NURS 600 5W 22/FA1 Discussion 7.1: Wit Film and Patterns of Knowing

 The film entitled Wit, is about an English literature professor, Vivan Bearing, who is diagnosed with stage four metastatic ovarian cancer at the age of 48 years old. Her lives work was about deciphering the work of at 1700 century poet John Donne, she was a strict no non- sense professor, and her course was known as being one of the most challenging courses at the university. The film reflects on her experiences as a cancer patient suffering eight rounds of experimental chemotherapy over the course of eight months. Bearing reflects on her life during this time, discussing her suffering with chemotherapy, current condition, and the healthcare system. She reflects on her past and wonders if she could have been more compassionate to her students. She continues to reflect on John Donne’s poet of the holy sonnets about the meaning of death as she is dying from cancer. In dying she seeks the human compassion she didn’t give to her student from a nurse named Susie throughout the film. Nurse Susie give Vivian dignity and respect as she comes to the end of her life. A major part of the film is John Donne’s poemDeath Be Not Proud, since Vivian has spent her whole life reciting it from memory and lecturing about the meaning of death to her students. Donne’s poetry discusses spirituality and death, which is the main theme of the film. Vivian continues to reflect on Donne’s poem as she undergoes her chemotherapy regiment for terminal ovarian cancer. As cancer takes its toll on Vivian and she is faced with her own experience of dying, she longs for a huma connection. Vivian finds comfort in a former scholarly friend Susie Monahan and Nurse Susie. Both comfort her in her dying hours and help her to find peace in dying