Wit

The play flashes back to Vivian, once again in full form, standing in front of a classroom of students. She singles one out and asks him to identify the principal poetic device of one of Donne’s sonnets. Vivian is demanding, sarcastic, and a little insulting—she tells the student that the answer has “nothing to do with football” and insists he excuse himself from class because he is so unprepared (59). She pauses to defend her harshness to the audience, saying she was teaching the student a lesson, before turning back to the classroom. One of her students pipes up and says she thinks Donne’s poems are complicated because “he’s scared, so he hides […] behind this wit” (60).

Vivian turns to the audience and says that the student has found the kernel of a brilliant idea. Vivian now has two choices: she can take over the discussion or let the student continue. Vivian encourages the student to continue exploring her thought. The student tries to explain why she thinks Donne is running away from simple answers, but her logic eventually “self-destruct[s]” as Vivian predicts (61). Vivian gives her students little leeway, which the audience sees when she denies another student a paper extension due to his grandmother’s death.