Dealing with Cancer
...and how they are used is demonstrated. Ms. Bearing sees the irony in the very beginning of how no matter how bad someone feels we are forced by instinct to answer that simple question with “fine.” She even makes the remark that when Ms. Bearing dies they will still ask her the question. Her obsession of words and meanings continue when Dr. Kelekian is describing her illness and the treatment. She breaks the words of “insidious” and “antineoplastic” to their bare meanings instead of paying close attention to what Dr. Kelekian is saying. This obsession with words is attributed to her father. When she was reading for her father if she got stuck on a word, he would have her sound it out then tell her the meaning of the word “soporific”. This word brings her joy later in the play when she is able to laugh with Nurse Susie Monahan. Her approach to her illness is not unlike her approach to the study of Donne: aggressively probing and intensely rational. After she learns that she will not live long she comes to terms with her condition and even finds it humorous. She is a person who lives by her wits, and has spent an entire career dissecting Donne’s “Holy Sonnets,” as she is trying to dissect her cancer. She tries to understand everything about the cancer, once again breaking down each word to their bare meaning. She has agreed to undergo an experimental chemotherapy treatment to rid her body of cancer. This is a grueling eight-stage process that lasts over eight months and is more than most people could not withstand, but Dr. Kelekian, her physician, thinks that she is strong enough to go through all eight of the full doses of chemotherapy. The understanding of her illness, her treatment, and her life lead her to become the student instead of the teacher. Now Dr. Bearing has become the student as she becomes a helpless patient, and Jason, the teacher, as he becomes her doctor. Jason was Dr. Bearing’s student back in college. The roles have now been changed. She first becomes the student when she receives a pelvic exam by Jason. She feels embarrassed and humiliated and wishes she gave him an A instead of an A-. Then she learns medical terms to understand her illness and to know what the doctors were talking about. This goes back to her obsession with words. Vivian fears that she will always be rememb...