Wit

“I have been asked ‘How are you feeling today?’ while I was throwing up into a plastic washbasin. I have been asked as I was emerging from a four-hour operation with a tube in every orifice…I am waiting for the moment when someone asks me this question and I am dead.” 

In this statement, Vivian—who is still speaking to the audience—sets up the tension between words and their meaning. As a literature professor, Vivian cares about language and semantics. But throughout the play, words are stripped of meaning and instead used as platitudes. That is the case here, where the question of how Vivian is feeling directly contrasts with the visible reality of her illness. Those asking are not actually concerned with Vivian’s deteriorating condition; rather, people continue to ask her the same, comfortable question to avoid facing the uncomfortable reality of her situation. 

“I’ve got less than two hours. Then: curtain.” 

Vivian tells the audience that she is dying of cancer, and her time is running out. This literary technique is often referred to as a frame story: an author begins the book, play, or poem at its end, then uses flashbacks to fill in the blanks for the reader. Edson’s use of the frame story changes the focus of the play. Instead of centering around whether Vivian will live—readers know she will not—the play’s conflict comes from watching her death play out on stage. 

“Nothing but a breath—a comma—separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause.” 

Vivian is listening to her mentor, E. M. Ashford, lecture on John Donne’s most famous sonnet, “Holy Sonnet 10.” It contains the lines, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not one” (13). While these lines might be about death, Ashford’s criticism is actually about life. She points out that the separation between life and death is ephemeral. This scene is also ironic: Ashford points out that death is not something to be acted out “on a stage,” but that is precisely whathappens during Wit.

“Vivian. You’re a bright young woman. Use your intelligence. Don’t go back to the library. Go out. Enjoy yourself with friends.” 

Throughout the play, Edson asks readers to consider Vivian’s life choices, especially as her life comes to a close. Although Ashford encourages Vivian to find a life outside of her academic pursuits, readers learn that Vivian has no friends or family to rely upon as she undergoes her treatment. 

“Professor Bearing. I, ah, I was an undergraduate at the U. I took your course in seventeenth-century poetry.” 

Dr. Jason Posner, one of Vivian’s former students, is also the resident doctor assisting with her treatment. Vivian does not remember him, but he tells her that her course was one of the hardest he took as an undergraduate, which gives her a sense of pride.

“Yes. That’s all there is to my life history.” 

Vivian has devoted her life to the study of John Donne’s poetry, and although she has become the foremost scholar in her field, she has done so with great sacrifice. While she has achieved prominence in her field, it is clear Vivian has done so at the cost of having intimate relationships. Furthermore, Edson uses this moment to criticize how the medical field reduces a varied, interesting life to a few clinical questions on a piece of paper. 

“With one important difference: in Grand Rounds, they read me like a book. Once I did the teaching, now I am taught.” 

Grand Rounds involve medical students talking about the nitty-gritty of a patient’s condition while the attending physician asks questions. It is a critical part of their learning process, but as Edson points out, it can also be dehumanizing. The doctors are speaking about Vivian’s condition right in front of her as if she is a specimen, not a person. Speaking to the audience once again, Vivian relates the experience to her own surgical analysis of John Donne’s poetry. By being “taught,” Vivian finds herself in a powerless position, which is exactly opposite of how she feels when she is analyzing a poem.

“At the time of first-look surgery, a significant part of the tumor was de-bulked, mostly in this area—here. Left, right ovaries. Fallopian tubes. Uterus. All out.”

While Vivian is talking to the audience about what it is like to be the subject of Grand Rounds, Jason is going over Vivian’s condition with the group of medical students. Despite Vivian’s presence, Jason’s analysis of her illness is more than just clinical—it is cold. He talks about Vivian as if she is a problem to be solved, not a person to be cured. The juxtaposition of Jason’s analysis with Vivian’s experience highlights how the medical field can forget to treat patients with dignity and respect.

“The illustration bore out the meaning of the word, just as he had explained it. At the time, it seemed like magic.” 

Vivian is remembering the first time she fell in love with language. Her father is reading the newspaper while a six-year-old Vivian reads The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies.She stumbles across the word “soporific,” which she does not understand. Her father helps her figure out that it means “sleepy,” much to her awe and delight. It was that feeling that led her to study literature, and she fell in love with Donne’s poetry because his difficult language made her feel the magic of language again and again. This quotation is also important because it is the only glimpse Vivian gives the audience of her life beyond her illness or her job. 

“I’m glad I was here on nights. I’ll make sure you get to bed soon, okay? It’ll just be a minute. I’ll get you some juice, some nice juice with lots of ice.” 

Susie Monahan is Vivian’s nurse. While Vivian often regards her with distain—she finds Susie unintelligent and altogether too peppy—Susie always treats Vivian with care and respect. When Vivian comes into the ER because of complications from her treatment, Susie shows genuine concern. Her first priority is Vivian’s comfort, unlike Jason, who is most concerned with following through with Vivian’s experimental treatment plan. Susie provides a foil for the highly trained doctors, and she shows that knowledge is not always the most important part of practicing medicine. 

“I am not in isolation because I have cancer, because I have a tumor the size of a grapefruit. No. I am in isolation because I am being treated for cancer. My treatment imperils my health. Herein lies the paradox. John Donne would revel in it.” 

A paradox is a statement that initially seems like it contradicts itself, but when investigated, actually proves true. The paradox here is that treatment is supposed to improve a person’s health, but Vivian’s treatment is making her even sicker. 

“No problem. Listen, gotta go. Keep pushing the fluids.”

The phrase “pushing fluids” becomes a motif throughout the second half of the play. Jason continues to tell Vivian to drink; it is his parting advice to her every time he leaves her room. Much like asking Vivian how “she is feeling today,” “pushing fluids” becomes another phrase that becomes a platitude. It means nothing, especially as Vivian’s cancer treatment begins to fail. 

“The greatest wit—the greatest English poet, some would say—was John Donne. In the Holy Sonnets, Donne applied his capacious, agile wit to the larger aspects of the human experience: life, death, and God. In his poems, metaphysical quandaries are addressed, but never resolved. Ingenuity, virtuosity, and a vigorous intellect that jousts with the most exalted concepts: these are the tools of wit.” 

This quotation helps readers understand the play’s title. In this case, “wit” can mean two things. It refers to mental sharpness as well as the ability to use words in quick, inventive ways. Donne is famous for his use of wit in his poetry—he uses sharp observations to tackle subjects that often have no definitive answers. This parallels Vivian’s own journey throughout the play. Like Donne, Vivian uses her “vigorous intellect” to grapple with her own mortality.

“In everything I have done, I have been steadfast, resolute—some would say in the extreme. Now, as you can see, I am distinguishing myself in illness.”

There is a knee-jerk tendency to pity Vivian for being alone, and while the play acknowledges her sacrifices, it also makes it clear that Vivian has carefully constructed her life by choice. She is a woman who commits and follows through, even in illness. This quotation challenges readers’ pity of Vivian by reminding them that she has lived by her own rules, even if they are not necessarily those of others. 

“You grow cancer cells, and they never stop.…That’s got a funny name. Know what it is? […] Immortality in culture.” 

This is another example of a literary paradox. Cancer, which is killing Vivian, is one of the only cell types to replicate indefinitely. The “immortality” of cancer cells foils Vivian’s own mortality, which the audience participates in as the play progresses.

“So we have another instance of John Donne’s agile wit at work: not so much resolving the issues of life and God as reveling in their complexity.” 

Like Donne’s poetry, Wit also refuses to resolve the issues of life. While readers know Vivian will die by the end of the play, the play itself does not offer any solution to death—mainly because there is none. Rather, the play thrives on the complexity of its characters. Vivian is an unrepentant workaholic who refuses pity and sympathy, up until the end. Jason’s impressive intelligence is dwarfed by his lack of compassion. And Susie, whom Vivian often treats poorly, ends up being her biggest advocate. These complexities are something to be explored, not resolved, and that exploration is what drives the play’s plot forward. 

“What you’re doing is very hard […] It’s like it’s out of control, isn’t it?” 

Vivian’s nurse, Susie, comforts Vivian by reassuring her that dying is hard. It is especially tough for Vivian, whose ambition and success ride on the back of a need for control. But Vivian’s willpower is no match for her cancer. In this moment, Edson shows readers that even the most capable people have precious little control over their lives…or their deaths.

“I’m scared.” 

This is the first time Vivian’s strong, no-nonsense exterior cracks. This moment humanizes Vivian, but it also reminds audiences that she is facing the truth of her mortality. This short, powerful line cuts through the language of the play—which is often clinical and complex—to reveal the truth of the matter. Vivian is scared of dying, even as she knows her end draws near. 

“We are discussing my life and my death, and my brain is dulling.” 

The closer Vivian moves toward death, the more real it becomes. She no longer thinks of it abstractly; instead, she begins to realize that her time is limited. Vivian’s loss of cognition has become especially scary for her given how much she values her intelligence. 

“We’ll get you a Patient-Controlled Analgesic. It’s a little pump, and you push a little button, and you decide how much medication you want. It’s very simple, and it’s up to you.” 

Susie gives Vivian a way to manage her pain on her own terms, which gives her a little bit of control over an uncontrollable situation. Vivian’s personhood has been stripped away from her in small bits throughout the play, first by cancer, and then by the medical profession. But Susie treats Vivian like a person, and giving her a pain pump is a small, humane gesture that allows Vivian to manage at least one aspect of her passing. 

“The Holy Sonnets we worked on most, they were mostly about Salvation Anxiety […] You’re this brilliant guy, I mean brilliant—this guy makes Shakespeare sound like a Hallmark card. And you know you’re a sinner. And there’s this promise of salvation, the whole religious thing. But you just can’t deal with it […] It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.” 

Donne’s poetry is a central motif in Wit, and Edson uses it to clarify the play’s themes. In this quotation, Jason explains that much of Donne’s poetry wrestles with salvation. He is desperately trying to reconcile himself to the idea of heaven, even as he logically cannot bring himself to believe in it. This foils Vivian’s own experience of death, where she walks toward a bright, shining light. Despite Donne’s suspicion about the afterlife, Edson’s play offers hope in some sort of peace beyond death. 

“It’s time to go. ‘And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’” 

Vivian’s mentor, Dr. Ashford, comes to visit Vivian in her final lucid moments. Ashford reads The Runaway Bunny to Vivian, then speaks these final words to her former student before leaving. Ashford is quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet here, where Horatio bids Hamlet farewell as Hamlet takes his final breath. It is the heartfelt goodbye of one friend to another, and Ashford finds herself doing the same. Readers can also interpret Ashford’s final lines as permission for Vivian to die. Vivian has long looked up to Ashford, and immediately after Ashford leaves her hospital room, Vivian passes away. 

“She’s DNR!”

When Jason comes to check on Vivian and realizes she is not breathing, he calls for the resuscitation team. When Susie realizes what he has done, she tries to physically pull him away from Vivian. Susie is trying to dignify Vivian’s last wish to pass in peace.