“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can 't be any large-scale revolution until there 's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It 's got to happen inside first,” Jim Morrison. In the play, W;t by Margaret Edson we have a middle aged professor that is diagnosed with terminal cancer and we watch her deal with this disease, alone. We also witness her doctor’s resident, Dr. Jason Posner interact with her much life she has interacted with others in her life. At times we all forget the much needed human component to humanity and deal with subject matters that are …show more content…
Jason Posner in her approach to life. She is very rigid, dedicated, and resistance. In the end what brought her peace was not her wok she dedicated all her life to, but other people, which is voided from her life. I will look at the Dr. Vivian Bearing and Dr. Jason Posner and explore their similarities and the final realization that you really never really give up your ability to feel, but rather wore a mask to disguise it. Vivian and Jason are both scholars and have lived their lives of the mind giving up others in pursuit of intelligence. When Vivian is being informed of her advanced ovarian cancer and what she has to endure, her reply is, “ Oh, I have to be very tough. It appears to be a matter, as saying goes, of life and death. I know all about life and death. I am, after all, a scholar of Donne’s Holy Sonnets, which explore mortality in greater depth than any other body of work in the English language. I know I am tough. A demanding professor. Uncompromising. Never one to turn from a …show more content…
I think she does this because it brings her comfort and her whole life she dedicated to these works. It is almost as if it is a close friend of hers. As the treatment progresses and she is doing medically worse where the audience can now she the strain that she is under, we also see where she starts to realize the true meaning behind her work. The true meaning of life and suffering and death. The nurse, Susie is the first time that we see compassion from the medical team and Vivian responses of realizing that research and scholarly studies actually means very little in the larger scheme of life. Vivian actually realizes that life is about uncertainties and she cannot hide behind her scholar mask any longer and confides in Susie about her feelings. Vivian realizes a valuable lesson, that research is not the most important thing in life, but rather life, “I can’t believe my life has become so corny. But it can’t be helped. I don’t see any other way. We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract, either; we are discussing my life and my death, and my brain is dulling, and poor Susie’s was never so sharp to begin with, and I can’t conceive of any other..tone… now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness. I thought being extremely smart would take care of it. But I see that have been found out (Edson, 69) Vivian no longer finds comfort from scholarly sonnets, but rather
Primarily, while Vivian does not truly come out and state if she is religious or not, she makes supply hints though out the play that she may not be religious and she truly fears the unknown journey of death. Numerous critics may argue that Vivian’s real struggle is against the cancer, nevertheless instead her real struggle is against what her past student Jason, calls the theme of “salvation anxiety” in the poetry of John Donne. Vivian’s anxiety resides precisely with the relationship, or God, that might finally carry her past death and into eternal life.
In Margaret Edson’s play Wit, a cancer patient promoted her end of life decision to her primary nurse rather than her supervisor doctor, and asks her primary nurse to take care of her till death. For result, there was one huge fighting between Vivian’s primary nurse Susie and doctor Jason when her heart stop beats.
Although illness narratives are not novel or new, their prevalence in modern popular literature could be attributed to how these stories can be relatable, empowering, and thought-provoking. Susan Grubar is the writer for the blog “Living with Cancer”, in The New York Times, that communicates her experience with ovarian cancer (2012). In our LIBS 7001 class, Shirley Chuck, Navdeep Dha, Brynn Tomie, and I (2016) discussed various narrative elements of her more recent blog post, “Living with Cancer: A Farewell to Legs” (2016). Although the elements of narration and description (Gracias, 2016) were easily identified by all group members, the most interesting topics revolved around symbolism as well as the overall impression or mood of the post.
By closing her off from the rest of the world, he is taking her away from things that important to her mental state; such as her ability to read and write, her need for human interaction, her need to make her own decisions. All of these are important to all people. This idea of forced rest and relaxation to cure temporary nervous problems was very common at the time. Many doctors prescribed it for their female patients. The narrators husband, brother, and their colleagues all feel that this is the correct way to fix her problem, which is practically nonexistent in their eyes. Throughout the beginning of the story, the narrator tends to buy into the idea that the man is always right and makes excuses for her feelings and his actions and words: "It is so hard to talk to John about my case, because he is so wise and because he loves me so," (23).
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
Chapter Seven lightly touches upon the death of AIDS patients, and the stigmatism's and rejection they may face, but also exhibits the patients' ability to control their moment of death. The joy which a family can gain when there is an open acceptance of a loved ones death is visible in Chapter Eight as John's f...
Her relationship with Juliet is very distant and weak. This is revealed by when she calls the nurse to ‘’come back again’’ when talking to Juliet. She becomes nervous and feels like she couldn’t talk to Juliet without the presence of the nurse.This suggests that she’s not used to being alone with Juliet and relies on the nurse to do the parenting. In
The short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut follows the story of a man and his wife, George and Hazel, who live in a society where everyone is equal in every way possible. This is not necessarily a good advancement because the people cannot express their uniqueness and there are severe repercussions if something of that nature does transpire. George and Hazel Bergeron had their child, Harrison, taken away from them due to his retaliation to the odd equality, but they were not even allowed to properly mourn or analyze the situation because the government banned their freewill and ability to think deeply. These two people and everyone else who lives in this world are forced to abide by rules placed by the authority and have no say in what is done to them. This story artistically demonstrates what freedom is not. As proclaimed in the short story, “They were burdened with sash-weights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” The people who live in this futuristic world have the weight of those sacks restricting them and this can also be seen in the metaphorical sense where the weight of having to follow strict rules and not being free falls onto their shoulders. They also don’t have the freedom to get rid of the objects which prevent them from being themselves. Jim Morrison once stated, “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.” The people written into this story are not being who they are and quite literally have to make use of a mask. They are not experiencing this important freedom. The sash-weights, for example, cannot be removed. It is stated in the story “Two years in prison and two
People with cancer often begin to define themselves based on their experience with their illness, this self-definition through one’s cancer is one that the characters fear in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. The novel shows how the characters strive to discover their identities, but despite that are still identified by their illness. The novel also makes the argument that young people with cancer are not any more virtuous or different than other kids rather, they are just normal kids living with an illness. Augustus wants to be remembered and also be more than just a boy who battled cancer, but despite his efforts is still identified by his illness.
Vivian is characterized as a smart, sly, but not necessarily noble woman. In the end, it appears that Marlowe respects, but does not care for her. She is a...
She became a nurse because she was always interested in promoting and optimizing health and the prevention of illnesses. She wanted to be there for all others who were going through an illness to help alleviate their pain and help facilitate their healing process. Most importantly, She wanted to advocate for others who could not advocate for themselves, especially the elderly or those who suffer from a terminal illness like cancer. She wanted to be their voice and to make sure they got exactly what they wanted and desired. Ashly said “I wanted to be the compassionate and selfless nurse that any patient would want to have and I strive daily to be that person for my patients.” The reasons for me wanting to become a nurse are similar to Ashly’s reasons. When I do become a nurse, I want to be the best nurse possible. I never want to see a patient as an object. I want to treat each individual with the respect and care every human
‘Whose life is it anyway?’ follows the story of ‘Ken Harrison’, a man who tries to exercise a choice over his own life or death after being completely paralysed from the head down. Harrison received these horrific injuries after being involved in a car accident 4 months before the story starts. He is now in constant care within the hospitals walls being treated and cared for by the medical profession. The play centres on Harrison’s determination to exercise a choice over his own life or death with the medical bureaucracy fiercely opposing. The play leads as he takes the medical staff to court to try and exercise this right officially.
...tentially be cured with a one surgery. He uses this story of death to share that life is short. “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by Dogma. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” He uses repetition and parallelism to drive his message home.
Vivian knows that in society her own effort is the key to supporting herself and eventually securing a better future. She wants to set up a life in the city and tries very hard to look for a job. Due to lack of a skill, although she is willing to do heavy or dirty work, she is not able to find a job with enough pay to support herself. Her goal in life is simply to support herself by her own effort instead of letting somebody else arrange and control her life. This, in it self, represents a spirit of active effort for someone like Vivian. In addition to her efforts in trying to support herself and realize her own goals, Vivian also endeavors to help others. With a part of the $3000 windfall she earns from her week with Edward Lewis, she presses her friend Kit to pursue her long-dormant desire to become a beautician. And her most significant achievement is helping Edward Lewis, the corporate raider, rediscover his humanity, so he can build things instead of dismantling the work of others for profit, and find a more meaningful life other than locking himself in work. The two aspects discussed above display the changes of emphasis on self-...
She thought that becoming a nurse was something that changed your life instead of it just being a simple way for women to make money. The writings and teachings of Nightingale transformed the view of nursing into that of a scholarly, fulfilling vocational effort for wellness. Her most well-known teachings of nursing come from her writing piece Notes on Nursing: What it is and What it is Not. It establishes a clear view on who a nurse is, and why they are important. What she writes may be looked at today as common sense, but at the time her ideas were ground breaking. She wrote that taking care of a patient is about taking care of all their aspects of health, recognizing that patients are people too. A good amount of the time when people used to get sick they were sent away from society often expected to die. Nightingale believed that everyone who is ill deserves a chance to be treated. However, she also drew boundaries as to what nurses should do. She made it very clear that the doctors should be the ones deciding on medicine and treatment, while nurses are still equally important. This piece of writing alone challenged women to become nurses, and proved the title of nursing to be something you had to earn. It offered guidance to the nursing community, and propelled the respect for nurses even further in a society that had just began to accept