Wit by Margaret Edson (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: Wit by Margaret Edson Prompt 6: In Wit, language is essential to Vivian's life and identity. How does her love of / skill with language shape her experience of cancer and chemotherapy? Does her attitude toward language—or her use of it—change as the play progresses through her treatment and toward her death? Wit, a play by Margaret Edson, depicts the truth behind life and death. Vivian Bearing is the play's central character, a fifty-year-old woman diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. She is an accomplished English professor at a well-renowned university, and she sees this as one of her most significant accomplishments in life. Vivian uses language as an art of expression and as a way of escape from reality. Wit demonstrates that even though words can be used to comfort, express, and teach, sometimes language can fail to heal and take the pain away (Ramadan 120). Vivian has used language as an escape, and she is proud of her achievements in the professional world. Still, when diagnosed with cancer, she finds that she hid her whole self behind her academic achievements. She begins to face the truth of her life; she barely lived because all she did was hide behind her title, scholarly works, and profession. During her first diagnosis, Vivian used language to hide from her reality and to derive joy in what was to be a long healing journey. At first, when she is diagnosed, she focuses on the language the doctor uses to describe her cancer instead of what the doctor says about the disease. For instance, Vivian focuses on terms Doctor Kelekian uses to describe cancer, such as insidious, and she loses focus from the conversation with the doctor to think about how the word can be used in different sentences (Ramadan 121). She used language to hide from the reality of her sickness. Understandably, Vivian would use language and her love for it to escape her pain. The chemotherapy side effects were complex on Vivian's body and made her extremely sick, but during this time, she often got lost in her head, thinking of language she could use to describe her pain. She uses language as her coping mechanism to escape from the truth of her situation. For instance, as she gets sick from the chemotherapy treatments, she starts a lecture explaining how the sickness impedes her health. However, her situation is a paradox because if she were not in the position she was in, she would have reveled in it. Escaping from her reality using language enables her to cope better and prevent herself from thinking of her doomed fate, death (Ramadan 125). Vivian analyses her situation using Donne's poetry; Donne wonders about death and salvation but never makes a tangible conclusion. Vivian wonders if she will face the same situation as Donne, always looking but never finding a solution to her current situation. As Vivian faces her untimely death, she realizes she cannot use language or Wit to escape her harsh reality. She realizes she cannot rationalize her pain or explain it away using language ...