Take a look at this scene from the 2001 HBO adaptation.
Now I'm not the biggest fan of Emma Thompson as Vivian Bearing—she's too British, not bigger-than-life enough in the way I see Vivian in my mind—and as with many plays, I'm not sure it benefits from being "opened up," so that it is indeed in a real hospital, rather than the hospital in Vivian's mind. But you might disagree. But this clip gives you the sense of one way of viewing the play and Vivian.
1. We began talking about Vivian yesterday—some of you said on the last blog you liked her, some of you said she was a bit off-putting, and one of you (hmm, I wonder who...) said they abhored her (though that position has since changed). One can say she is cerebral, intelligent, arrogant, conceited, immodest, tough, brave, insecure, controlling. She is not an ogre, a monster, not even unlikable (though some may disagree). She is, I think, very human: a complex organism. She certainly is not warm, cuddly, modest, and soft. The play could have won our sympathy for Vivian very quickly if she were warm, cuddly, modest, and soft (movies so often do that when they give us a dying character). So why make her so prickly? Why risk alienating the audience from her? And she can be alienating—that's not an unreasonable response.
2. We are now into the treatment for Vivian's cancer. What's your reaction to it, as it is presented specifically in Jason Posner?
3. What moment or line in the reading particularly jumped out at you—and why?
As always, 200 words—take a little time answering. I do want to hear more tomorrow from Stuart and others about what he said at the end of class yesterday, how (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) ovarian cancer makes sense for Vivian since she doesn't need her uterus anymore. I could be paraphrasing incorrectly. But it was a provocative comment, and there was some buzz at the end of class. I like provocation and buzz. So if Stuart is willing to, I'd like him to say again what he said and for us to talk about it in the context of how it applies to any theme(s) in the play.
See you guys tomorrow.
Vivian may be off-putting, but she's a far cry from alienating. She cracks jokes and uses her wit for what seems like the sole purpose of entertaining us- she's friendly towards the audience. That friendliness allows us to overcome her more intimidating or foreign aspects and build some, but limited, rapport. But why not oversell the emotional connection? I believe the answer is to preserve her character, insomuch as she is a loner. Allowing the audience connect to Vivian in a visceral way changes who she is; no longer is she the cold, dispassionate, and uncompromising (in an emotional sense), but rather a misunderstood and loving character that has been hidden by her studies all these years. We are just as much actors in Vivian's mind as the rest of the cast, we most also feel distant with her in order to sell the lonesome predicament she has made for herself with her uncompromising attitude towards others.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't just the novelty of the treatment that will provide a “substantial contribution to knowledge,” it also seems that Kelekian is using Vivian as a means to train Jason. And Jason isn't making this treatment any more comfortable. Jason seems at best inexperienced, and at worst like a fool throughout his examination of Vivian. He leaves her alone while she is strapped into the stirrups and lying on her back for an extended period of time. And when he examines her, he rather unprofessionally makes small talk about her to Susan. Vivian later describes this experience as “degrading” (maybe she should've given him a B). Overall, the attempts at treatment seem more harmful than helpful, both psychologically and physically.
“That's there is to my life history.” Obviously Vivian mutters this ironically, critiquing the brevity and the impersonal feeling of the medical interview. But there is some truth to it. In the next few pages, Vivian answers every question Jason asks with “no,” acknowledging she hasn't done this or that throughout her life. She life seems rather like a blank slate, with the exception of her scholarly studies. For me, this makes her appear tragic: she's as experienced as a young teenager, yet here she is with stage four ovarian cancer.
ReplyDeleteThe author might present Vivian this way to make her more real. Her character traits might not be likable to everybody, however they are believable. She seems like a real human being going through a struggle. Also, I think her particularness makes the story more focused on her. This play is going on in her mind and it's about her struggle. This play doesn't necessarily have to make you relate to the main character, it doesn't show you how you would struggle through cancer personally. However, I believe the story will make some points that apply to everybody's life and death, but it will do it by illustrating those points in the life of a real, individual person rather than making you feel like the main character. If that makes sense...
2. Her cancer truly makes her suffer. We see her throwing up and losing her dignity. She has to go through many uncomfortable procedures, and all the while, she feels sick and weak. The visualization of her illness shows how consuming cancer is in a person's life. The treatment seems to be painful, if not equally as debilitating as the cancer. It shows an interesting contrast of fighting cancer with more hurtful things and hoping that it gets better in the end, but obviously it's difficult to know if the pain she goes through in treatment will pay off. The people treating her, including Jason seem to not know how to interact with her in an appropriate way. They way Jason talks to her is awkward, and he seems inexperienced since he makes an obvious noise when he finds the mass.
3. The line, "I am learning to suffer." seems important to me. Not only does it demonstrate the to.l that treatment and cancer are taking on Vivian both mentally and physically, but it shows Vivian becoming more in touch with her emotions. From the flashbacks, it seems like Vivian never focused on herself, and threw all her energy into studies. As terrible as it is, the cancer is bringing Vivian's attention to her own state of mind and situation rather than the situation created in a poem.
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ReplyDelete1. I think that Vivian is so “prickly”, so cold and brusque, because it makes the play’s message more powerful. If she were a likable character, a nice, warm woman, the audience would automatically be on her side. The pity would be enormous and the play would be excruciating to watch. If the audience developed a deep emotional connection to Vivian it would be like watching a loved one suffer from cancer. And nobody wants to pay money for an evening of that. So, make Vivian a bit removed, not kind or sweet, make her work a bit to get the audience’s love. And when we do pity her or empathize with her or whatever we want to call that emotion he story provokes, we can take a step back and realize how despicable cancer (and chemotherapy) is. How even a relatively unlikeable woman who we do not have any emotional connection with can cause us to feel the way we do (I am intentionally being vague here because I am not yet far enough into the play to find a word that describes this emotion). She is a human being, a very flawed human being, and cancer is destroying her—even Vivian Bearing, a woman disconnected from her emotions, compels an audience with a battle this brutal.
ReplyDelete2. Vivian is undergoing the worst of treatments, the full dose with full side effects. She describes her situation (this was from the previous reading but it illustrates my point): “I have cancer, insidious cancer, with pernicious side effects—no, the treatment has pernicious side effects.” (12). Yes, the cancer itself is killing her, but the treatment makes her feel like she is dying. Because of the nature of her disease, she suffers greatly through the act of trying to stay alive. Jason is becoming a doctor. He has seen and will see many people in immense pain. If he felt their pain, if he empathized with them, he would not be able to survive. Good doctors manage to find a balance between being unfeeling and being crushed by the problems of their patients. Jason is not a good doctor—he isn’t even a full doctor yet. He has not learned that balancing act. Instead of being overly sensitive, he is overly insensitive. He seems to care only about the tasks he has before him. He checks her charts, her vitals, focusing on the numbers, and then asks Vivian how she is feeling as an afterthought: “[…]Oh, Jeez. Clinical. Professor Bearing. How are you feeling today?” (47). He does not treat her with kindness. The only character who seems to possess that quality is Suzie, the nurse.
3. The moment that jumped out to me from this reading was when Vivian is vomiting and she says, “What’s left? I haven’t eaten in two days. What’s left to puke?” (32). This struck me because she is so vulnerable in this position. She is completely empty, devoid of physical sustenance but also (as we find out two pages later) of emotional sustenance—she has not had a single visitor. She is lonely and empty and suffering, stripped of her status because she is no longer in the academic world, she is in the medical world, and she is a dying patient, the most vulnerable of all positions. Vivian does not strike me as the kind of woman who is comfortable with being vulnerable, and I think this is a terrifying moment for her. So she turns to wit, her comfort, her companion, her defense, and begins speculating about barfing her brains out.
I’ve come up with several possible reasons for portraying Vivian as more prickly than cozy. For one, it is much easier to track her character development if she starts out as standoffish and rude, rather than if she were just some vaguely nice character from the beginning. Although, I suppose that this possibility assumes that she will gradually soften over the course of the play, which seems like too predictable of a path for Margaret Edson to take. Additionally, her sharp, domineering demeanor keeps the audience on edge, and her intellect and rather morbid humor prevent this play from slipping into the trite sob story that most works written about cancer patients seem to emulate. And, by portraying Vivian as blocked-off and repressed, we, the audience, get to watch her as she painstakingly peels away the layers of her metaphorical onion and engages in true introspection for the first time.
ReplyDeleteThe toll that the cancer treatment has already taken on Vivian is shocking. Physically, her appearance has changed drastically, and she’s lost control over her body. But more startling was the apparent toll that the chemo has taken on her brain. As she says, “my vocabulary has taken a turn for the Anglo-Saxon.” Her sharp intellect, which has completely defined her life thus far, has been relegated to a secondary role as she exerts all her energy fighting for her life. In regards to Jason, I was disappointed by his callous, cold treatment of Vivian during the history taking and the pelvic exam. Not only did he lack any semblance of bedside manner, he also spoke about her as though she wasn’t even in the room, critiquing her discipline while simultaneously bragging about his own successes. You all may have gleaned from these past couple blog posts that I hate arrogance more than just about anything.
The moment that jumped out at me most was her recitation of the multiplication table as she lay waiting for her pelvic exam to begin. It was almost as though she forgot completely who she was and resorted to a generic calming device, before suddenly realizing the strangeness of this method with an “Um. Oh.” She then transitions into poetry, which seems more characteristic of her. This moment was particularly striking because poetry is at the very core of Vivian’s identity, so forgetting it, even briefly, represents more than just a negligible lapse of memory.
1. One reason Edson may have portrayed Vivian as prickly is to make her less endearing to the audience. I think it is very difficult for most people to watch someone die (perhaps it is a little easier reading it than watching it acted out as a movie or play). But I think her illness may be easier to process if we are not as drawn to Vivian, if we cannot imagine her as someone in our lives that we really care about. On the other hand, I think Edson may be trying to remind us that death is painful and terrible no matter how likeable the person is. Even though she is not likeable we can still sympathize with her. Perhaps Edson is trying to get the audience to care more about Vivian Bearing by showing us her death first (we know right from the get-go that Vivian has terminal cancer). Perhaps we begin to care for Vivian as we are taken through her death, even though under different ‘circumstances’ (if we met her through academia, for example) we may have disliked her. It is as if Edson wants for us to care about Vivian in spite of ourselves.
ReplyDelete2. The treatment of Vivian’s cancer (especially presented by Jason Posner) made me uncomfortable. I was struck by how awkward Jason was throughout the examination – every soothing comment said to Vivian is as much directed toward himself as it is to her. I felt that Jason was simply using Vivian’s reputation to show off his own intelligence during the examination, which made me dislike him. Reading about something that is inherently unpleasant being enacted by an awkward doctor whom I dislike made me actually squeamish, especially while watching it acted out in front of me. But I think I would have been more uncomfortable as an audience member watching this as a play; watching even just this one scene from the 2001 adaptation was difficult for me. While reading the play and the short dialogue between Jason and Susie, it’s easier to forget about Vivian’s discomfort during this scene. It’s much harder to do so when you’re watching a film version, where you can see Emma Thompson’s face and hear her pain.
3. “Well, first my colleagues, most of whom are my former students, would scramble madly for my position. Then their consciences would flare up, so to honor my memory they would put together a collection of their essays about John Donne” (32). Vivian is well aware of the fact that she will not be missed if she dies (or simply “barfs her brains out”, to be specific). I find this very impressive – if I were in this position, I would not be able to admit this to myself. But Vivian doesn’t seem all too upset that her colleagues would view her death not as a loss to academia or the university, but as a chance to showcase their own work (this also reflects what I was saying in the second question about Jason, how they are using other people to boost themselves up). I personally think it’s all right if Vivian is content with being alone and detached from the people that physically surround her, even if the situation depresses me a bit (from the outside). I found this line very perceptive and honest and found that it says a lot about Vivian Bearing.
1. I think they risk alienating her the way they do because they want to make this a believable portrayal of her life and who she is and Vivian isn't a warm or inviting person. This isn't a play about how likeable Vivian is or how we can sympathize with her, it's about her getting cancer at the peak of her life and how this causes her to have an epiphany about her values and what a fulfilled life really looks like. I also don't feel like it's just the audience that's being alienated as we see in the clip you posted with Jason and the other technician. There's an obvious awkward tension in the room created by Vivian and nobody seems to know how to alleviate it.
ReplyDelete2. I agree with Stuart that the treatment was more detrimental than beneficial to Vivian. It seemed like Jason felt very uncomfortable and didn't necessarily know what to do which in turn only made Vivian feel even worse. Seeing as Vivian doesn't really have anything else going on in her life besides her work, that's all there was to talk about which didn't make the situation any better. Later it's reiterated again that she has nobody she can contact in her time of need when the technician inquires about her lack of visitors. This is definitely a time when you'd need some kind of support system, so how Vivian must be feeling isn't even comprehensible.
3. The line that stuck out to me was "I am learning to suffer." This stuck out to me because it really shows how Vivian is dealing with her circumstance. She's treating this experience as if it's something you'd learn in school or as if she's looking at it from the outside in. It's like she knows she has cancer but not really. Her reaction to everything that's happening is what I'd imagine her reaction to getting a bad grade on a paper would be.
1. I think that Vivian’s prickly-ness is actually a very important quality to our endearment. She isn’t just “someone dying of cancer,” a hypothetical someone with whom we empathize in that simple, well-intentioned way that we wish strangers well. Making people that we are supposed to empathize with the ultimate humanitarian is sort of a cheap shot. Of course we’d want the best for a kind, humble, selfless person - but that simple “of course” means that we’ve missed the entire point. To empathize with someone without hesitation is to care about them in the hypothetical, without any actual consideration to them as an individual, who is suffering and losing themselves. It becomes more about the fact that other people are suffering a loss, and diverting attention from the actual person. Vivian’s illness is tragic in of itself. She is a very real and solid HUMAN, an individual with little to no connection - our empathy is for her and her alone, not redirected to and split among those who would be losing her. So, Vivian’s prickliness is a rather clever and seemingly counter-intuitive way to encourage real emotions in readers by making her less of a martyr and more of a real person.
ReplyDelete2. I can’t help but feel terrified for Vivian. Surely still in shock from her newly set expiration date, the “experts” assigned to care for her, to keep her healing and well, have apparently no idea what they’re doing. Jason leaves her alone to go off searching for an assistant, who is supposed to be, yet is not, there. He is flustered, awkward, and unprofessional. During the examination he desperately and ineffectively attempts to dissipate the tension by rambling, only to yell in surprise when the locates Vivian’s tumor. He proceeds to take off his gloves and hurry away. It is difficult to imagine that Vivian feels that she’s in good hands. That, when paired with the apparently excruciating side-effects of her new treatments, must be an incredible unsettling situation. Imagine not only being in extreme discomfort, but having doubts about the competence and reliability of those overseeing said treatment? Would you feel at all safe, or comforted? This is not treatment, it is trial and error.
3. I was particularly struck by Vivian’s expectations from her colleagues and students, were they to hear of her illness. “If the word went round that Vivian Bearing had barfed her brains out… Well, first my colleagues, most of whom are my former students, would scramble madly for my position. Then their consciences would flare up, so to honor my memory they would put together a collection of their essays about John Donne.” She has absolutely no faith in the goodwill of her peers, nor her students, and though it is a very sad thing to say, I must say that this sort of reaction is a real possibility. What genuine feelings of sorrow could be found for a strict, detached teacher with no friends or family? What nonsense would people say to “honor” her memory?- “A wonderful teacher,” maybe even “A good person.” Stock phrases, chock full of kindness in the hopes of sounding genuine, but without much basis and with no specifics. It would be difficult for anyone to express genuine empathy. Even if someone were to really miss her, how could they miss Vivian Bearing the person rather than Professor Bearing the infamous english teacher? Maybe that’s all Vivian Bearing is - a professor of poetry. How genuinely can someone miss a person so easily summarized (or at the very least perceived as such)? That considered, her prediction would not just be possible but also disappointingly likely.
1. It would be very easy to get our sympathy for a less prickly character, but they also wouldn't need it. Vivian is too private and hostile to connection for her to have anyone else. A warm cuddly protagonist would earn our sympathies along with those of the other characters. Vivian reaches out to us, whether she is actually talking to us or some imagined audience, because she needs it. She can't quite connect with anyone else in the story. Either she won't let herself or she actually can not. We're given a prickly person who needs an audience.
ReplyDelete2. Jason is annoying. He's conceited and overconfident in his Academics in the same way that Vivian is except that she legitimately is at the top of her field, he's not. He's distant, overconfident, insensitive, and generally self-centered. The treatment generally is similarly unfair to her for the sake of academics. We see her some after the chemo starts and it's horrible. She continues it for the sake of "significant contribution to human knowledge" but goes through hell for it. It may just be that her situation is bleak, but the depiction of the treatment makes it worse.
3. When she talks about how slow time goes even when there's so little left, I wasn't sure exactly what her feelings were on this. I couldn't tell if she was bored by the slowness or happy that it felt longer. Either way, it's weird to think about what it would be like to wish that a process was over but know that it would quite probably end in your death. The other word in this section that sticks out is "tedious." She calls the treatment tedious. It looks unbearable, but maybe not tedious, because even in between the major points there would be pain. I feel like that would be uncomfortable, but tedious brings a whole new level in. Being bored out of your mind and in pain and vomiting would be no fun, to make a massive understatement.
1) It’s been my experience that when a writer gives me a dying character who emits warmth and some saint-like traits, it’s either because the their character comes second to either another character or the plot itself. Here, however, we know that she dies. We’ve been told how it ends, so the actual chronology of events is less important than her own personal growth or discovery. She is going to change, as most main characters do, but for us, her company, to be satisfied, it will have to be a change for the better, and better way to do that than by starting off her seeming cold and robotic. I think this is a story of self discovery as well as her discovery of all the world around her, and the most effective way to demonstrate this change is by having her so unhuman in the beginning.
ReplyDelete2) I knew she was dying, but I didn’t really get just how bad her cancer is until reading Jason’s outburst while examining her. She gave us no real representation of the gravity of her situation. This right here is important because it begins our transformation from audience to a part of Vivian herself. We are witnessing her discovery and self awakening at the same time she is. She doesn’t tell us that vomiting is horrible; she lets us see for ourselves. This is rather interesting because there is definitely a retrospective side to her dialogue, but there is also the side where we live her life in real time. We are listening to her language get less sophisticated, watching her body weaken. It’s a pretty unique juxtaposition, but it’s utterly seamless.
3) The line that really grabbed me the most, “One thing that can be said for an eight month course of cancer treatment: it is highly educational. I am learning how to suffer,” helped me to understand Vivian and to find some sympathy for her. She’s a woman who has never loved, therefore never lost, therefore never felt pain. This is not something I would wish upon anyone. I realize that the agony she’s referring to has quite a lost to do with the physical exertion she’s experiencing, but I believe that a great deal of it also relates to the emotion state she’s in while all this is happening. Alone. She’s emotion isolated. She has no support system, no comfort, no release from this “agony”. I knew she was alone before, but I hadn’t seen her response to it before this line, but whoa did it hit home.
1. I think the fact that Vivian is not a person who we would consider as warm is meant to not only humanize her but to also show that cancer does not discriminate. Often when stories about cancer patients are told, the patient is either a saint-like human being or an average yet kind and undeserving person. This play makes it clear that in reality, cancer can and does affect anyone and no one person/story is more deserving of the sympathy of an audience. Vivian is off putting and at times cold, but it doesn’t mean it's okay that for her to have cancer; that her story is any less authentic and meaningful than anyone else's.
ReplyDelete2. Vivian has definitely changed since the first time we saw her. She's no longer interested in talking about herself and her accomplishments, in fact she doesn't seem interested in talking at all. She still has her superior attitude –like when she acted surprised when Dr.Posner said he aced her class– but she doesn't voice it as much as she did before. She's become too tired to pick at every little thing. And she knows this; she's very aware that the cancer and the treatment has taken a toll on her. To make matters worse Jason says too much and doesn't really filter himself. The whole scene was cringeworthy from his spiel about his college prowess to his inappropriate comment about having to have a female in the room when examining her. And that wasn't even the worst part, he couldn't keep his composure long enough to at least wait till he left the room to freak out about her tumor.
3. I was most taken by the scene where Jason was asking her those questions. They all matter to her medical history, but they were also very telling about her life. In class, we suspected that she didn't have many people she connected with, but now we know that both of her parents died and she doesn't have siblings or a significant other.
1. Vivian’s prickly character is what makes this play interesting. Vivian’ prickliness and her overall unusual character is what sets this play apart from all other works about people dying of cancer. I think the reason Vivian is prickly is her extreme lack of empathy. Not having enough empathy to be able to form relationships is an essential part of Vivian’s character, so if she was warm and fuzzy and empathetic towards people, she really wouldn’t be anything close to a woman who even resembles Vivian. Even though she is not a warm character I do find myself feeling some sympathy for her because of all the things she has missed out on in her life. I don’t know if it is my place to feel sympathy for her, and I’m not sure she feels any sympathy for herself.
ReplyDelete2. Vivian has really declined both physically and mentally since starting the treatment. We don’t know how much time has passed between the first scenes and when she is nearly barfing her brains out. It is interesting how as Vivian gets worse, Susiie is kind to her. I’m doubtful that Susie cares about Vivian at all, being kind is probably part of her professional duty, but her kindness is having an impact on Vivian. “(She touches Vivian’s arm.) If there’s anything you need, you just ring. VIVIAN: (Uncomfortable with kindness) Thank you.Does Vivian like this kindness? It seems like she does even while she feels uncomfortable with it. Susies’s interactions with Vivian are remarkably different than Jason’s. Jason doesn’t seem to see the person in Vivian at all, he sees her as a part of a purely medical task.
3. The part that stood at to me most was the scene where Jason was doing the pelvic exam. It was painful how Jason just struck up an unimportant conversation with Susie and said nothing to Vivian the entire time. It would have probably been better if he had done the exam silently or talked to Vivian. I think he felt the need to talk to Susie because he was feeling really uncomfortable about the exam and that was his way of distracting himself. It was such an unusual scene so it stuck with me. The worst part was how Vivian said she felt degraded after it was over.
1) While looking at the cover of our version of the print, I contemplated why they chose such a hopeful picture for the cover. The way she looks off into the distance smiling with the light in her face fills me hope when I look at it. I think they're Margaret Edison wants to say that Vivian is bigger than cancer. We talked a lot about how this is Vivian’s story only. The same thing applies to cancer. This is a Vivian story, not a cancer story. A story of her life, not a story of her time in the hospital. Her life story. Prickly isn't the word I'd use to describe Vivian, but I understand where you're coming from, and I think it's for this reason that Edison makes her “prickly.” Even in the face of death, she is humorous, sarcastic, and inquisitive. She's acts as if she doesn't have cancer at all.
ReplyDelete2) I think the treatment is used to support what I talked about in the last question. The treatment is harsh, very brutal, yet Vivian is able to be herself, no matter how pretentious she may be. Also, it highlight Vivian’s entire approach to life. The earlier scene where she was more focused on the word “neoplastic” itself instead of the implications of it in her treatment that the doctor was explaining. She mocks it in the way she says “…in-patient receiving experimental chemotherapy for advanced metastatic ovarian cancer” and “This counts as output” and “Oh, I have to be very tough.”
3) The throw up scene is what draws me to the conclusion of the last question, and I find it the most interesting. I don't like the way it's played in the clip you showed us, for some of the same reasons you said. I think the actor looks too in pain. She’s to serious, too depressing, and too hopeless. She looks weak. She's the opposite of the character on the cover and the words of the play. Even in the time of immense pain, I imagine Vivian laughing and light hearted. When she guesses how much she had thrown up, she was treating it as a game. She wasn't phased by the experience of throw up at all. She made fun of the fact she has to ring a bell to have someone clean after her. She makes fun of her declining vocabulary literally as she's throwing up. I imagined Vivian smiling, almost laughing, through the entire scene.
1. I think there are a couple possible reasons. First, since a major portion of the plot is about Vivian finally finding meaning in her life, it helps that she's a little off putting. If she weren't so cold and rational, her transformation wouldn't be so remarkable. In fact, it would be kind of mundane. Second, her personality makes her different from other, more stereotypical cancer patients (sweet, wise, etc.) Thus, the societal obligation to feel sorry for cancer patients and our pre-formed opinions about what cancer patients are like are all kind of thrown out the window. That means that when we do make an emotional connection with Vivian, it's much more organic and less manufactured.
ReplyDelete2. I strongly disliked Jason in this scene. He showed absolutely no respect for her body, feeling around her uterus roughly and yelling out when he found the mass. He was arrogant, insulting Vivian's discipline and implying that it wasn't as hard as biology. He left her alone in the room when he wasn't supposed to, and called anti-rape rules "stupid." She has absolutely no control over the situation and is completely subject to his whims. However, it did make me bond emotionally with Vivian more. Any time you see someone subjected to such humiliation if forces you to get on their side.
3. I thought it was interesting when Vivian said she'd wished that she'd given Jason an A. I don't know if it was her realizing that grades don't really mean anything, or if she was regretting playing hard university politics for so long. Either way, it definitely showed personal growth and a much better understanding that the system in which she's grownup is, in some sense, worthless in terms of someone's personal worth.