What are some ideas for a compare & contrast essay on "Antigone" and Vivian Bearing from "Wit"?

Question

I have to write a compare and contrast essay on the characters: Antigone in "Sophocles: Antigone" and Vivian Bearing in "Wit". Does anybody have any ideas? I'm having a brain fart!

Answer 1

You'd get a decent euthanasia essay (pro or con) out of the following:

Both are obsessed with death, Vivian with John Donne's death-influenced sonnets and Antigone in lines like "It is the dead/ Not the living, who make the longest demands/ We die forever."

Both kill themselves rather than suffer a far worse fate (Vivian to waste away of cancer even more; Antigone to be buried alive.)

Ismene and the young nurse in 'Wit' (forgot her name - the black girl with whom she eats popsicles) both try to stick up for their sister/patient respectively, and in the end help them to die.

If you want to add a feminist component, which I think would be warranted, both want desperately to be heroes, and cast themselves in 'masculine' roles - their killing themselves could be seen as the ultimate masculine act, that of violence against the self, for the most feminine of motives, that of relieving suffering. (I'm speaking in classical archetypes here.)

Creon and the doctor also parallel one another; so too do Tiresias and the English scholar that visits Vivian.

Any other questions, knock yourself out, but those are the first comparisons that came to mind.

ETA in response to the person below me: If I am remembering correctly from the movie, she specifically asks not to be resuscitated? Hence the euthanasia bit. I'll admit it's a bit glib way to put the end, but I THINK that's what I remember. Wikipedia says the play is structured differently, so if a different ending is indeed in the play, go with that.

Answer 2

Hmm I'm not sure I agree. First off, not EVERYONE from my generation has access to the things you mentioned. Maybe the majority of the kids living in the US, but around the world, not much has changed over the last couple of years. Plus there's a recession, there's still a lot of poverty today. Anyway, Yes email and the internet and all that have made things a lot easier and more efficient, but that's just how life is. Technology will always be moving forward and so although we can't imagine some of the things that'll be invented in the next years to come, it obviously will make things even more efficient. Compare your life growing up to someone from the 1940s. Wars, poverty all that, for them you lived in luxury and we live in paradise. What I'm trying to say, this generation will probably be saying the same thing to the younger generation "your time is easier/better" Also you can't say you didn't enjoy the 80s. Wonderful music, great memorable styles, just everything. Its special, unique in its own way and that's something no other generation can or will ever have. Much happened during your time. The history, everything. I still remember some of the things you mentioned. Its nice to see how things progress such as technology. I remember when caller ID first came out it was like a box you had to connect to your house phone. Things like that just interest me. I think its pretty cool. To wrap this up, yes our time is probably "easier" maybe... And the internet has done wonders. But it helps your generation too though. It helps everyone. Its not just for us. You're still alive so you can take advantage of that too :)

Answer 3

I agree with Kate S., except that Vivian in W;t doesn't kill herself, she dies because she undergoes the maximum cancer treatment and it doesn't work.