JASON. Oh. Jeeze. Clinical. Professor Bearing. How are you feeling today?
VIVIAN. (Very sick) Fine. Just shaking sometimes from the chills.
JASON. IV will kick in anytime now. No problem. Listen, gotta go. Keep pushing the fluids. (47)
"If arsenic and serpents are not damned, then why is he? In asking the question, the speaker turns eternal damnation into an intellectual game. Who would God choose to do what is hard, to condemn, rather than what is easy, and also glorious—to show mercy?" (49-50)
Neutropenia (noo-troe-PEE-nee-uh) is an abnormally low count of neutrophils, a type of white blood cell that helps fight off infections, particularly those caused by bacteria and fungi. (Mayo Clinic definition)
I've been keeping a dictionary close while reading this. I hope you have too.
So now we know that the tumor "the size of a grapefruit" (47) is not responding to the treatment. Now we now that Vivian is imperiled not by the cancer but by the treatment itself. Now we know that she is in terrible pain. Now we know she suspects she is dying.
1. A Thrower-kind-of-check-in. Your reaction to the play right now? What is it about to you? Quote from the play in your answer, okay?
2. On Friday we continued talking about the attitude of the "health care professionals," as Vivian somewhat sarcastically calls the doctors and staff (though not, arguably, Susie). On the board is the quote "[The doctors'] job is solving the puzzle." Another quote is "Can the doctors have compassion for Vivian without losing themselves?" Respond to one of those quotes: agree, disagree, or answer the explicit or explicit question it poses.Go ahead and quote from the play in your response.
I have a bigger question for tomorrow, one I will ask you to discuss in groups. I hope everyone got the reading schedule I emailed yesterday.
Here's the scene that the last reading covers.
See you all tomorrow.
1. It seems wrong somehow to say that I am "enjoying" the play, since it contains so much human suffering - but that is the most accurate term. To me, the play is about power - pursuing power, taking power, yearning for power. It's interesting to me that the sicker Vivian becomes, the more explicitly she discusses how powerless she feels. I loved the lines: "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. I would revel in it, if he wrote a poem about it. . . . I could draw so much from the poems. I could be so powerful" (47-48). The irony is that she would draw power from her weakness . . . if her weakness were translated into poetry. This speaks so clearly to her sense of self-worth being tied up in her identity as a teacher, as the best John Donne scholar living. She could revel in her misery, if only it were a poem, because then she would be in her element. She would be the one who understood, not the doctors, who seem to speak their own language and don't even leave her control over her own body. "My only defense is the acquisition of vocabulary," Vivian says (44). Her last stronghold is language, and she feels like even that is slowly being taken from her.
ReplyDelete2. I agree that "[The doctors'] job is solving the puzzle." But, I do not think that gives them license to treat her as a walking disease rather than a person. In class, Will said that it isn't the doctors' job to take the place of Vivian's friends and family. I agree with that, too. But, I don't think it has to be all or nothing. There is an entire spectrum between being insultingly careless towards a patient and spending hours with them as a family member would. These particular doctors are so intent on pushing their desired method of treatment that they are perfectly willing to subject their patient to possibly unnecessary pain. "Lower the dose?" Jason asks disbelievingly when Susie suggests it out of compassion for Vivian. "No way. Full dose. She's tough. She can take it" (45). The irony is that the doctors are supposed to be solving the problem . . . and their cure is more dangerous than her disease. "I am not in isolation because I have cancer, because I have a tumor the size of a grapefruit," Vivian comments. "No. I am in isolation because I am being treated for cancer" (47). The doctors are definitely not going out of their way to be her friends - Jason's insensitive "clinicals" are evidence enough of that - and to add insult to injury, they are exacerbating Vivian's suffering. At this point, it is becoming clearer by the minute that she is going to die. Why cause her such an inordinate amount of pain? "I think [Kelekian and Jason] foresee celebrity status for themselves upon the appearance of the journal article they will no doubt write about me," Vivian says sarcastically. "But I flatter myself. The article will not be about ME, it will be about my ovaries. . . . What we have come to think of as ME is, in fact, just the specimen jar, just the dust jacket, just the white piece of paper that bears the little black marks" (53). The doctors are so busy chasing fame and recognition for their work that they have forgotten Vivian is even human and have effectively dehumanized themselves.
My reaction? I really hate cancer. Its affected my life more than usual lately since some of my relatives have it and even reading about it is... hard. Cancer sucks. Its depressing, and it pulls me down into a dark place even hearing about it. “it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insurmountable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life” (14)......it certainty seems insurmountable. You know how much it must suck to here a doctor, the archetype of healing and life giving, say that you’re going to die in 6 months? Theres nothing we can really do, we can treat it but that treatment will probably kill you if the cancer doesn’t get there first. It must be very depressing. No wonder its so hard to overcome, especially the types where every body expects you not to.
ReplyDeleteNo, a doctor doesn’t exist to solve the puzzle, a doctor exist to cure you of whatever ails you. Part of that is solving puzzles of sickness, finding the right medicines to cure diseases. But disease is not the only thing that can make a person sick, there are sickness’s of the soul, sickness’s of the mind and sickness’s of the body. Being in a hospital in the impersonal, sterilized environment this play describes seems sickening for the soul. People need human contact to be healthy individuals, and that compassion required for well being is in desperately little supply. These doctors, they are trying to cure Vivian’s body, and only that because at this point all she is to them is a body. There is so much that is being neglected.
1. I've been trying to figure out, really since the begining, if I actually like this play or not. As I've said in my past blog posts, I connect with Vivian and I actually do like her, regaurdless of her complex loneliness and her excessive boasting. So I like the play because of her, but I despise it because of what happens to her. She's "puking her brains out" and now she knows she really is dying. Her tumor is huge, her brain is foggy and her strength is continuously depleting. I think Edson captures exactly what is happening to Vivian and what the book is trying to tell us in just 5 simple words: "I could be so powerful," Vivian says to the audience (48). A woman who has always, always been "a force" is now literally sitting in a hospital as she is stripped of her dignity as well as all her strength (mind and body). It pains me to see someone so proud and confident and determined fall from her throne.
ReplyDelete2. "Can the doctors have compassion for Vivian without losing themselves?" We have been missing the point in our class discussions and that point is that even if it is the "doctors job to solve the puzzle" so what? Vivian is a human- an established English professor- with dancer and she needs to be treated with compassion. So what if she's a little cold and "off-putting"? And so what if it may not be the doctors job to be her best friend? It does not matter. They need to care for her with respect and admiration because she is a woman seeing her last bits of life in a sad hospital while she is used as teaching tool. I'm almost sick of talking about the doctors and the way they treat her because it really does make me upset. "I really have not got time for this..." Jason says as he comes in to check on Vivian. It is almost as if these "healthcare professionals" don't want to waste their time on Vivian because she will inevitably die. So, some may say that that actually makes sense and that they should be focusing on patients with more hope, but I'm going to argue against that. These are her last few weeks on this earth and she is forced to spend them on a rigorous cycle of puke, hair loss and with no strength, so these doctors need to make the most out of her terrible situation by treating her with respect.
1. Personally, I've liked Vivian from the beginning, maybe because I connect to her character a lot. Most of us have seen someone effected by cancer and chemotherapy treatment I’d guess, and due to both of those things the last reading especially started to hit home, at least for me. I think the play examines how we connect to and understand issues, each other, and ourselves. Vivian’s life has been dedicated to poems about life and death and their complexities. She has had an easy time looking at these issues from afar, but when she is faced with the truth, she realizes that she would revel in her own life’s contradictions, “Were it a game. Which it is not.” (48) Vivian has never been truly able to understand, or to connect with, the poems until her current experience. Additionally, throughout the play there’s a series of characters who struggle with connecting to other people: Vivian, Dr. Kelekian, and Jason. As all that Vivian once has is taken away, the only things she has left are her thoughts and any connections she makes. Vivian must also figure out how she views herself; at first her identity was tried to her professorship, but now she is beginning to notice that, “What we have come to think of as me is, in fact, just the specimen jar, just the dust jacket, just the white piece of paper that bears the little marks.” (53) Vivian says that why she loved language and words so much is that they can accurately describe the world around you, (“The illustration bore out the meaning of the word, just as he had explained it.” (43)) Vivian’s attraction to words is based in her struggle to understand the world and people around her, so to me, ultimately, the issue this play examines is understanding of the world and people around us: how we gain it, how we use it, and its necessity.
ReplyDelete2. Yes, part of a doctor’s job is solving the puzzle, but people aren’t equations or bacteria under a microscope. I think part of a doctor’s job is dealing with people, otherwise they could just be researchers. Any person, despite how likeable or off putting they are, deserves respect, which certainly isn’t being given to Vivian by people like Jason, who says, “I really have not go time for this…” (47) Susie, on the other hand, is completely different in her reactions, telling Vivian, “Don’t you worry. It’ll be all right.” (45) When treating someone there are other symptoms and reactions than just the technical ones, like Vivian lamenting that the left all the lights on in her home as the is (rightly) histerical. Susie is the only person who thinks of the effect of the treatment on Vivian, not only worrying about the results of the experiement, when she says “Jason—I think you need to talk to Kelekian about lowering the dose for the next cycle. It’s too much for her like this.” (45) I understand that doctors have an incredibly hard job and can’t get attached to every patient, but when they are unable to see a patient as anything other than a puzzle, when there is no humanity or empathy or connection left, then something is wrong.
1. I feel mixed about the play. On the one hand, it keeps me engaged both in the sense that I want to keep reading and in that leaves me with a lot to think about and digest. It is an interesting, well-written play. I am by no means surprised that it is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize. However, on the other hand, it is not a particularly fun, enjoyable read. Though I have managed to empathize with Vivian, I still do not like her. I still find her arrogant and pretentious, I just also find those traits more excusable than I did at the start of the play. It is also a heavy and taxing play, so pulling it out to do the reading is never exactly what I look forward to most during the day. I think that it is about a few different things. I thought that Will made a great point the other day during class when he raised the question of whether or not Vivian is the kind of person who deserves an emotional connection. I think the two main things Edson wants us to consider are whether or not everyone, regardless of who they are or how they act, deserves to be treated with compassion upon their death bed and how different individuals may act in the face of death.
ReplyDelete2. I agree that the doctor's job is to solve the puzzle. They are being paid to treat their patients to the best of their ability. Their job is to try and help their patients get physically, medically better. Their job is not to make sure their patients' time in the hospital is sunshine and rainbows and become their friends and provide them with emotional support. However, just because being compassionate and treating their patients with respect and dignity is not a part of their job does not mean that they should not put in the extra effort to do so. When Jason walks in to Vivian's room he says to himself, "I really have not got time for this…" (47). He has to remind himself to ask how she is feeling. I think that Susie is the example that Edson believes doctors should follow. Susie seems to have successfully found a nice middle ground between becoming emotionally attached to Vivian and treating her like a human being. Even though it may not be a part of Susie's job to look after Vivian on a somewhat more personal level, such as through the oh so emotionally draining task of providing her with juice, she still does so, and I think this is what the other doctors should aspire for.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. I really feel connected to Vivian. I would like to clear that up. I like her. That being said, I don't know if I find the play enjoyable due to the fact that I don't want o proclaim that I enjoy reading about her suffering. Its painful to read. Still, thus far I have been invested in her and what happens to her, her interactions with the doctors and her treatment. So I wouldn't say that I love the play, or what happens to Vivian, but Edson does a good job making me care about Vivian. I think I sympathize with Vivian because she is in a situation in which she is completely and utterly powerless, and those that have power over her don't seem to care about her suffering. Suzie suggests that Vivian's dosage be lowered and Jason replies: "Lower the dose? No way. She's tough. She can take it." (45) Jason simply wants her to power through. Still, Vivian never regarded her student's suffering--she allowed them to power through. Still, the fundamental difference between the doctors and Vivian as a professor is that her students suffered and became knowledgeable. They signed up for their suffering when they signed up for the class. You don't "sign up" for cancer. I think when any person is in a position of power, they must be aware and care about those beneath them, especially when in matters of life and death such as Vivian's case is.
ReplyDelete2. I asked you this friday, but the question still lingers in my mind: What would happen if they simply let her die? What would happen if she were simply put in hospice care? She isn't getting any better. She isn't recovering from the suffering she is being put through. So why continue? Vivian is obviously a fighter, so one could argue that if she were in hospice care that she wouldn't have her life to fight for, but isn't this last scene enough to show you that she is suffering and the suffering isn't from the cancer, but is from the chemotherapy. So it becomes increasingly more clear that the doctors seem to be continuing the treatment for themselves. She says herself: "I have survived treatments of Hexamethophosphacil and Vinplatin at the full dose . . . Kelekian and Jason are simply delighted. I think they foresee a celebrity status for themselves upon the appearance of a journal article they will no doubt write about me. . . The article will not be about me, it will be about my ovaries." (53) Vivian is suffering. It should be the Doctor's job to not only "fix the puzzle" but know when the puzzle simply cannot be fixed. Kelekian and Jason obviously mean well, but they don't know when enough is enough because they haven't bothered to truly ask Vivian. They simply keep moving forward. And that is my problem with the doctors in this book. They don't need to be Vivian's best friend, but to simply treat her as an equal--to dignify her with a choice; to allow her to decide how she would like to live out her last days. Vivian needs respect.
1. I liked the scene with Vivian and her father: he is so calm and methodical in his explanationof what the word means. Other than that, though, it’s getting quickly more depressing. I think the play has become even more about the staff’s treatment of Vivian. With the exception of Susie, I think they’re being even more detached, which is doing nothing to help Vivian’s morale. Susie calms her down when she’s feeling the worst, like on page 45: “Vivian: ‘Lights. I left all the lights on at my house’. Susie: ‘Don’t you worry. It’ll be all right.’” She also tries to convince Jason to lower the treatment–because she cares about Vivian, the person. But since Jason cares about Vivian, the experiment, he says no, and, “She can take it”. (45) Maybe the main doctors think she’s still doing alright because she puts on a brave face when they’re around–but their lack of compassion, I think, has become even greater. Kelekian tells her to think of isolation as “a vacation”. Who says that?! ‘Oh yeah, cancer and being all alone–so relaxing!’ I mean, come on.The worst part was when Jason comes in to check on her and says, “I really have not got time for this…” (47). That made me angry. Not got time for what, doing your job? Caring? At least pretending to care? He’s hiding his lack of empathy less and less and becoming a character I really dislike.
ReplyDelete2. Well, my previous answer makes it pretty clear how I feel about Jason and his attitude. I do think it’s possible for the doctors to do their job and also be compassionate. Even a little, tiny effort on their part would be better than what they’re doing now. Currently, Jason and Dr. Kelekian tend to rattle off their catchphrases like “Keep pushing the fluids” and “You’re doing well”–things that sound insincere and are of zero comfort. Even making their language less doctor-ly might help. They way they say things now, again, makes it sound like they’re barely concentrating and they’re just giving whatever mundane and useless piece of advice they can off the top of their head. Previously, Kelekian had been more chummy: “Why do we waste our time, Dr. Bearing?” (39). But now he has no time for those things–Vivian is too sick for him to think about anything else, I guess.
1. The play is about the growth of Vivian. It’s a story of a cold arrogant woman going through a humbling process and realizing the value of human companionship and humility. She begins to see it herself on page 36 when she thinks about the Grand Rounds, “Once I did the teaching, now I am taught” (36). It’s undeniable that the doctors have been a major part of the play so far and it’s hard not to focus on their less then stellar care, but I think Edson wants the reader to think less about their actual actions and more about how their actions affect Vivian.
ReplyDelete2. The doctor’s job is solving the puzzle, I agree, but it’s more than that. Part of the profession is interacting with patients, and often patients who are in a lot of pain and discomfort. If these doctors really felt they were incapable of treating their patients with the proper care and respect, then they should have gone into a different profession. No, they should not become the best friend of every patient, but trying to connect with them in even the most surface level way is valuable. Susie is one of the few “health care professionals” who shows Vivian a real desire to help. Jason, on the other hand, acts more like she’s an ant at his picnic, a nuisance more than anything else. He says, “I really have not got time for this…Just to look at the I&O sheets for one minute, and it takes me a half an hour to do precautions…” (47). Meanwhile, Vivian is lying next to him in tremendous pain, literally dying. Check your privilege Jason, seriously.
1. To me, the play is heartbreaking and inspiring and poignantly real. It’s about what we choose to do with the time we have to live. It pushes us to examine what is truly important. We watch Vivian grapple with these ideas; her strength and identity have always been intertwined with power, real or perceived, and now she seems to be questioning whether power is as, well, powerful as she believed. She remarks, “I could draw so much from the poems. I could be so powerful.” And, indeed, power is comfortable. It’s simpler than compassion or empathy or even kindness. It requires less risk and less vulnerability.
ReplyDeleteSome of parts of this play have been hard to read; so much of it has touched me so deeply and personally. Cancer, sickness, death… that’s all so hard to deal with. I think that’s what makes Wit such an important play to read.
2. I agree that a doctor’s job is to solve a puzzle, but isn’t the point of solving that puzzle to help someone else? And, regardless, don’t we all have the responsibility of treating every human being with a certain basic respect?
At one point, Jason comes into Vivian’s room, complaining, “I really have not got time for this.” That statement was striking. Does he really not have time to put on gloves and a mask so that Vivian won’t get sick and die? Does he really not have time to care for her, to be thoughtful? Isn’t that something worth making time for? Vivian is the one literally running out of time, and I think she’s starting to realize what is important. The doctors clearly aren’t.
What should I make of a book that tells you exactly what’s going to happen from the very beginning? This book is about an aloof woman fighting cancer alongside equally emotionally detatched people. Before this reading I thought Vivian didn’t need that emotional component and would face her decline with only her wit and John Donne, but she sees that he used wit as a defense mechanism to obscure his fear of mortality, and she begins to despair. Vivian gets confused about the subject she knows the best ending her lecture with “Have we outwitted Donne/ Or have we been outwitted?” About this point in the play the impending the fact of her impending death really starts to sink in: “I find the image of ‘my minute’s last point” a little to, shall we say, pointed.” This is the darkest part of the play thus far.
ReplyDeleteFor once in her life Vivian complains about being isolated. Although she’s been isolated in her career and social it’s been a matter of pride, not a sacrifice. She muses on how she “could be so powerful,” if she could perplex her students on the paradox of her treatment imperiling her health. In her powerless state where her ovaries get the attention over her. Vivian realizes the doctors see her as a vehicle for hem to get “celebrity statues for themselves upon the appearance of the journal article they will will no doubt write about me.” The treatment has succeeded in deflating Vivian’s ego, and maybe chipping away at that iciness as she increasingly needs emotional connection as she deteriorates. Edson compares the world of academia to the medical profession by showing them both to be both unnecessarily emotionally disconnected. Vivian can’t confront mortality with wit alone. She needs someone who can at least comfort her if not love her.
1. My reaction to the play is getting more and more complicated as we get closer to the end. It’s clear that Vivian knows and is hurt by the doctors’ lack of personal interest. And while she may be cold, arrogant, and/or unlikeable to some, she is indeed a human. And she has no one left. Her lecture about Donne is as much to the audience as it is to her class; it’s clear the themes in his poems are very relevant to the themes of the play. Does one achieve anything in the course of birth to death? What defines “sinning”—and how can one overcome it? It’s clear that the words of John Donne are very relevant to her right now: “The speaker does not need to hide from God’s judgment, only to accept God’s forgiveness. It is very simple. Suspiciously simple.” (Page 50). This is Vivian speaking in reaction to the sonnet. She makes us think about her life—her mistakes, triumphs, what she needs to apologize for—and what she has left to achieve. As always, I think that’s what the play is about.
ReplyDelete2. I think it is possible for the doctors to have compassion for Vivian. It’s not about being professional or being a good doctor. It’s a human trait. I think if Kelekian, or Jason, or the technicians, all went home every night praying for Vivian’s recovery and were super attentive and emotionally invested, it would not be healthy. I don’t think that’s what’s correct; I also don’t think that’s what Vivian is asking. She wants attention, care, authenticity—something any empathetic person, could provide, doctor or no. When Jason complains about the time commitments of Vivian’s procedure (“I really have not got the time for this…”) (pg 47), it’s clear he isn’t just being inattentive and oblivious. He’s being rude and unauthentic. And I think that’s what Vivian hates the most.
1. I feel so awful for Vivian. By this point in the play she is clearly struggling and no one else besides Susie seems to care at all. In one of her soliloquies Vivian states, “I have survived eight treatments of Hexamethophosphacil,” (which is not a word recognized on Word), “and Vinplatin at the full dose, ladies and gentlemen. I have broken the record. I have become something of a celebrity. Kelekian and Jason are simply delighted. I think they foresee celebrity status for themselves upon the appearance of the journal article they will no doubt write about me… The article will not be about me, it will be about my ovaries” (53). The chemotherapy Vivian has so dutifully withstood, causing her terrible pain and suffering, is not helping her at all. If anything, her chemo treatment is affecting her for the worst by filling her last days with agony and weakness, causing her sickness instead of preventing it. Her doctors do not care about her, the only care about the esteem they will receive after she dies for having a patient who survived for so long. But Vivian will not get credit for her elongated death, they will. The more I read, the worse I feel. Just people she might not be easy to relate to does not mean she should be treated like a science experiment. While it is important for us as a society to study cases like hers in order to learn from them, she is dying and she deserves some compassion. Everyone deserves to have a somewhat pleasant end to his or her life. I cannot say whether I like this play or not. I just feel like everyone is in an awful situation. There is nothing hauntingly beautiful about it. It is just death and death sucks.
ReplyDelete2. I think doctors can definitely have compassion and warmth for their patients without getting emotionally attached. They can easily smile and talk to their patients as if they are actual human beings without risking their own mental health. Part of being a doctor is dealing with people and making them feel both physically well as well as mentally sound. Susie is the perfect example of this type of person. While she may not be an actual doctor, she still deals with terminal patients and cares for them as they die so she too has to guard her heart from getting too close to anyone. But despite this she is still kind and warm towards Vivian. She shows real concern for Vivian, more than anyone else we have seen so far, when she turns to Jason, “I think you need to talk to Kelekian about lowering the dose for the next cycle. It’s too much for her like this” (45). If Susie can survive in the medical world while showing compassion, so can the rest of the medical professionals in the play.
1. The story is becoming more difficult to read each night, not only as Vivian feels progressively lonely but also as she becomes closer and closer to death. In these moments before her death, Vivian holds on to the only thing she has anymore, her knowledge of John Donne's Holy Sonnent. I feel that this is Vivian's way of reflecting on her life. "Why would God choose to do what is hard, to condemn, rather than what is easy, and also glorious--to show mercy." As she thinks about how she treated the others around her. I've really started to feel more sympathy fore Vivian as she shows us more about her life.
ReplyDelete2. At this point, I feel that the doctors have completely given up on Vivian (if they even believed she had a chance for survival.) Jason and Dr. Kelekian are focused on finding results for this rigorous treatment and in many ways focused on receiving medical reverence for this discovery. I think they have violated medical ethics. The only thing the treatment has done is put Vivian in an immense amount of pain. Vivian is obviously not going to fight stage four ovarian cancer, but the least the doctors could do is let her go in peace. Instead, Jason and Kelekian continue to push her for their own benefit and dehumanized her down to nothing. "What we have come to think of as me is, in fact, just the specimen jar, just the dust jacket, just the white piece of paper that bears the little black marks." The doctors have taken all of Vivian's skewed sense of identity. I don't think Edson is asking the doctors to necessary befriend Vivian, but at least treat her like a human
1. To be as blunt as possible, I find the play absolutely enthralling. I find myself time and again lost in the page, and suddenly I realize I've gone much further past what I had intended. What's even more interesting is that I'm quite perplexed as to what gives me such an affinity for the play. It's certainly not the medical drama, but perhaps it's the internal dialogue, the cynical side comments, and Ferris Bueler-esque commentary on the immediate situation. To be blunt about it, (as if I hadn't made it clear enough already) I absolutely love it, which is, again, completely surprising to me. Until now, I've never had his reaction to a play, and I'm excited to continue. On a vaguely unrelated note, I think the following quote sums up much of the play. "I am not in isolation because I have cancer. No. I am in isolation because I am being treated for cancer. My treatment imperils my health. Herin lies the paradox. John Donne would revel in it." This is reflective of the job of the medical professionals, whose job it is to cure a patient, but their clinical lingo requires them to patronize the patient. (If you take patronize to mean "make a patron out of, you reveal much of what's wrong with the medical world.) I'd like to add that when I heard your gripe about Emma Thompson's British accent, I'll admit I thought you were being at least a little fastidious, but after watching the clip above, it really did begin to get on my nerves. Finally, I somewhat disagree with the way Jason is portrayed in the film version. To me, he seems somewhat apathetic in the text, even if a bit oblivious to the affect of his behavior. "Cancer's the only thing I ever wanted" comes to mind. In the film however, he appears to be much more annoyed than the sense I got from the text, he seems almost angry for having to do his job, and I just generally disagree with it.
ReplyDeleteCan the doctors show compassion without losing themselves? While I understand why they may not want to, I immediately think, "of course they can!" Part of a doctor's job is to lie, to face a patient with as much optimism as possible. Relating to patients is about balancing that optimism with dishing out the cold hard facts. Jason does a remarkably poor job of this, and sees things with a "focus on your own success" lens. Mookie had a somewhat similar approach in Do the Right Thing, and it didn't bother me half so much, probably because the situation wasn't quite so grave. In other words, I dislike Jason, I find his personality, finesse, and manners to be wholly disappointing and I think he's the closest thing this play has to an antagonist. The following scene comes to mind:
Vivian: are you going to be sorry when I
-Do you ever miss people?
Jason: Everybody asks that. Especially girls.
Vivian: What do you tell them?
Jason: I tell them yes.
Vivian: Are they persuaded?
Jason: Some.
Vivian: Some. I see. And what do you say when a patient is ... apprehensive ... frightened.
Jason: Of who?
Vivian: I just... never mind.
Jason: Professor Bearing, who is the President of the United States?
It is not much of a secret that I am not a big fan of this play. It’s the character of Vivian that really causes my frustration with Wit. I have no problem with arrogant people, especially if they are successful, but she just aggravates me to know end. She is a desperate character who, to me, is putting on a charade of being strong and brave but truly isn’t. When she is in control she is tough and confident, but when she is no longer the one in power she loses all her bravado. She cannot stand the fact that “Once I did the teaching, now I am taught”. She doesn’t have a real identity because it changes based on the situation. Deep down she is not a confident, brave badass but just a lonely person afraid to die alone (a valid fear, but I believe one should die as they lived).
ReplyDelete“I really have not got the time for this”, something a med student Jason says that many people will think is cruel and insensitive. It’s not, it’s a fact. My dad is a plastic surgeon, a field of medicine that one would rarely associate with emergencies, but even in this field he is swamped with work. I can remember many times being woken up at 2 or 3 am when my dad was woken up and called to perform an emergency procedure at a hospital. Many people forget exactly how hard it is being a doctor. A doctor, no matter what field, is fighting a losing battle every single day. Death is inevitable yet a doctor swears an oath to prolong each patient’s death as long as possible. A doctor’s sole responsibility is to do his upmost to keep his patient alive. If he or she chooses to be there emotionally for his or her patient, good for them, but this is not the job. Family and friends are the emotional supporters. We think it is a little thing to ask doctors to spend a little time to get to know there patients or show genuine interest in their patients. Imagine what it’s like to be a resident, get 3 or 4 hours of sleep every night, being responsible for the lives of humans, and often watching people die. This is emotionally, physically, and spiritually taxing. We should have as much compassion for the doctors and med students as we have for the patients.
ReplyDeleteI like the play so far. For me it's kind of evolved into a complex play about death and many other complicated things... But I don't know. I feel like it could be written better,or at least I'm just not used to writing this way. There's really only one character in the whole play, her, and she's not really that enticing of a character, more so then ever now that her cancer is much more developed. So I like it... But I don't know. Maybe it's just not really my cup of tea. "Jason, think you need to talk to Kelekian about lowering her dose next cycle. It's too much for her like this." "What? Lower the dose? No way. Full dose. She can take it. Wake me up when the counts come in from the lab.
I think the doctors certainly can show compassion for Vivian without losing themselves, and that they're taking an extreme approach in their treatment of her, however their job is to solve her puzzle, it isn't anything else. Anything beyond that would simply come for their empathy for her as human beings, which Jason doesn't seem to have. But it's not a doctors job to be your friend as you're dying. It's a friend's job to be your friend, and so the portrayal of the doctors is to me a device to emphasize the loneliness of Vivian. "oh jeez. Clinical. Professor Bearing, how are you doing today?"