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Cheryl ross

The2000

December 2, 2013

Wit by Margret Edson

Wit is about Dr. Vivian Bearing, an English professor who has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. The play takes place nearly entirely in the hospital she has been admitted into, and there is a small cast of characters. Much of the story takes place in Vivian’s mind, as her body seems to eat itself alive. Each of the supporting characters are pivotal, but this could probably be considered a ‘one-woman play.’ It is the story of a woman, and of life, but also death, and what it takes to make a person.

After I finished reading this, yesterday I looked back, and all I saw were metaphors. Every scene, every line, was a metaphor. There was the story, but also what was beneath that, and beneath that undercurrent was something else entirely. I spent hours wondering what this something was. John Donne’s Holy Sonnets were a symbol. The one Vivian speaks the most of is largely about death, as all of them are. She is determined to fight this cancer, and she is determined to fight death, so that way she can die proud, knowing how hard she has fought. But as the play progresses, as she quickly gets sicker and sicker, she is no longer worried about the fight. She is no longer worried about much at all. Instead, she remembers the past, and the things that have made her who she is. The Holy Sonnets made her, but they also break her. She has spent the entirely of her life creating this image of herself, and for what? Because she realizes that she is not an image, but a person, and that is the hardest lesson of all.

The play is brief, almost too brief. But that, in and of itself, is a metaphor. Vivian thrives for years, and then suddenly she is not thriving. Death comes quickly and suddenly and aggressively. The play’s brevity is yet another image, of death. The writing is witty, and Vivian herself has a...