63 pages • 2 hours read
Margaret EdsonWit
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Scenes 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Scene 3 Summary
The scene changes again, and Vivian is back in the hospital. Technicians ask her to spell her name and her doctor’s name repeatedly as they subject her to a battery of medical tests. At one point, she sarcastically responds that she is “Lucy, Countess of Bedford” (17). The medical staff is unamused. The technicians are only concerned with getting the tests done and Vivian, frustrated with being ignored, begins to tell the audience about her career.
After earning her undergraduate degree, Vivian becomes Dr. Ashford’s graduate assistant. Vivian helps Ashford compile a critical edition of Donne’s work before writing her dissertation on Donne’s Holy Sonnets. She tells the audience that her career has been meteoric. Not only has her research been published in elite journals, her book on Donne’s Holy Sonnets—titled Made Cunningly—“remains an immense success, in paper as well as cloth” (19). Vivian explains that analyzing Donne’s wit is “a way to see how good you really are,” and she assures viewers that “no one is quite as good as I” (20).
Vivian has been moving from test to test during her explanation, and now her wheelchair is passed to Susie Monahan, Vivian’s primary nurse. Susie wheels Vivian to meet with Dr. Jason Posner, a clinical fellow in the medical oncology branch who works with Dr. Kelekian. Jason is nervous because Vivian is his former professor, and after introducing himself, Vivian asks him if he majored in English. Jason did not, but he wanted to prove to himself that he could get an A in the hardest course on campus. Jason begins taking Vivian’s medical history, which reveals that Vivian has no living family and that she has—up to this point, at least—been very healthy. A bout of abdominal cramps and exhaustion prompted her to see her gynecologist, who suspected a tumor and referred her to Dr. Kelekian.
After finishing the questionnaire, Jason nervously asks Vivian to lie down so he can conduct a manual pelvic exam. Vivian begins reciting one of Donne’s poems to relax, and Jason tries to make small talk with Vivian and Susie while he works. He is shocked when he finds the tumor, quickly concludes the exam, and hurries away. He leaves Vivian to compose herself, and Susie cleans the exam room.
Scene 4 Summary
The stage notes tell readers that Vivian walks “downstage to [the] audience” after her exam, and she tells everyone that her cancer treatment is teaching her how “to suffer” (31). She begins listing the pain and indignity of illness: things like excruciating tests, constant nausea, going bald, and having a former student perform a pelvic exam. Vivian says having cancer is more “degrading” and “humiliating” that she had imagined (32).
Suddenly, Vivian is hit by a wave of extreme nausea. She falls down and begins retching, then jokes about how her colleagues would be delighted if she literally puked her brains out since they could publish their own scholarship on Donne as a memorial to her. She rings for Susie to measure her “output” so her doctors can track how much Vivian is eating, and losing. Susie notices Vivian is alone and asks if she has had visitors (33). Vivian says she has not, and Susie tells Vivian she will check on her regularly. She tells Vivian, “If there’s anything you need, you just ring” (34). Vivian becomes uncomfortable with Susie’s kindness, and Susie leaves.
Scenes 3-4 Analysis
This section introduces the play’s other major characters: Dr. Jason Posner and nurse Susie Monahan. The audience learns that Jason is much like Vivian: he pushes himself to succeed. Just as Vivian analyzes Donne to prove her intelligence, Jason took Vivian’s class to prove his. They are both driven by the pursuit of knowledge, just in different fields. Susie, on the other hand, is kind and caring. She is not interested in what Vivian’s illness can teach science; rather, she wants to make Vivian as comfortable as possible.
Throughout the play, Jason and Susie serve as foils for one another. In literature, a “foil” is a character that contrasts with another character to highlight specific qualities or themes. In this case, Susie and Jason represent the two different sides of health care. On the one hand, medicine can only advance through research and the pursuit of knowledge, and Jason represents that quest. But the danger of dealing with sick people every day is losing perspective on patients’ humanity. The patient becomes a problem to solve, which Edson makes clear when the lab technicians push Vivian from test to test with as little communication as possible. Jason is not much better; he exclaims, “Jesus!” when he finds Vivian’s tumor, and he leaves without explaining himself (31). He either cannot or will not empathize with Vivian’s position; he is so interested in treating Vivian’s cancer that he forgets that Vivian is more than just her tumor.
And that is what Vivian means by the “degrading” nature of her illness. It is more than just the symptoms of her illness or the complications of her treatment, which are physically and emotionally difficult. It is the culmination of small acts of dehumanization, such as the technicians’ disregard or Jason’s inconsiderate bedside manner. That is what makes Edson’s inclusion of Donne’s “Sonnet X,” colloquially known as “Death Be Not Proud,” so powerful here. The poem is about Death’s misplaced power; Donne says that Death is a servant to outside forces,such as man, illness, and war. In other words, Death has no more control over whether it takes Vivian than Vivian has over her cancer. They are locked in a struggle with an inevitable end. The only choice Vivian has is in how she lives her final days.
And that is what makes Susie such an important counterpoint to Jason in Wit. While medical research is important and noble, Susie shows the importance of compassion in care. Unlike Jason, who becomes obsessed with the data Vivian’s case can provide, Susie cares for Vivian as a person. That does not mean she neglects the science of Vivian’s treatment—she measures Vivian’s output and handles the ins-and-outs of Vivian’s medication with expert skill. But she also cares for Vivian’s overall well-being, too. When she asks about Vivian’s visitors, Susie is actually making sure Vivian does not feel scared or alone. And when she offers to “pop my head in every once in a while to see how [Vivian is] coming along,” it is accompanied by a kind touch (34). Susie represents Edson’s vision of ideal patient treatment, which combines competency with compassion.
