マーガレット・エドソンの『ウィット』 : ゴシック的「狂気の科学者」のモチーフ

概要

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Margaret Edson's first play Wit (1993), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, features Vivian Bearing, a professor specializing in John Donne's metaphysical poetry. She is hospitalized dying of advanced ovarian cancer. Her doctors Kelekian and Jason have Vivian undergo an experimental treatment with strong side effects. The treatment is very aggressive and lasts for no less than eight weeks. For the doctors, Vivian is no longer a human being but "material" for their medical research, or in Dr. Moreau's term a "problem" for their intellectual desires. Focusing on the unsympathetic attitudes of Kelekian and Jason toward their patient Vivian, this play can be classified within the Gothic genre and containing the "Mad Scientist" motif. What allows this play from falling into a simple dichotomy between the assailants and the victim, however, is the fact that Vivian herself shares the character of "Mad Scientist." This paper analyzes how Vivian can be characterized as a mad scientist along with her doctors.