The Wit

The Wit

From Grace to Redemption, He found me.
Delois Ellies
Kettering College of Medical Arts

From Grace to Redemption, He found me.

Margret Edison is a brilliant play writer. She began the final hours of the English professor, Dr. Vivian Bearing with devastating news from her oncologist of having stage IV metastatic ovarian cancer. She was a scholar of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, particularly “Death be Not Proud.” She came across a doctor by the name of Harvey Kelekian and intern Jason Posner who were determined to keep her alive only for the sake of research. They ignored her last wishes of DNR status. Ultimately, the play is a powerful revelation of humility coming to the terms of dying and death.
The final hour for Dr. Vivian Bearing has begun. She was a woman with an outer shell appearance of intimidation and a reputation as a stern, heartless professor. She dedicated her entire life to the studies of John Donne, a seventh century poet. As a little girl, when life was most innocent, found her true calling in life when she read the story called “Peter Rabbit.”
Edson opens the play with the main character Dr. Vivian Bearing walking out onto the stage giving her viewers a quick glimpse of the tragedy that awaits her. She appeared as a weak, frail body hooked up to an I.V. pole with colorful solution running strongly through her veins. She was robed with humility and placed at the same level as everyone else. At a time in her life when personal achievements were at their highest, she thought she knew how the world worked because she understood the complicated writings of the extraordinary writer, John Donne. In reference to her healthy years, she stated, “I know all about life and death. I am, after all, a scholar of Donne’s Holy Sonnets which explore mortality in great depth than any other body of work in the English language” (Edson, 1999, p.12). Her intellect, wisdom, and strength are actually a wall of weakness, something she has built from...

Similar Essays