Vivian Bearing and the Life of the Mind

Vivian Bearing is the starring character in the play W;t, written by Margaret Edson. She is a professor of English literature who specializes in the Holy Sonnets of the 17^th century poet John Donne. As a character, she is tough, arrogant, very smart, driven, methodical--a woman of the mind. In the first scene of the play, she is diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic ovarian cancer. Her first reaction upon hearing the news is a determination to compile a bibliography and study through the relevant medical research. Throughout the play, she shows her mastery of the specific vocabulary surrounding her cancer and its treatment. "My only defense is the acquisition of vocabulary." Even when she comes to the hospital in the middle of the night, shaking, delirious, and with a high fever, she is able to tell the nurse, “Fever and neutropenia."

During the course of her illness and treatment, Vivian experiences a transformation. She begins to see that she has neglected kindness and compassion, personal relationships and love in her life, and that in the end, these things seem to be what is truly important in life. In one of the most powerful scenes of the play, towards the end of her life, she says "I thought being extremely smart would take care of it... But, I see that I have been found out."

I have been thinking of Vivian a lot. I like her character. I can relate to her character. I see a lot of my primary characteristics in her. I have always been more of a thinker than a feeler, more in my head than in my heart. I spent the first few hours after we got the "maybe your baby has Down's Syndrome" combing the internet for research, trying to quantify my exact situation with concrete numbers. I face most questions that I deal with in an analytical way. So, when breastfeeding was difficult with MJ and when we needed to come up with a sleep plan for her when she was little, I checked out lots of book from the library, did a lot of research to see what the experts said, and then came up with a plan. Just the fact that I needed a sleep plan for her says a lot about it.

Mental stimulation, the life of my mind, ideas and thoughts are important lifeblood to me. I love going alone to the gym with my book. I love spending time alone at home and will most often read or write or listen to something on NPR. I am definitely an introvert--I always feel somewhat strung out after spending time with a large group of people, compared to AJ who finds energy in larger, noisier group settings. I am not asocial. I just prefer quieter time with friends, talking about interesting things.

At book group, I found it interesting that no one else could really relate to Vivian, at least no one said they did when I asked the question. I have been wondering about why I am this way. My dad is stoic and more a thinker--my mom has always the emotional force in their marriage, while one of the things I found most difficult about my dad is that he didn't connect with me (with all the kids?) in an emotional way. I think that I have inherited some of his stoicism. But, at the same time, being female, I have been socialized much more into emotional kinds of behaviors than my dad. Just supposition here. My mission helped me a lot with empathy and being married and having kids too. But, this is not my default perspective.

In W;t, Vivian has a mentor in graduate school, Evelyn Ashford, who seems to have balanced the life of the mind and the life of the heart. She is a top-notch scholar, able to dissect Donne's poems, but also to see that the clever verbal swordplay and the intellectual brilliance are not the ultimate end. I love the scene early in the play when Vivian recalls a meeting with Dr Ashford about a paper she is writing. It introduces so well the themes of the play. The conversation revolves around the punctuation of Donne's Death Be Not Proud.

Ashford: Nothing but a breath--a comma--separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It's a comma, a pause.
This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from this poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma.

Vivian: Life, death...I see. It's a metaphysical conceit. It's wit! I'll go back to the library and rewrite the paper--

Ashford: It is not wit, Miss Bearing. It is truth. The paper's not the point.

Vivian: It isn't?

Ashford: Vivian. You're a bright young woman. Use your intelligence. Don't go back to the library. Go out. Enjoy yourself with your friends. Hmm?

Vivian walks around campus, mulling over this conversation and its implications, but then she returns to the library.

I think part of the reason I was so moved by the play, and by watching the film with Emma Thompson, is that I don't want to exist only with the life of my mind. I see Vivian at the end, dying, understanding what she missed out on in her life, and the strongest feeling I have is that I want to be kinder to my children, that I need to try to understand them and AJ better, that I desire more compassion and empathy.