In my play analysis class, we read Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play W;t. I was fortunate enough to have previously read this play in my AP Literature class senior year as well. I hold this play near and dear to my heart for it pertains to the human experience; Edson proposes the question: which offers more self-fulfillment, gaining interpersonal connections with human beings or gaining solely knowledge? Demonstrated in both the cancer-ridden protagonist, Dr. Vivian Bearing, (a professor of 17th Century poetry, specifically that of John Donne) and Dr. Posner, (an oncologist in training) Edspn suggests that with great ambition also comes great consequences.
It was noted in my class how Edson may have purposely chosen Vivian to study metaphysical poetry to pair with the intensity of the medical world. There are sections of the dialogue in which Dr. Posner is clinically describing the state of Vivian’s health meanwhile Vivian is using the language of her own profession to describe her state at the same time. The medical field and the world of English, though seeming starkly different, both describe the human experience; in the case of Vivian, that experience is death. This play collaborates these two fields, similarly to Joe Moran’s suggestions in Interdisciplinarity.
Overall, the play furthermore delves into the brevity of the moment between life and death, something that has an effect on all human beings. This play is one of my favorites and the movie starring Emma Thompson is also quite good, I definitely recommend it.