Just a Comma - Essay Analysis of Wit

Alrighty Professor Burton, under an hour. I kind of rushed through the final two paragraphs because I didn't want to break my promise and go over that hour. But I managed to do it. First draft. Phew! I was hyperventilating a bit at the end there... 

As a professor and scholar of the poetry of John Donne, Vivian Bearing claims to “know all about life and death.” She has centered her life and her world on poems about life, but she never really understands how to live until she is faced with the reality that her life is almost over. Although she can analyze Donne’s poetry and attempts to teach her students to do the same, Vivian Bearing is unable to reach her true potential as a professor until she herself approaches the “comma” or code that separates life and death. It isn’t until she is no longer alive that Vivian Bearing is able to make the strongest impact on one of her students. 

During the first flashback of the play, Vivian recalls when she was the student, listening to her own professor (E.M. Ashford) attempt to explain why Vivian has “missed the point” in her essay on the Holy Sonnet Six. In Ashford’s explanation, she states that “the sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy.” Professor Ashford is foreshadowing Vivian’s struggle through her cancer treatment; Vivian attempts to use her own intellect to understand her doctors in hopes to vanquish her cancer/enemy. She claims that she “knows for a fact [she] is tough,” calling herself a “demanding professor.” But there is more to the sonnet than defeating an enemy; Professor Ashford continues to tell Vivian that the sonnet “is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life.”

Throughout Vivian’s life as a professor, we see in her memories that she was often unsympathetic and very demanding of her students, expecting them to know what propels a sonnet when they couldn’t tell the difference between a sonnet and a steak sandwich. Even her former student, Jason, who is one of the doctors overseeing her cancer treatment, tells a nurse that Vivian wasn’t exactly a “cupcake” when he took her class. He also says that most of her students hated her. As a professor, Vivian was seen as incredibly intelligent, and Jason sought to take her class simply so it would look impressive on his transcript. He was very proud that he had managed to get an A- in the class, and that it helped him get into medical school, but other than that, his taking the class did not impact his life.

Jason also mentions how impressive it was that her lectures were completely memorized. She never needed to use any notes, and her most recent project had been an article on John Donne for the Oxford Encyclopedia of English Literature. However, she recognizes that many of her colleagues and nearly all of her students would be relieved if she did manage to “barf her brains out.” This tells the audience that Vivian recognizes that she doesn’t seem to be all that amiable. In an earlier flashback, her professor had urged her to not return to the library, but to “use [her] intelligence” and “enjoy [herself] with [her] friends.” Vivian does not, however, follow her professor’s advice. This is further highlighted in the fact that she has absolutely no visitors except for her own professor. Vivian has chosen to detach herself from life by studying poetry about life and death instead.

It is in her final moment, hanging on the cusp of death, where Vivian Bearing is able to finally teach her most important lecture; a lecture that is taught with no recitations and no essays. Her former student rushes wildly about her hospital room, attempting to resuscitate his professor and patient; to keep her alive means that he can continue to analyze her cancer. If she dies, his ability to treat her like one of John Donne’s sonnets dies with her. He calls a code, because he instinctively knows that a pair of paddles can restart his research. This code, much like the comma used in the final line of Holy Sonnet Ten, is the only thing that separates her life and her death.

In the film adaptation, the camera zooms in on Jason’s face after the code team leaves Vivian to continue in death. His eyes, filling with tears, show that he might have finally learned something of worth from his old poetry professor. Although Vivian cannot be there to witness it, she has finally reached her potential as a professor by impacting the life of just one student – no words needed, just one final breath; a comma.