw the character farther from what they wanted; the rape made Blanche even less credulous, the funeral made Willy even less respected, the request made Gatsby less favorable by Daisy. All three modernist pieces presented false beliefs about life and showed the consequences of obeying those believe. The consequences revealed a bloody truth – the loss of the hope cannot be recovered. What is lost is already the past; only the future can be earned by the hard work done in the present.

    Read More

  • Margaret Edson's Wit

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Wit Vs. Vivian Bearing

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the movie the director made this part very dramatic, it made medicine fellow Jason seem cold and uninterested, and made Vivian look vulnerable as opposed to the written play were this conversation between then seem as if they were getting to know each other. The choice of the director to add more emotion to this scene in the film, gives the story a littler tone. Vivian isn't harsh and too strict anymore, she is wishing she had done things differently, she wishes Jason would show her the sympathy and humanity she did not even bother to show her students like she claims in the following quote “the senior scholar ruthlessly denied her simpering students the touch of human kindness she now seeks.” This quote is everything about Vivian’s redemption, the end of her life is near, she sees life itself differently, she believes in a different approach more subtle and kind. The end between the book and the movie

    Read More

  • The Lovely Bones Essay

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    After Susie’s death, Lindsey internally secludes herself from the society and has difficulty finding her own image in Susie’s shadow. When Principal Caden offers to help Lindsey with her loss, Lindsey replies, “I wasn’t aware I had lost anything (Sebold 31)”.

    Read More

  • The Tragedies Of Shakespeare

    1794 Words  | 4 Pages

    changes as the play progresses. Early on in the play, she is full of ambition;

    Read More

  • Professor Vivian Bearing vs John Donne in the Play Wit by Margaret Edson

    1918 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...s a moment when she starts to see the true meaning but doesn’t want to accept it at first, which is evident from the groaning and “hiding.” However, at the end of the play and the end of her life, Vivian is ready to accept this truth that she herself is living out the same life as the speakers in Donne’s poems and begins “reaching for the light –“ (Edson 66).

    Read More

  • Loss Of Innocence In Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones

    2242 Words  | 5 Pages

    In addition, Jack showed his inability to let go of Susie by keeping her physical belongings with him. From heaven, Susie is watching all of this happen, noting that “I knew then he would never give me up. He would never count me as one of the dead. I was his daughter, and he was my dad, and he had loved me as much as he could. I had to let him go” (...). The final sentence is very significant. It is the time when Susie recognizes the need for her to let go if she truly wishes to end her family’s suffering. As Susie is able to forget the past, so does Jack. He soon realizes that Susie lives in his past, memories, and not in objects. Specifically, it is not until Jack survives his heart attack that he fully accepts that his daughter has left. “Last night it had been [Susie’s] father who had finally said it, ‘[Susie’s]never coming home.’ A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted” (289). Upon realizing this truth, Jack is able to continue with his life, job, and most importantly, to refocus his attention to his two other

    Read More

  • Tennessee Williams Morality

    335 Words  | 1 Pages

    It is evident how Williams establishes the various facades encircling “mendacity” - of untruths told, truths denied or withheld, deceptions practised on oneself and others - within ‘Suddenly Last Summer’, ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Williams’ homogenous moral centre insinuates the unveiling of mendacity as incomprehensible within the plays, as individuals cannot comprehend it; ultimately what is human must be valued as life is “worth saving.” I consider this faith in salvation through selfless empathy, alongside the implication of redemption, to be the central veracity in Williams’ moral scheme. Consequently, sincere relations are the only satisfactory things we are left with in this life.

    Read More

  • Vivian's Life Depicted In The Movie 'Wit'

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    The movie Wit by Mike Nichols, showed the true horror of death by chemotherapy though the life of Dr. Vivian Bearing diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. The movie followed Vivian from the time she found out about her cancer to the moment that she passed, though this time Vivian also shared memories that related back to what was going on now in her life. During her stay in the hospital there were three people who impacted her stay the most; Doctor Kelekian who was her oncologist, Doctor Posner the Medical student involved in her case, and Nurse Monahan her primary care nurse. Let’s look at all three of Vivian care takers, along with Vivian herself, and a moment that really showed the true colors of the individual. To begin with Doctor

    Read More

  • The Women with the IV pole

    1881 Words  | 4 Pages

    According to a survey done by the American Institute of Stress, the annual costs to employers in stress related health care and missed work is 300 billion dollars. The survey stipulates the fact that the contemporary society is moving towards materialism that not only brings riches but also a disease called stress; stress essentially upsets ones balance and makes people to be despondent. Stress can be overcomed through contentment and happiness, such aspects are evidently absent in the present materialistic society. The strive towards momentary pleasures only brings the society happiness for some time and on the long run it brings them depression . A Nobel Peace Prize acceptor and a world acclaimed mentor , Dalai Lama said that “Happiness is not something ready made.It comes from your own actions”, this accentuates the simple means to attain happiness.Moreover, the art of living is centralized in happiness that lies in the little parcels of love and joy we get and give others, and it also institutes for a harmonious and a bright inner and outer person. Unfortunately, the corporate society of today fails to recognize the virtue of small joys that is granted by acts of compassion and altruism.Margaret Edson epitomizes kindness and warmth as indispensable elements to celebrate life, and she also stresses the importance of compassion through her play, Wit, by portraying the character of Vivian Bearing as an established intellect who eventually succumbs desperately for tenderness. Howard’s photograph conveys the significance of solicitude similar to Edson’s play, and while both portray the healing power of love and compassion, Edson instigated how the society’s pernicious move towards distinction and knowledge leads to imperiled...

    Read More

  • Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre - A Romantic Ending In An Anti-Romantic Novel

    1182 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jane Eyre ends only after a succession of unlikely (and frankly hideous) circumstances come to pass, transforming the lives and psyches of Jane and Rochester beyond their stoic realism. However, because Jane and Rochester are such believable characters, the events that wrack their mortal lives are taken in stride by both the characters and the reader, although the grap...

    Read More

More about Redemption in Wit

Open Document