63 pages • 2 hours read
Margaret EdsonWit
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Scenes 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Scene 14 Summary
Susie returns to Vivian’s room and injects morphine into Vivian’s IV line. Vivian tells Susie she hopes it has a soporific effect. Susie says she does not know what “soporific” means, but that the morphine should make Vivian sleepy. Vivian begins giggling as she explains that “soporific” actually means “sleepy,” and the two women laugh together. Susie thanks Vivian for explaining it to her, to which Vivian simply replies, “I’m a teacher” (74). Vivian falls asleep as the morphine kicks in, and Susie checks Vivian’s monitors one more time before leaving.
Scene 15 Summary
Susie and Jason return to Vivian’s room to insert her catheter. Jason tells Susie that Vivian was a great scholar, and he respected her more than everyone in his biochemistry department. He takes a quick glance at Vivian’s chart and asks Susie to increase Vivian’s fluids before explaining that while Vivian was an amazing lecturer, many students hated her because she “wasn’t exactly a cupcake” (75). Susie laughs affectionately and tells Jason that Vivian has not been a cupcake while in the hospital either.
As Susie works, she says that Vivian is not what she expected from a poetry professor. Vivian is all edges, whereas Susie thought poetry professors would be dreamer. Jason tells Susie that Vivian’s class felt more like a boot camp than a literature course, especially since “your whole brain had to be in knots” before you could understand Donne’s poetry. When Susie asks why, Jason explains that it has to do with how preoccupied Donne was with “Salvation Anxiety” (76). Donne grapples with the promise of eternal salvation because he desperately wants it to be real, but he can never get salvation to make logical sense. And yet, Donne cannot imagine living without the hope of salvation, so he wrestles with the idea over and over. This continued conflict results in Donne’s Holy Sonnets. Susie asks if Donne ever comes to terms with his Salvation Anxiety, and Jason tells her that it is more about the puzzle than the solution, just like medical research.
Scene 16 Summary
After one last check of Vivian’s equipment, Susie leaves the room and Dr. Ashford enters. Vivian wakes just enough to recognize Ashford, who tells Vivian that she is in town for her great-grandson’s fifth birthday. When she went to see Vivian in her office, she was redirected to the hospital instead. Vivian begins crying, and Ashford crawls into bed with Vivian to comfort her.
She asks if Vivian would like her to recite some Donne. Vivian says no, so Ashford pulls a children’s book out of her bag instead. She begins to read The Runaway Bunnyto Vivian, who nestles closer and drifts in and out of sleep. The story follows a young bunny who tells his mother that he wishes to run away. His mother says that she will always find him no matter where he goes, which Ashford remarks is a “little allegory of the soul. No matter where it hides, God will find it” (80). Ashford finishes the story and leans over to kiss Vivian, who has fallen asleep. As Ashford collects her things, she tells Vivian, “It’s time to go. ‘And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’” (80). Ashford makes her way out, leaving Vivian alone in her hospital bed.
Scene 17 Summary
Shortly after Ashford leaves, Jason enters Vivian’s room and asks her how she is feeling. He quickly realizes that Vivian’s heart has stopped, and he frantically calls in a Code Blue. The announcement goes out over the intercom, and Jason begins CPR on Vivian as he waits for the code team to arrive.
Having heard the announcement, Susie rushes into Vivian’s room and tries to pull Jason off of Vivian. She yells that Vivian is DNR, but Jason shoves her away and continues CPR against Vivian’s final directives. Jason insists that Vivian is “research,” but Susie tells him Kelekian approved the order. When she cannot get Jason to stop, she calls to cancel the code herself (82). But Susie is too late—the code team rushes in and pushes Susie and Jason out of the way with their equipment. Jason, realizing his error, tries to stop the code team, but they continue shocking Vivian with a defibrillator. The chaos continues until the head of the code team asks Susie for Vivian’s chart. By this time, Jason has realized the enormity of his mistake and has begun whispering “Oh, God” over and over (85).
As chaos turns into confusion, Vivian steps out of bed and walks toward a light shining from offstage. She leaves the chaos of her room behind, and for the first time in the play, she ignores the audience. Vivian begins unhooking herself from her medical equipment, then proceeds to remove all the trappings of her illness: her cap, her medical bracelets, and finally her gown. Totally naked, Vivian walks toward the light, and as she reaches for it, the stage lights go black.
Scenes 14-17 Analysis
Wit’s final scenes bring the audience into a final confrontation with death, even as Vivian remains unaware of her passing. The morphine has rendered Vivian unresponsive; while the audience has experienced Vivian’s decline alongside her, her literal death becomes something she must do alone. The audience finds itself back in its typical position as observers who can only watch as the action unfolds in front of them.
Ultimately, what the audience watches in the play’s final moments are the complexities of modern death. Edson argues that death is not simple—unlike movies that make death look like falling asleep, the reality of passing away is much messier. It involves decisions about when to stop treatment, how to manage pain, and when to stop intervening during medical emergencies. Dying involves a series of physical indignities, too. Not only is the body wracked with pain, but also it is stripped of its privacy. IVs are hooked up to deliver medicine and fluids while other tubes help with urination. Nurses and doctors constantly check vitals until they start failing, and one can only hope that one’s final directives are followed. In Vivian’s case, Jason ignores her DNR; Edson shows there is no guarantee that a person’s final decisions will remain intact. Death is complex, complicated, and messy. By asking audiences to confront Vivian’s death, Edson also adds value to Vivian’s life. Ironically, sharing the story of Vivian’s mortality lends her a sort of immortality; like the cancer cells that kill her, Vivian’s story helps her live on.
Edson deliberately makes Wit’s final scenes difficult to watch. And yet, as uncomfortable as death makes modern American audiences, the play’s closing moments also bring with them a sense of hope. Vivian has been alone throughout the play, and yet Ashford somehow finds her and provides love and comfort in Vivian’s final moments. Despite Vivian’s earlier chilliness—she is no “cupcake,” after all—Susie fights for Vivian’s right to die, going so far as to physically throw Jason from Vivian’s body (75). Even Jason advocates for Vivian once he realizes he has violated her DNR order. In death, Vivian finds herself surrounded by people who care about her, even if those relationships were few and far between in life. In many ways, dying has helped Vivian find the kindness and connection she overlooked in life.
Additionally, Vivian’s slow walk toward the light offers viewers the hope that Donne’s Holy Sonnets are right. Donne grapples with whether salvation and eternity exist; while he can prove neither, his poems are tinged with the hope that man can transcend both sin and death. Despite death’s hovering presence over the play, Edson believes Donne is right in that death is less powerful than one thinks. In fact, Vivian defeats death rather quickly when she gets up and walks across the stage as chaos rages on behind her. Thus, death in Wit is not an end—it is a transition. Donne hopes that death is the comma that separates life from eternity, and Vivian’s movement toward the light offers audiences the hope that her passing has brought with it eternal rest and peace.
