Katherine Anne A.

Balazuela

Ph 101 Paper

Wit: A Story of Being-in-the-World

A Reflection Paper on the Movie Wit in the Light of Heideggers Philosophy on Death
The philosophy of Heidegger on death surrounds around the Dasein (being-in-the-world)
that has a relationship towards the world he is thrown at and in here he creates meaning. As long
as Dasein continues to live as his possibilities still have a probability to occur he is
incomplete and this incompleteness can only be fulfilled in death. This state of being is what
Heidegger calls as Care and it involves Dasein as being-ahead-itself because of the potentiality
despite the existence of facticity that exists in him and how this potentiality makes him as
dynamic and not static.
Heidegger talks about the points of death such as being nonrelational, certain, indefinite
and the possibility of his impossibility. This leads to saying that Dasein is a being-towards-death
because it is the only way to make the impossibility of his being possible. I quote Manuel Dy in
his article: Dasein therefore, as long as it exists, is already, at its end. This tells that as a beingin-the-world, death is inevitable. He also talked about the modes of dasein such as the
inauthentic and authentic wherein authentic being-towards-death sees and understands the
certainty and indefinite characteristic of death while the other conceals it with day-to-day
activities. The movie, Wit, does reflects not only what cancer patients such as Vivian Bearing go
through but also the clearer reflection of how Dasein lives every single day as a being-towardsdeath and its authenticity and inauthenticity showed certain experiences of the main character.
The movie reflected the philosophy of Heidegger in death in seeing Vivian as Dasein or as
abeing-in-the-world.

Vivian Bearing, which is our main character in the story, was diagnosed to have a stage
four metastatic ovarian cancer, a disease that is more advanced than the other types of cancer.
Bearing was thrown into the situation wherein her cancer cells have gone out of control. She
decided to go undergo eight cycles chemotherapy and this opened a possibility of making the
cancer cell reduce in size. But as the story progresses, we know that the procedure was
unsuccessful as the cancer cell have already invaded other organ systems and how the medicine
used in chemotherapy have also killed much of Vivians healthy cells.
In this movie the progression of Vivian Bearing as a being-towards-death from being
inauthentic to authentic was shown as the story advances. In the first few cycles of the procedure
during her stay in the hospital, she spends her time encountering other people such as her doctors
and her nurse, Susie and reliving the memories prior to the diagnosis. This scenario reflects upon
one of the modes of being-in-the-world which is inauthentic. In this mode, the thought of death
was pacified and hidden away in the happenings because death wasnt a real threat to her at that
time. On the other hand during her chemotherapy sessions and other tests, the anxiety surfaces
because the thought of facing death was involved in these moments. These situations reflect the
authentic being-towards-death as she became aware that her death is certain through the
diagnosis of cancer in her body because before death was only found in the literary works of
John Donne in which she studies and the experience of loss she had when her parents died.
One of the scenarios that show the anxiety of the main was when Vivian Bearing wept
and told Susie that she was scared of what was to come as she finds herself facing this possibility
of death that was certain and might come by at any time. She shares how she wants to learn more
but her worsening condition do not let her. As the scene progresses, Susie mentioned about code
blue and Vivian tells Susie that she wanted to have no code or DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). It

reflected how Vivian gradually understood that her death is inevitable because her condition is
not getting better even though she completed the eight cycles of chemotherapy. As an authentic
being-towards-death, she overlooks what the they (specifically the doctors who utilize her body
tissues for the sake of research) are trying to tell her. Being diagnosed with cancer stresses the
indefiniteness of death because there is no definite time when death shall be.
Rather than being viewed as a fearsome and a phenomenal event, the everyday
experience of having cancer was depicted as one way of living as beings-towards-death person.
It showed its similarity to how those who have are not inflicted with it face as beings-towardsdeath: inauthentic wherein the thought of death is concealed by different concerns demanded or
authentic wherein there are triggers that let them remember of the inevitability of death. The
experience of cancer which was shown in the movie became a clearer picture of how Dasein
lives his everyday life interacting with the world around him and how his not-yet nature ends
through death.
WORKS CITED
Dy, Manuel. Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings, edited by Manuel B. Dy Jr. Quezon City:
Goodwill Trading Co., Inc 1986