Our Town By Thornton Wilder: Play Analysis
In the lives of all humans there are always routines. People are born into a world where learning and growing are inevitable, constant parts of daily life. In the play, Our Town, Thornton Wilder shows how no matter where one lives, there is a way everyone can all connect. The production is split into three different parts. The first, showing daily life of a small town in New Hampshire called Grover’s Corners during the early 1900s. The second shows tradition and celebration when two local sweethearts find themselves nervous before going up to the altar, preparing to spend the rest of their lives together. In the third part, readers are faced with the reality that everything comes to an end when a death in town comes unexpectedly. Since the year 1938, this play has resonated with the lives of many. Thornton Wilder conveys the message that everyone lives in a small town of sorts. He shows this by titling the play Our Town, instead of A Town.
In part one, the Stage Manager sets the scene of a typical day in Grover’s Corners. Families eat breakfast, kids go to school, men go to work, and the women talk outside in the garden. This first act is called the Daily Life, in which the Stage Manager introduces all the characters. He talks about two families in particular:
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