Author; Margaret Edson
Background
The play has multiple layers. Sophisticated, yet accessible to anyone.
Won many awards, including Pulitzer Prize.
This play, like all great literature, changes us in some way as a result of seeing or reading it.
Author
Margaret Edson has degrees in history and literature. She wrote Wit, her first play, in 1991. She incorporated her own experience into the play, including working for one year as a clerk in an oncology/AIDS department of the National Institute of Health, and watching the final illness and death of her brother from cancer. She currently teaches Kindergarten.
Outline of Story
The story is deceptively simple. It consists of the last hours (it actually covers eight months ) of Vivien Bearing, a professor of English with a special interest in the poet John Donne. Dr. Bearing is dying of metastatic ovarian cancer, advanced, not curable, and is hospitalized for chemotherapy.
The story is compressed into a few hours by using her recollections and flashbacks in which we see her in the classroom, both as teacher and as student, with her father, undergoing tests by various technicians, and being the subject at grand rounds. . She interacts with hospital staff including nurses, technicians, attending physicians, and residents. Most of the dialogue consists of the protagonist commenting on the events.
-------------------------------------------------edit
Through the course of the play Vivian assesses her own life through the intricacies of language, the use of wit, and the poetry of John Donne. Initially, she believes that she can control events, and is hyperrational and methodical, applying the approach she used as an academic superstar. Her life up to this point has been devoted to scholarly pursuits in which she preferred intellect to human relationship. She is without friends or family. Her personality is both powerful and prickly.
Watching the doctors treating her as an experimental object, and being interested in her primarily for their research, she becomes aware of the similarity to her own teaching and study. With disease progression and the onset of pain, along with the arrogance and insensitivity of some of the staff, she begins to question the values that have been a part of her. She evolves, finally understanding those values that make life worth living, recognizing that she prefers kindness to intellect.
Questions for Discussion
1. Comment on whether or not you liked the play, and why or why not?
2. Comment on any ethical issues that grabbed you.
3. What is the play about?
What makes life worth living; a age-old question with no real answer
Mortality - as a unifying experience
– vital importance of being in relationship
Importance of kindness (the play shows arrogance to make the point)
Importance of compassion (the play shows insensitivity to make the point)
What makes life worth living. Our lives are ours to celebrate or waste.
Is how we live our lives and interact with others more important than our
achievements (intellectual, professional, material)?
The play asks us all; what is most important in life, especially as that life comes
to an end.
4. The protagonist, Vivian Bearing, is getting experimental treatment
Is this ethical?
Is she an individual i.e. a human person, or an experimental subject?
Is it possible to be both?
Two ethical issues here
(A) Autonomy; Informed consent;
- For patient to freely choose, must be given all information that
is available;
- Is treatment voluntary?
e.g. of abuses; Tuskegee Syphilis experiments in US,
Nazi medical experiments
- is Vivien really given adequate information? Toward end of play, Susie implies that the doctors gave Vivien false information, and never really expected the treatment to cure her.
(B) Justice; Conflict of interest
Are doctors more interested in individual patient, or in research
protocol? This comes up in several settings, including when the
researchers ignore her or are insensitive, and in the decision to call a code
when she dies. The doctor has dual responsibilities which may be in
conflict. (Taking care of patient, with patient welfare being primary; or
advancing research goals, and having patient welfare come second)
5. What changes does Vivien undergo as a result of her terminal illness?
Her final illness allows her to focus on changing values. She finds that kindness
and compassion are preferable to intellect. This is a profound and fundamental
shift for her
6. Regarding her use of pain medicine at the end of life:
(A) Should there be a limit on the quantity and type of medicine?
Some say YES, use minimum amounts
Fear of addiction
A little pain is good for the soul
Some (including me) say NO
There is nothing noble about pain
Use whatever is needed to take away pain completely
(B) Who should be in control of amount of medicine, doctor or patient?
In the play, the nurse wants patient to decide, the doctor wants a fixed
dose, prescribed by doctor without patient input. .
What are disadvantages of doctor controlling;
With doctor controlling,
May give too little, with patient still having pain
May give too much, with patient not being awake and/or alert.
Why might doctor want to be in control of this?
Why does Dr. Kelekian want to do this?
high doses of morphine will hasten death
This is the socially acceptable form of euthanasia, and is widely
practiced.
Double effect; excess morphine will relieve pain, but will also hasten death.
If the primary intent is to relieve pain, then it is considered ethically OK
even if one knows it will hasten death.
6. Futility vs. Hope; In the play a DNR (Do not resuscitate) order is written for Vivien. (This is an opportunity to show a major medical foul-up)
DNR is in contrast to a situation in which the patient or surrogate wants
everything done if her heart or breathing stop.
How does one make the decision in favor of DNR? Many factors; e.g.
Quality of life; only patient can decide this
Underlying condition temporary and treatable, or not
Coexisting illnesses, e.g. dementia, kidney failure, etc
7. There is a kind of banality in illness and death, as seen by the house staff. A persons entire life, achievements, feelings, intellect, connections, loves, family, are all reduced by residents to a medical history. Is this to be expected? Is it good for staff? For patients? How can one avoid this reduction?
8. Jason uses the term “salvation anxiety” referring to John Donne. What does he mean? Is it a universal fear? On the one hand, a promise of salvation, cant face life without it, religion, etc. On other hand, intellect, concept of salvation “doesn’t stand up to scrutiny”.
9. RE “allegory of the soul. No matter where it hides, God will find it” P 80. Does
one need to be religious to appreciate this?
10. Vivian states that “once I did the teaching, now I am taught” What does she mean?
Symmetry; she is being studied much like a text,
Indicates a loss of power.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Extra questions if there is time.
What does Vivian’s opening monologue (P5-7) tell us about her as a person?
What does the author mean when she describes the play as not about doctors or about cancer, but about kindness?
Contrast the approach to medical care by Susie and by the doctors.
Re Professor Ashford’s visit as Vivian is dying. Is this real or a dream? What purpose does it serve?
P76; Jason; (referring to Donne); “the puzzle takes over. You’re not even trying to solve it anymore”. How does this apply to the medical research that Jason is involved in? The research has a life of its own that takes over, independent of its supposed goal
Death be not proud (see P 29). This line from Donne’s poetry is a recurring theme. What does it mean?
Why is the play called WIT; (see page 20)? Does Wit help with death?
Professor Ashford calls “The Runaway Bunny” “a little allegory of the soul”. (P 80) What does she mean?
The use of language. Vivien describes being asked “how are you?” while she is vomiting. An automatic question; the answer should be obvious. Why do they do this, and what is the effect? This is feigned solicitude, and is a sign of insensitivity.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment