Our Town

In Act I of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, George and Rebecca, brother and sister, are introduced. George is a prominent character who marries Emily, Mr. Webb's daughter. George and Emily want a...

Another aspect to look at with this scene is the paragraph directly after the original quote: And don't forget all the other witnesses at this wedding, the ancestors. Millions of them. Most of...

Mr. Webb's comment about the townspeople paying special attention to the birds indicates at least two things about Grover's Corners. First, life in Grover's Corners is quiet and without event or...

Early in Act I of Our Town, playwright Thorton Wilder’s omniscient “stage manager” notes the equally omniscient presence of “the morning star,” stating, “The morning star always gets wonderful...

The Stage Manager has the same kind of role that would be filled by a minor character who is the narrator of a short story or novel. His main function is to provide exposition. He introduces most...

Emily Webb, who dies in childbirth, is only a teenager herself when she passes away. Despite the other deceased characters' advice, she decides to revisit one day in her small-town life. On her...

Towards the end of Art I (right after Emily asks her mother whether she is pretty and they have a conversation about that subject) the Stage Manager tells the audience that "the Cartwright...

It might be contended that the intrusion of the Stage Manager has the continuous effect of reminding the audience that they are not watching reality but are watching a play. This effect is also...

Thornton Wilder reveals his sense of humor in this scene at the end of Act One: "Daily Life" in which Rebecca Gibbs tells of a letter her friend addressed, ultimately, to God. Grover's Corners...

Foreshadowing is a literary device used to hint at something that will happen later in the work. An author can use a variety of tools—including setting, dialogue, and narration—to foreshadow a...

In Act 3, Emily dies in childbirth and joins the dead at the cemetery. There, she discovers what the others who have passed before her already know: you can't go back into your old life again and...

In Act III of the play, Emily has died. As she takes her place among others from Grover's Corners who have died, she requests to relive just one day of her life. Mrs. Soames tries to discourage...

In Act II from Our Town, Thornton Wilder presents the second phase of life: falling in love and getting married. At the end of the Act, the Stage Manager steps into the role of the minister who...

The most poignant use of flashback in Thornton Wilder's Our Town occurs in act 3, after Emily's untimely death. Emily joins the other deceased townspeople on stage, and she witnesses her own...

In Our Town, the American Dream is achieved through small-town normalcy, ordinary stability, and savoring the small moments in life. As Mrs. Gibbs says, . . . choose an unimportant day. Choose the...

The something "eternal" that the Stage Manager refers to is the way in which people affect others when they are on earth and the memories that they create. These memories live on, beyond the time...

After Emily accuses George of being stuck up during the flashback in Act II, George takes her to Morgan's drugstore to have an ice cream soda.While they are at the drugstore, George and Emily have...

This is one of the most interesting episodes in the play because Emily is like a ghost revisiting her own home and cannot be seen by her mother or father, although she is visible to the audience....

The Stage Manager in Our Town by Thornton Wilder provides background information for the town. All towns across the United States have geographic differences, diversity in cultures, immigrants from...

I suggest that it is the Stage Manager who is the protagonist of "Our Town." It is his motivation to describe the region and to introduce and explain the townspeople that drives the entire play. He...

A text which addresses expectations of normalcy in terms of a historically oriented American Dream in a completely different way from Our Town is Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel, American Psycho....

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is not only a masterpiece of American drama but one of the earliest and finest works of modernism in theatrical plays. The play, which is set entirely in Grover's...

This is spoken in the context of a wedding, in which the Stage Manager (who plays all kinds of bit parts in the play) acts as the minister. Emily and George are about to begin their lives...

Our Town is a three-act play. The acts are not given titles. The narrator, who is called the Stage Manager, tells the audience that "The First Act shows a day in our town." So it might be said that...

“Act II” in Our Town by Thornton Wilder is labeled “Love and Marriage.” The play portrays the lives of the citizens of a small town in New Hampshire at the turn of the twentieth century. Using...

The stars mentioned in Act III of Our Town connect to the Act I mention of "the Universe; the Mind of God" and are part of the thematic element thus initiated in Act I. One of Wilder's themes is...

Dramatic irony is when the audience has more information about a situation than the characters in a fictional work do. Such irony is expressed when a character's words or actions have a...

When Emily joins the dead in the Grover's Corners cemetery in act 3 of Thornton Wilder's classic American play Our Town, she's unsettled and disoriented by her new environment, just like all new...

Literary mood, also called atmosphere, is created by a combination of many elements including diction, setting, description and characterization. Mood is something that has a focus within the...

Our Town by Thornton Wilder focuses on the precious moments that occur in people’s lives. This play on the everyday occurrences that all people experience won the Pulitzer Prize for Wilder. In...

No one in the play is very psychologically oriented or astute, and that includes the town doctor, Doc Gibbs. That's as it should be, considering when the play takes place. No one knew much about...

Good points by the previous posters. This is a classic American story, covering the stages of life from birth to death and everything in between. It's allegoricalin this sense: while this is set...

The speech in Our Town in which the Stage Manager/Minister mentions "M marries N" is in a sort of soliloquy for the Stage Manager in which he reveals personal thoughts and impressions. We know he...

Our Town by Thornton Wilder is set in the imaginary "everytown" called Grover's Corners, and the two "everyman" families in the play are the Gibbses and the Webbs. On the morning the play opens, we...

The dead in the cemetery seem to be irritated by the living people who mourn for the dead, or they think the mourners are silly. When the mourners arrive for the funeral, Simon Stimson, one of the...

I think that one of the most central ideas to Wilder's work is the universality of the human experience. Our Town strives to show the universal condition of life. It is one whereby individuals...

Thornton Wilder's play makes one small town the iconic Everytown, USA. With the Stage Manager to guide us, we see the characters experience and sometimes overlook their daily hopes and fears....

At the very beginning of Act II or Our Town, it is very early on the morning of July 7, 1904, the day George and Emily are married. To indicate the early morning, we see the lights slowly being...

Emily is bragging, though what she says is true. This statement provides us with a concise exposition of Emily's character and also connects later to her realization that people are essentially...

Thornton Wilder's Our Town focuses mostly on the common experiences of everyday life. The first act of the play is basically an introduction to the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire....

“A thousand years from now…” The Stage Manager controls the events of the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. As one of the most fascinating characters in American theater, the Stage Manager...

Emily discovers that people who are living take the state of being alive for granted. They don't fully appreciate the wonder of life, the beauty of the sights and sounds and smells and actions that...

By the time Emily learns what she learns about life, as seen in Act III, she is dead. And that's part of the point of what she learns: there is no way to know about the life we live as we are...

When Emily dies, she goes to her funeral and sits down next to Mrs. Gibbs. She feels distant from the living and yearns to connect with her past. Emily decides to travel back in time against the...

In Act II when Mr. Gibbs appears for breakfast on the morning of their son's wedding, his wife "puts a plate before him." He says, "Why, Julia Hersey--French toast!" She replies, "'Tain't hard to...

In Act 3 of Our Town, formal religion is presented primarily through the Christian funeral that the living characters attend. There is no indication that people of other faiths live or died in the...

The Stage Manager opens the play, and so he is the first character we meet. His entrance is memorable, as he recognizes that this is a play, and he begins to set the scene for us. Audiences might...

The beautiful hymn “Bless Be the Tithe That Binds” purveys Thornton Wilder’s theme iOur Town. Men are gregarious and require human relationships to flourish. The song permeates the play during...

The Stage Manager reminds many a reader of the Greek Chorus, who provide commentary on the action and the characters in ancient Greek drama. The ubiquitous Stage Manager plays a perhaps even...

What a delightful classic play about American life back in the 1930s! Our Town by Thornton Wilder portrays the normal, day-to-day lives of average people. In the scenes of the drama, all of life's...