In his play, Our Town, Thornton Wilder portrays a little town and its characters’ lives. The story takes place in Grover’s Comers, New Hampshire, in 1901. The play is divided into three meager acts. The first act functions as an introduction for the rest of the play. The characters and the way they used to live in the United States more than a century ago are introduced. As the story progresses, we follow some of the characters’ life experiences such as falling in love, gossiping, marriage, family life, but also alcoholism, and even death. This life assemblage, present in Our Town makes the play universally significant and meaningful for everybody who reads it because it is easy to relate to our own past or experience.

     In the second act, Thornton Wilder tells us about two main characters’ love story. Using the special technique of flashback, Wilder first shows how Emily and George fall in love, how they realize they are meant to be together, and after how they end up married. This part is also interesting because the stage manager asks us to remember the days when we were first in love, when we were like “a person sleepwalking” (63). For my part, it worked; while I was reading, I was really remembering the first time I was “a little bit crazy” (63). In my past, I remember feeling very “strong emotions” (67) for a boy, like Emily feels for George. Even if they are usually shy about their feelings, I am also sure that a lot of boys remember how it is to be “crestfallen”(62) because of a girl, like George is about Emily. Also, I am convinced that a lot of married people understand the way George and Emily feel confused and scared just before their wedding. The only reason why I think so is that it is normal and human to be scared of such a big step in someone’s life. Not wanting to “grow old’ (77) is typical too, as is feeling alone or wanting to “go away” (79). 1 would say that it is even frequent to feel frightened or anxious before the official first day you start to build something important with the person you love. Of course, it is supposed to be a wonderful day, and finally it is for Emily and George.

     There is another theme, besides Love and Engagement, that affects me a lot. I am talking about Death, the focus of Act Three. As he has throughout, Thornton Wilder organizes this act in a remarkable way. Living characters, dead characters and the audience are all together conveyed to Emily Webb’s funeral. She died of childbirth. “Yes, an awful lot of sorrow has sort of quieted down up here” (87). The first sentiment we feel is sadness. The entire scene is sad; we realize that Death can reach anyone of us, even a young married woman, wife and mother, as Emily. Moreover, a lot of characters such as Mrs. Gibbs, Simon Stimson, Mrs. Soames and even Webb’s little boy, Wallace, died too. In this third and last act, it is amazing how Thornton Wilder makes all the dead characters speak and share what they are feeling with the audience. This point is really important in the play, because from there Wilder reveals the entire point: people take life for granted. It is a fact that life passes so fast. Most of the people don’t know how to appreciate it anymore because they are too busy with their occupations, and the worst is that they are not conscious that life can end at any moment. It is really sad but true; it is too late to realize, like Emily does when she died, that life is precious. Depressed, she now wants to go back to earth for one day, for her twelfth birthday. Again, this is a flashback that shows us an important point of this play. Mrs. Webb summarizes it all in one sentence: “Just open your eyes, dear, that’s all” (103). This is crucial and evident; we should all open our eyes and realize that life is a gift given to us. Similarly, I think that is also a message for the audience, or more, for the entire world. Because if we wait too long, we could regret it, like Emily regrets it and realizes how people are troubled and live in the “dark” (97). What is unique in the play is that it helps people (and I am one of those too) to realize that life has to be enjoyed. If you know how to analyze and take all the things and opportunities that are coming to you, you have understood life’s keystone.  Our Town helped me in that way.

     Now, you may say that this play is too old-fashioned and that it can’t have meaning to a modem audience. I understand that, and I know that the play can be considered limited with all the traditional “clichés” that it portrays. That is true; there are not a lot of people anymore who get married at the age of sixteen like Emily and George. I can imagine that not a lot of people would relate the wedding in the play to their own wedding memories because they were not seventeen, and perhaps not as childlike. Additionally, if you are a successful businesswoman, I can understand that you would think that Mrs. Gibbs’ and Mrs. Webb’s lives are futile and pointless, and that you can’t relate to them at all. But there is something that you can find in common; if you are a mother, you are like them caring about their children. Some things will just never get old-fashioned.    

     Today we are living in another century, mentalities have evolved and our style of life is completely different from the inhabitants of Grover’s Comers’, “latitude 42 degrees 40 minutes, longitude 70 degrees 37 minutes” (4). We can find a thousand dissimilar things in Our Town that are not like today. But the uniqueness of this play is that, with all the differences compared to our way of living, “There is something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being” (88). 

Work Cited 

Wilder, Thornton.  Our Town . 1939. New York: Perennial, 1998.

Writing Task

Essay 2 "Common Town, Big Allegory," by Ana Matijasevic

1. What background information has the student author provided in the introduction so taht any reader can understand what the paper is about?
2. What is the thesis statement?  Paraphrase in your own words.
3. Point out three places in this essay where the student writer is analyzing rather than summarizing.
4. a) It is as if the author is trying to persuade the reader of something in the last two paragraphs.  What is she trying to get us to agree with?  b) Does she succeed?