Wit And As I Lay Dying: A Literary Analysis

In the book Wit, by Margaret Edson, Vivian Bearing an English professor is diagnosed with cancer and decides to have an experimental treatment so doctors could learn about her disease. In this book Bearing has many goals she wishes to fulfil before her passing much like Faulkner’s book, As I Lay Dying. Much like Wit, Faulkner’s As I lay Dying follows an order of events that the ill mother, Addie and her loved ones needed to fulfil before death came for Addie. In both works an individual is presented in the stage of sickness rushing against time to fulfil their wishes. Over the next few pages we will discuss the events that both Addie from As I Lay Dying and Vivian from Wit had to achieve so their last wishes would be fulfilled. In an article by Madison Reparatory Theatre 2000 (8-21) “Wit Guide,” we are given the points that Edson intended to get across in this work, which were “finding someone’s inner self in this case Vivian Bearing and finding their relationship with God.” Throughout Wit, Vivian reflects on her life on instances where she was a student, a teacher, or a daughter who was very intelligent. It can be inferred that Vivian was never the party or socially active type that attended parties and whatnot but, the …show more content…
The theme of pushing forward exists in both because both Vivian and Addie refuse to give into death easily, they want to live a little while longer so they can find themselves which was another theme in both works.
The themes in both stories go hand in hand to teach us a lesson on living life. More than likely when we reach death we will have remorse, things we wish we had time to change, but we will realize that our clock has almost stopped and that we must race time to correct as many of those things we can ensure a death where we are at piece with not only ourselves but our maker as