"...Now I find the image of 'my minute's last point' a little too, shall we say, pointed" (53).
"So the young doctor, like the senior scholar, prefers research to humanity. At the same time the senior scholar, in her pathetic state as a simpering victim, wishes the young scholar would take more interest in personal contact" (58).
"I don't know. I feel so much—what is the word? I look back, I see these scenes, and I..." (63)
Vivian is dying. She will not say the word, nor will Jason—but her "peritoneal cavity, which, despite their best intentions, is now crawling with cancer" (53). But she knows the end is coming; as she asks Jason, "Are you going to be sorry when I—Do you ever miss people?" (57). The two hours allotted to her by "them" are almost up.
I hope you all got some rest this weekend. I'll keep this sweet and short.
At the end of the reading, Vivian reflects back on her teaching. And as she says—quoted above—"I feel so much—what is the word? I look back...and I..."
1. Feels so much what? And looking back, she what? Finish her sentence. And why do you say what you do? Go ahead and quote once in your reponse.
2. Jason took Vivian because Vivian was a known difficult teacher—and having that on his transcript would make him look like a serious student. It's clear that not every student took her for that reason. So would you want her for a teacher? Is she even a good teacher? Why or why not?
See you all tomorrow.
1. Curiosity. As she reminisces about her days as a professor, I think she can’t help but wonder what her life might have been like if she had even once chosen to display the kind of humanity she now seeks from Jason. Immediately before the line you quoted, she coldly denies a student’s request for an extension on his paper, saying, “Do what you will, but the paper is due when it is due.” Surely, making an accommodation for the student wouldn’t have cost her anything, yet she refuses him on principle. What principle? I think that’s what she’s trying to determine in this line. Was there any reason behind her steadfast coldness, or was she just acting that way because that’s how she felt she had to act? When I first read this passage, I thought that the word she might be looking for was “regret,” but now I believe that she’s not regretting her past actions so much as reflecting on the irony of her situation. In order for someone as thoroughly rational as Vivian to feel regret, she’d have to know for sure that a different choice would have resulted in a better outcome. Since she has no such evidence, she’s left speculating on what might have arisen had she treated those around her differently.
ReplyDelete2. Though she’s obviously very knowledgeable in her field, I certainly would not want her as a teacher. In any class - but literature especially - it’s important to have an open dialogue and to feel comfortable voicing one’s opinion. Clearly, this is not the case in Vivian’s class. Even Student 2, who was clearly engaged in the text and had a valuable perspective on Donne ended up being humiliated by her cold prodding. Additionally, it’s obvious that she never bothered to learn any of the names of her students or take a personal interest in their development. It’s as though teaching was just a way for her to broadcast her expertise, not a means to further the intellectual development of her students.
1. Longing. I agree with Emma that it is not quite regret. I think that she longs for that time, that place, when she commanded respect, had power. And maybe a part of her does wish that she had used her power in a kinder manner, but I think that a lot of what she is feeling now is just frustration with being trapped in a hospital bed, with only her mind and the occasional interaction with a doctor to entertain her. She wants to be teaching again, scaring her students just a little and blowing their minds with her insight. Vivian misses the game: “If I pursued, there was the chance of great insight, or the risk of undergraduate banality. I could never predict.” (61). She loved teaching, helping students find meaning in the complicated text (even if she couldn’t apply that meaning to her own life).
ReplyDelete2. I would like to have her as a teacher. Yes, she is brutal. But she is also brilliant. I would love to learn from her, even if it meant strict deadlines and potential embarrassment if I end up like student number two, talking nonsense. I admire her intellectual fortitude and the way she continues to push her students until they understand the text. She could teach me how to analyze text in the most minute, precise sense.
ReplyDeleteI think she feels regret. Before the flashback, she says we will see "how the senior scholar ruthlessly denied her simpering students the touch of human kindness she now seeks." Now that she is a similar situation to her students, she starts to see the flaws in her ways. Now she is struggling, and Jason fails to show any emotion or sympathy towards her. Vivian wishes that Jason "would take more interest in personal contact". I think she is starting to see that research and intelligence are not necessarily the most important part of life. Sometimes, kindness, human interaction, and even feelings are more important than simple facts.
No, I would not want to take her class, and that is not only because she is unnecessarily harsh. However, she is rude and consistently makes mean comments to her students, and probably tears down their confidence. She is just like Jason. All she wants to do is research, she has no interest in the human element of her profession. She sees her students are obstacles who are doomed to idiocy. She fails to see the point in teaching because she does not see the value in helping students who don't already grasp literature perfectly. I don't think she a does a good job of engaging students either. She makes Donne's work seem like a means to end rather than art form. I also think it is hard for her to teach the poetry well because she fails to grasp the poetry completely herself. She can analyze the emotions and issues present in poems, but she cannot connect them to real life. Since she does not understand the poetry herself, it is unlikely that she can really share a poem's full meaning with her students.
1. Regret. I think that she realized how it felt to be treated the way she was treating her students when Jason expressed his lack of interest in having conversation with the patients. I think she's starting to understand that having human connections and emotions are good things to be able to experience sometimes and I think she regrets having wasted all this time and also inflicting this feeling of loneliness and insensitivity on her students. On the bottom of page 58 she says that she "wishes the young doctor would take more interest in personal contact" (58). I think this is interesting because this is one of the few times that we see Vivian being honest with her emotions and actually expressing the want for a personal connection. I think she regrets spending so much time suppressing what she feels and consuming herself with her studies and trying to be a scholar because she's recognizing that to some extent, her achievements don't mean anything.
ReplyDelete2. I would want her as a teacher, but not because she's a good teacher or because I like what she's teaching. I just think it's important to expose yourself to different people with different values and interests because it exposes you to a new world that could potentially change your own. I think Vivian also brings up some interesting points about the meaning of life and I think it'd be beneficial to learn what goes on in her mind. She's also just really brilliant and it'd be crazy taking one of her courses.
Good point about how Jason treated her. Didn't realize the parallel between Vivian/her students and Vivian/Jason. It's even more important considering Jason was once one of her students and now it's almost come back to bite her.
Delete1. She feels regret. Vivian never made contact, never built bridges when she had the chance. Now she's dying and wishes she had some personal contact. Vivian has never been a social person. She has taken refuge in a solitary life. Now she says that it would be a relief "to be a cheerleader on her way to Daytona Beach for spring break" [53]. There aren't many more social experiences. When we saw her as a young woman, Vivian is disdainful of all the other students around her, and now she regrets not reaching out and making connections. She never needed that personal connection. Now, when she knows what it's like to be in a hard place with a person who has no interest in anything other than their work, she has more empathy for her ex-students. She wishes she had known then what it felt like. Even if she doesn't regret her harsh grading, it's clear she wishes she had been more ready to support her students.
ReplyDelete2. Right now, I'm definitely not ready for her, but at some point, I think I would want to have her as a teacher. I wouldn't enjoy the process necessarily, but I would enjoy the result. Because she pushes students hard, she gets results. Clearly she is well regarded, and that probably means that she's good at her job. She puts a lot of work on students, and teaches both literature and how to deal with stress.
1. I think that’s a bit of a complex question, and I don’t think there’s a single, tidy answer to it. Regret is an obvious feeling for her to have, but it isn’t the whole story. Vivian looks back and I can’t help but imagine that she wonders at her past self the way she might wonder at anyone else - now removed from Vivian the teacher, she can analyze herself. This regret comes with an undoubtedly fascinating feeling of self awareness, as well as the feelings of hope and curiosity intrinsic in “What might have been.” What good could have come from being less strict in her deadlines? Who’s life could have been made just a bit easier? How many times did she ruin someone’s day by NOT letting feelings get in the way? It’s just another level of tragedy that Vivian is only now experiencing all these feelings about herself and the world around her, with so little time left.
ReplyDelete2. Vivian is the type of teacher who wishes to take her own ideas and put them into her student’s heads. While her thoughts and insight could quite possibly be unparalleled, their finality doesn’t allow for anything other than what they already have. Any deviation from Vivian’s understanding is, simply, incorrect. That’s not the sort of teacher I would want, regardless of how well they understand the subject. Vivian knows Donne better than anyone else - she knows Donne better than she knows herself - but her knowledge does not necessarily mean that she is a good teacher. Some people with very thick skin may recount her as the best teacher they ever had; a teacher who pushed them to and beyond their limits, and gave them incredible insight. Most people, myself included, would find the incredible stress imposed by such a person, someone who closes the distance between herself and student until their ideas become muddled and they sputter out, too much of a weight to learn from. The class itself would be more an exercise in deciphering exactly what VIVIAN thought about the text, rather than working on your own thoughts. The stress of such a class could negate any actual learning to be done, so no, I wouldn’t want Vivian as my teacher.
1) Regret. Regret is the last emotion you expect Vivian to have, so I spent at least 15 minutes trying to justify a different answer. Regret is still the only word that I see fitting there. Actually, the fact that regret is something Vivian hasn't experienced is what convinced me. The emotion has to be something Vivian isn't familiar with, or else she'd be ale to describe it. The last time we saw Vivian go through something similar was when she had to describe the pain she was experiencing to Jason. “I can't describe it.” “Well, I just, I don't know.” She had never experienced a pain like it before, so she couldn't describe it. Throughout the story, Vivian bragged about her accomplishments and how she spent her life, never once experiencing an ounce of regret. But now Vivian is changing, cancer is changing her, and as her she watches her life slip away, she reflects on how she chose to spend it. The times she rejected human connection come to mind. The fact that a grandmother, a human being, dying is what the student chose to use as an excuse is so important. Even with such a huge thing, a thing that is currently happening to her (death), she still refused to sympathize with the student and give the extension. Now, as she's starting to realize the importance and impact of human life, she regrets things like rejecting the extension. “These scenes” are all the times she failed to understand and rejected connection between people, or how Vivian put it herself, “denied her simpering students the touch of human kindness she now seeks.” The phrase “now seeks” is a pretty clear indicator of regret, even more so because Vivian said this herself right before the scene that sparked the emotion she can't describe.
ReplyDelete2) Yes, I would take her. Mostly because I like to challenge myself, much like our beloved Jason. Plus, who else to learn about Donne from than the master herself. Not only is she knowledgable, Jason has talked about how good of a teacher Vivian actually is, mentioning how she's able to give perfect lectures without any notes. I actually liked her in the classroom scene. She prompted and recognized the “heroic efforts” the student that shared his/her ideas gave and condemned the one that wasn't focused and was unprepared. Nothing any other teacher wouldn't do, and what some of my middle school teachers did to an even higher extreme.
Though it would be tough if my grandmother died and I couldn't get an extension.
Delete1. I think the word Vivian is searching for is regret. While it is possible that Vivian is curious about what could have happened if she had been kinder, more compassionate, I don’t think curiosity is a strong enough word to describe what Vivian appears to be feeling. Curiosity removes her a bit from the situation, as if she is on the outside looking in and viewing her actions objectively. Curiosity does not account for the fact that Vivian is recognizing her flaws as a teacher and that she seems to wish for a different outcome. And I think regret would be the exact word Vivian would not be able to articulate. She is not someone who reflects on her own emotional states or who thinks about emotional impact at all. Furthermore, she is wholly secure in herself as a teacher and she does not question herself or want to change. And here she is feeling like she should have acted differently, a completely new feeling for her and she is unable to describe it.
ReplyDelete“So. The young doctor, like the senior scholar, prefers research to humanity. At the same time the senior scholar, in her pathetic state as a simpering victim, wishes the young doctor would take more interest in personal contact.
Now I suppose we shall see, through a series of flashbacks, how the senior scholar ruthlessly denied her simpering students the touch of human kindness she now seeks” (58-59). Vivian is identifying with her students (using the same word “simpering” to describe both herself and them). She harbors compassion for them (several years too late, I might add), admitting that they sought kindness, kindness Vivian now turns to Jason for (and is denied).
2. There are aspects of Vivian’s teaching that I do not like.”[…] they can think for themselves only so long before they begin to self-destruct” (61). This entire scene hints that Vivian has little faith in her students. She expects her students to “self-destruct”, which in turn leads them to have little faith in themselves. If Vivian is so respected and she expects you to fail, then it only follows that you would fail, right? Wrong, in my opinion, but this is what her students believe (and what Vivian also believes). There is no middle ground for her: just “undergraduate banality” or “great insight” (61). She realizes that Student 2 was on the right track and she did not even encourage them to better phrase their idea. It is as if she enjoys intimidating them and watching them flounder for the right words, just so she can mark off their response as “banality”, as if it does not matter to her whether her students learn. I think this question of whether Vivian is a good teacher relates back to whether doctors can hold compassion for their patients: how invested must Vivian get in her student’s lives in order to be understanding and compassionate? Vivian apparently thinks that showing even a hint of kindness means getting overly involved in her students’ lives. I can only imagine how draining it is to be close with every student, to know them outside of an intellectual setting and I completely understand Vivian’s reluctance to separate herself from them. But I think she goes too far in the other direction. However, all of this being said, I wouldn’t mind having her as a teacher, given that I know what she is like as a teacher and would know what I was getting myself into.
Shame. I think she feels shame. It’s a feeling so alien to her that she can’t even name it. She’s looking back on her life, on decisions she probably thought highly of, and is finally realizing that she was wrong. I think Jason is a key factor in this discovery because he shows her just how much of an impact her teachings had on him. She made him think of life and death as a game, a puzzle that exists to play with, not to solve. “You’re not even trying to solve it anymore,” Jason says in reference to Donne, and he’s not. He isn’t looking for a meaning to life or death, he isn’t even trying to beat it, he just wants to play the game, and that’s something Vivian taught him. Vivian is ashamed, and rightfully so, that this is the effect she’s had on the world, on people. I really can’t blame her for not understanding the gravity of life as a concept to be applied directly to oneself and not just to be studied in the abstract, but not only did she miss the point, but she also taught this ignorance to young students. Now however, she gets it, and thus the sudden wave of shame.
ReplyDeleteI, personally, would not want her as a teacher. She’s a bit of an ego maniac, and that would probably turn me off her despite the vast insight she could provide on Donne. I can’t say that the materiel I learn is ever as important as the professor teaching me, and though she may be a
“force” and a real well of information, I haven’t the faintest doubt that her prickliness and generally disappointed spirit would not inspire me.
1. I think she feels regret. She's not comfortable with her decisions as a teacher. Looking at Jason and how desperately she wants him to connect to her on a human level, she wonders if her students were longing for “the touch of human kindness she now seeks”(59). I’m sure she's aware of the irony of the situation but it's worth asking if she ever thought that things would be different if she extended a bit of kindness to her students.
ReplyDelete2. I think if were a class on something I was interested in, I would take her class no matter how harsh she was. I don't see teachers or their teaching style as something to hate, it doesn't really bother me. If I had no choice and I had to take her class with Donne being the main topic, it wouldn't be my favorite class, but I wouldn't spend my energy hating the situation. I'd probably give it a shot and give Vivian my respect –because she does deserve it- and give the class my all and not half-ass my way through a class that is not up my alley. I don't think her unwillingness to connect to students makes her a bad teacher. All that means is that she can't reach as many students as a teacher who does connect with their students. I think that people can get something from Vivian’s class because she has a lot of knowledge to offer, but the students do have to want it –and only a few students do–.
1. regret. Vivian has just had a huge shift in her thinking after she learns the reasons behind the way Jason treats her. She realizes she is just like him, the academic who “prefers research to humanity” (60), and because of her current experience, she is better able to understand her classes from her students’ perspective. It becomes apparent that she didn’t feel the same way then as she does now. Vivian addresses the audience: “That was a witty little exchange, I must admit. It showed the mental acuity I would praise in a poetic text. But I admired only the studied application of wit, not its spontaneous eruption.” Her use of admired (past tense) suggests that she has changed from that point to the present. She now seems to have more respect for people who aren’t continually locked in academia and research. Looking back on her classroom session, she sees that she was something of a humorless villain, and she’s regretting teaching these classes in such a cruel way.
ReplyDelete2. I think she’s a great teacher for people who want to hear a brilliant scholar’s thoughts on John Donne’s sonnets. I don’t think I would be that person. The lack of humor in her class would bother me I think and the lack of perspective about Donne’s poetry. I wouldn’t think Vivian would connect the poem’s to real life very much so I don’t know if I could get a lot out of the class. It really wouldn’t be worth it considering how hard the class is.
1. I think Vivian is really curious about the life she could have led if she'd cared more for others' feelings. As she looks at Jason and sees how he's the academic who focuses more on "research than humanity" it bothers her how she's acted the same way towards her other students. Furthermore, I think Vivian is a little ashamed. I think she's realized how unkind she'd been to her students, especially the student that asked for the extension. She had no regards for her student's feelings, like when she just threw around the fact that student 1's grandmother died because she assumed it was an excuse, not something valid.
ReplyDelete2. I think she's a good teacher if you don't want to think for yourself and want someone to tell you what the right answer is. She seems like a teacher where you can prepare all you want, but there will only be one right answer (and spoiler alert, it's hers). She thinks so highly of her own opinion that nothing you bring up will ever matter in class discussion (unless she wants it to). I like to challenge others' ideas and play with them, and I'm not sure I'd be able to in her class. Also, I'm unsure that Vivian could connect Donne's poetry to real life situations, and if I lost that I'd feel like I lost out own a big part of a poetry course.
1. I think Vivian is really curious about the life she could have led if she'd cared more for others' feelings. As she looks at Jason and sees how he's the academic who focuses more on "research than humanity" it bothers her how she's acted the same way towards her other students. Furthermore, I think Vivian is a little ashamed. I think she's realized how unkind she'd been to her students, especially the student that asked for the extension. She had no regards for her student's feelings, like when she just threw around the fact that student 1's grandmother died because she assumed it was an excuse, not something valid.
ReplyDelete2. I think she's a good teacher if you don't want to think for yourself and want someone to tell you what the right answer is. She seems like a teacher where you can prepare all you want, but there will only be one right answer (and spoiler alert, it's hers). She thinks so highly of her own opinion that nothing you bring up will ever matter in class discussion (unless she wants it to). I like to challenge others' ideas and play with them, and I'm not sure I'd be able to in her class. Also, I'm unsure that Vivian could connect Donne's poetry to real life situations, and if I lost that I'd feel like I lost out own a big part of a poetry course.
Looking back on her past actions, I believe Vivian feels disappointment. In the prior scene where Jason and Vivian talk, she feels a similar way about his behavior towards and responses to her, evidenced by her incomplete sentences: “I just... never mind (58).” She fails to bridge an emotional barrier. And I think that when she looks back on her experiences in teaching, she fails to bridge similar emotional barriers, but this time it was a fault of her own. And just as she is disappointed in Jason, she is disappointed in herself for shutting others off in a time of need.
ReplyDeleteBut a better question might be why she can't come up with a word to describe her feeling? Maybe she has never been in touch with her emotions as much as she is now. Maybe Edson wants us not to know what she was feeling, but recognize that Vivian is finally confronting past mistakes, or recognizing her past as not being flawless.
I don't think there is an absolute answer to this question. On one hand, Vivian certainly taught well. Jason describes her as giving “one hell of a lecture (74).” She knows her materials, and she demands the best from her students. But being a teacher has a more human component, and good teachers often go beyond teaching to help their students learn. Vivian was neither invested with her students beyond the student-teacher dynamic nor helpful in the capacity of making learning easier. When two students joke, she glowers at them instead of enjoying, or adding, to the conversa-see-on. And when a student comes to her asking for an extension that he/she desperately needed, she blows him/her off with the sentence “It is due when it is due (63).”
REAL POST (not messed with by internet problems)
ReplyDelete1. I think Vivian is really curious about the life she could have led if she'd cared more for others' feelings. As she looks at Jason and sees how he's the academic who focuses more on "research than humanity" it bothers her how she's acted the same way towards her other students. Furthermore, I think Vivian is a little ashamed. I think she's realized how unkind she'd been to her students (for example, the student that asked for the extension). She had no regards for that student's feelings, just throwing around the death of the student’s grandmother because she assumed it was an excuse. While the poetry itself is somewhat esoteric, she could have focused on the connections that can be made with poetry instead of just the poem.
2. I think she's a good teacher if you don't want to think for yourself and want someone to tell you what the right answer is. She seems like a teacher where you can prepare all you want, but in the end only one opinion matters: hers. I feel like she thinks so highly of her own opinion, that she would disregard the opinion of any student just on the principle that it wasn’t hers, without even looking at its merits. I like to challenge others' ideas and play with them, and I'm not sure I'd be able to enjoy her class. Also, I'm unsure that Vivian could connect Donne's poetry to real life situations, and if her class lacked that I’d feel like I’d missed out on a major aspect of a poetry course.