Wit

   In the movie Wit, we are able to see someone going through the process of dying, which calls into question: did Vivian Bearing die a good death?

   Everyone does have a different idea of death. In my opinion, a good death means a death that is peaceful, painless, and surrounded by the people you love. Even though at the end, Bearing’s old college professor goes to visit her, the events leading up to her death were full of suffering and for that reason I do not think she had a “good death”.

   Of course, her course of treatment was extremely painful and brutal. Throughout the movie she is throwing up and getting weaker and weaker. Of course, this is a large part of why she did not have a good death. She was in great suffering and pain and did not have anyone around to comfort her. Normally, a doctor would help ease this by comforting the patient. For Vivian, however, it is much different.

 

   Because she agreed to a course of treatment that would contribute to medical research, Bearing is treated as an object and not a person. They routinely ask her “How are you doing” not because they care but because it is a habit, and a routine of doing rounds. Even in a state of emergency when her heart stops, the doctors continue to think of her as research when the nurse says “She’s DNR!” and Jason, the resident, replies, “She’s research!”

   Along with being mistreated by her doctors, Vivian Bearing is in fear when she dies. As a college professor, she is constantly researching and gaining knowledge; when one has knowledge and understanding of anything, it is less frightening in most cases. However, when she is sick, she does not know what is going to happen. No one tells her if she is getting better or worse or how much time she has left, and it leaves her scared probably for the first time in her life.

   Whether or not someone has a good death depends on the person judging it, and in my judgment Vivian Bearing’s death was not a good one. She was forced to suffer alone in fear for her life because her doctor’s were not treating her as a patient, but rather an object of research.

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