Vivian Bearing is an extremely focused and highly
respected scholar and professor who specializes in the poetry of John Donne.
All her life, Vivian has used her study of Donne to maneuver through life. With
such focus on her studies, Vivian doesn’t actually have a life outside of the
poetry of Donne. After finding out she is terminally ill with stage 4 ovarian
cancer, she is faced with the questions about life, death, and salvation that
Donne so famously attempted to tackle. Jason, the extremely driven and impersonal
fellow assigned to her research driven treatment plan, was one of her students.
His vivacity for the research and study of Vivian’s cancer mirrors Vivian’s own
determination and focus for study of poetry. Although Vivian and Jason are both
extremely educated, candid, and pretentious in every other aspect of their
lives, the recurring interaction of “how are you feeling today?” illustrates
the inability of the characters to cope with interpersonal connections and
their struggle to escape this handicap.
The first lines of the play come from Vivian, saying “Hi.
How are you feeling today?” Although candid with the audience, explaining this
question has been asked while she “was throwing up into a plastic washbasin”
and after “emerging from a four-hour operation”. Vivian seems to have no problem
telling the audience with her true answers to this question. However, whenever
asked by Jason, Suzie, or any other character in the film, she responds with
the simple answer, “fine.” Her one worded answer indicates a desire for separation
and an attempt at tough. Vivian, being a poetry scholar, also enjoys the irony
of this statement and is “waiting for the moment when someone asks [her] this
question and [she] is dead.” This certain amusement with her answers to the
question call into focus the fact that she cannot give a straightforward and
honest answer to the people that are actually in her story. The only people she
can give an honest answer to is the audience. The audience is a welcomed and comfortable
place to speak freely for Vivian. Her narration often feels like a lecture. It
is only when she is lecturing the audience that she speaks her mind and shares
her emotions. Her interactions outside of this lecture-like setting are
understated and veiled. Her answer, “Fine,” is an answer to hide behind. She
spits it out automatically.
Jason’s side of these interactions aren’t much more impressive.
From the beginning, the audience knows that Jason is a student of Doctor
Kelekian and is working on the ‘clinical’ side of his education. Feeling this
is a “colossal waste of time for researchers,” Jason is portrayed as reluctant
to work on his bedside manner. Throughout the film, Jason asks Vivian how she
is feeling, often without looking up or acknowledging her answer with more than
instruction to “keep pushing the fluids.” His lack of interest in her answers
show that his focus is not on how Vivian is doing, but his obsession with how
his research is coming along. The only time Jason is seen talking comfortably
and confidently is when Vivian asks him “Why Cancer?” He sits on her bed for the
first time the entire film, and immediate relaxes and begins talking quickly
and excitedly proclaiming “cancer’s the only thing [he] ever wanted.” Just like
Vivian, it isn’t until Jason is in a setting talking about his research that he
is able to truly say what he thinks. His answers are candid and ironic
considering the person he is speaking to is dying of cancer.
At the end of the film, Vivian’s lifeless body is in the
hospital bed and Jason comes in and, without looking up, questions “How are you
feeling today, Vivian?”. He continues talking, to himself mostly, as he marks
his chart and checks her fluid output. In the film, nearly 30 seconds passes
before Jason even realizes anything is wrong. This use of the question after
Vivian’s death alludes to her quote at the beginning.
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