"Just a Comma"
Essay Prompt: The following dialogue is an excerpt from Wit a play by Margaret Edson, produced in 1999. Read the passage carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Edson reveals her values about the importance between literary analysis and real life experiences through characterization and other literary devices.
VIVIAN. (Hesitantly) I should have asked more questions, because I knew there was going to be a test. I have cancer. Insidious cancer, with pernicious side effects – No, the treatment has pernicious side effects. I have stage four metastatic ovarian cancer. There is no stage five. And I have to be very tough. It appears to be a matter, as the saying goes...of life and death. I know all about life and death. I am, after all, a professor of seventeenth century poetry...specializing in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne...which explore mortality in greater depth...than any body of work in the English language. And I know for a fact that I am tough. A demanding professor. Uncompromising. Never one to turn from a challenge. That is why I chose to study John Donne...while a student of the great E.M. Ashford. (Professor E.M. Ashford, fifty-two, enters, seated at the same desk as Dr. Kelekian was. The scene is twenty-eight years ago. Vivian suddenly turns twenty-two, eager and intimidated.)
Professor Ashford?
E.M. Do it again.
VIVIAN. (To the audience) It was something of a shock. I had to sit down. (She plops down).
E.M. Please sit down. Your essay on Holy Sonnet VI, Miss Bearing, is a melodrama with a veneer of scholarship unworthy of you...to say nothing of Donne. Do it again.
VIVIAN. I, ah…
E.M. Begin with the text, Miss Bearing, not with a feeling.
“Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for thou art not soe.”
You've entirely missed the point of the poem, because you've used an edition of the text that is inauthentically punctuated. In the Gardner edition –
VIVIAN. That edition was checked out of the library –
E.M. Miss Bearing!
VIVIAN. Sorry.
E.M. You take this too lightly, Miss Bearing. This is metaphysical poetry, not the modern novel. The standards of scholarship and critical reading...which one would apply to any other text are simply insufficient. The effort must be total for the results to be meaningful. Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of this sonnet is merely an insignificant detail?
The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the
enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death and eternal life. In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation.
And Death – capital D – shall be no more - semi-colon! Death – capital D – comma – thou shalt die – exclamation point!
If you go in for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare. Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript source of 1610 – not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads:
And death shall be no more, comma, Death thou shalt die.
(As she recites this line, she makes a little gesture with a comma.)
Nothing but a breath, a comma separates life from life everlasting. Very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something...to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma. A pause.
This way, the uncompromising way...one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death, soul, God...past, present. Not insuperable barriers. Not semicolons. Just a comma.
VIVIAN. Life, death, I see! (standing) It's a metaphysical conceit, it's wit! I'll go back to the library and re-write the paper –
E.M. (Standing, emphatically) It is not wit, Miss Bearing, it is truth. The paper's not the point.
VIVIAN. Isn't it?
E.M. (Tenderly) Vivian, you're a bright young woman. Use your intelligence. Don't go back to the library, go out. Enjoy yourself with friends. Hmmm. (Vivian walks away. E.M. slides off.)
VIVIAN. I, ah, went outside. It was a warm day. There were students on the lawn, talking about, nothing, laughing. The insuperable barrier between one thing and another is…just a comma? Simple human truth. Uncompromising scholarly standards. They're connected. I just couldn't...
I went back to the library.
In the version of the sonnet Vivian used in her essay, the last line is punctuated thus: “And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!” Professor Ashford suggests that Vivian takes up Shakespeare if this is the interpretation she has in mind. Helen Gardner punctuated it more accurately: “And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die.” This shows how instantaneous the difference between life and death is, whereas the other version drags it out.
ReplyDeleteIn the play “Wit”, we are introduced to Vivian Bearing, a professor who specializes in the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. Vivian is what people would call a “loner”. She has no relationships at all whether it is family, friends, even acquaintances. Her life is purely all about working with and analyzing the sonnets of John Donne. It has been this way ever since college instead of going out and enjoying life, she holed herself in the library and studied John Donne’s sonnets every day. Vivian’s life is what Edson believes life is for people who are too focused on their own interests. That it comes to a point where they lose a sense of humanity because of how much time they are willing to spend perfecting a self-interest rather than living life. Vivian in Edson’s eyes is a reflection of today’s society. There are many people who don’t know the truth about life. They spend so long trying to interpret the meaning when the answer is right in front of them similarly to how Vivian interprets a line from Sonnet VI of John Donne. “And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!”. According to her professor EM Ashford, she has completely missed the point of the line. There shouldn’t be any insuperable barriers, semi-colon, or exclamation point. Just like how there shouldn’t be any sophisticated ways trying to understand life. It is not about wit but about the truth right in front of us.
ReplyDeleteE.M. Ashford explains to Vivian that the last line of the holy sonnet about death needs to be grammatically correct. The line needs to read as follows: “And death shall be no more, comma, Death thou shalt die.” The point here is that the literary structure here relates directly to real-life experiences and I will explain. Ashford stresses the importance of a comma between no more and Death thou shalt die. In real life, when people pass from this life, they die and then there is a slight pause (Like a comma in grammar) and then they pass into the afterlife once thereafter. This is the biggest way in this particular passage in which we see literary analysis connected to real-life experiences in this play.
ReplyDeleteVivian’s introduction to the scene holds as much significance as the scene does itself. As she explains her condition in detail, she also makes reference to her career. It appears she wants to know the specifics because there is a “test” in the future, just as she has worked to know every little detail about the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. As Professor Ashford explains in the scene to follow, “the effort must be total for the results to be meaningful”. It is evident that Vivian has strived to put forth her total effort into both her teaching and her analysis of seventeenth century poetry. At this stage in her life, however, her efforts appear to be meaningless. As Vivian says herself, “there is no stage five”. No matter how much doctors analyze her and she analyzes their findings, there is really nowhere else to go. Edson is trying to prove the same in having her specialize in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne; at this point none of it really makes a difference.
ReplyDeleteThe exact line that E.M Ashford says is completely misunderstood and wrong is the original line of, “And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.” In her analysis paper, Vivian Bearing tweaks this line to add a semicolon between the lines, a comma after the second death and an exclamation point to close it. Ashford originally explains how her added comma destroys the entire point of the poem. She exclaims that following death with a pause is completely ridiculous considering the point of the poem is to depict death as an unrelenting force, ultimately ending by confronting death with a full force. Ashford says that death must be something able to act out on stage, not represented with a hesitant pause.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has struggles in life. The emotional state in which you deal with it is your choice. For example, cancer is one disease that is very hard to go through. Not just because you might not survive long, but you might not have the right emotional support from the people in your life. Vivian Bearing, the main character of the play “Wit”, is struggling with ovarian cancer. The way she is struggling through this, might be different than others mainly because of the lack of emotional support. There were other things in her life that were more important than relationships. The most important piece of her life was literature/poetry.
ReplyDeleteThe passage is an exchange between Vivian and her professor who chastises her for using incorrect punctuation as a basis for her analysis of one of Donne's sonnets. Ashford explains that the point of the sonnet is lost due to said punctuation, since the real meaning lies in the subtlety and singular breath of a comma. It is not meant to elevate death, but to show that it is not an “insuperable barrier.” Ashford is representative of Edson herself, and the beginning of this exchange reveals Edson’s own attention to detail and her belief in the importance of understanding and analysing literature correctly. Through Ashford, Edson shows that she values the true meaning of poetry and intends to learn from it.
ReplyDelete- Amu
DeleteWhile Vivian is dealing with her cancer she spends much of her time alone without the support of others. She used to enjoy her independence but now faced with an insuperable challenge she wants someone to help her along. Her old self-reliance is shown when she sadly remembers, “They're connected. I just couldn't … I went back to the library”. Vivian treats life like her poetry and just analyzes it without truly learning from it. Her professor tries to show her this by explaining, “It is not wit, Miss Bearing, it is truth. The paper's not the point”. E.M. Is trying to teach her poetry is more than just clever wordplay and critical analysis. This message is especially impactful now because she cannot overcome cancer with the same business-first attitude. As the play goes on she leans on her nurse more and shows “weakness”. At the beginning of the scene, Vivian is still treating this like any other academic challenge by her description, “I should have asked more questions, because I knew there was going to be a test. I have cancer. Insidious cancer, with pernicious side effects – No, the treatment has pernicious side effects. I have stage four metastatic ovarian cancer”. She seems to more worried about getting the facts right than her cancer. However, by the end of this scene and as the play continues she seems to prefer kindness and simplicity of wit.
ReplyDelete-Nalin