Our Town Essay, Research Paper

Christian Ward

1/8/2000

What is the definition of a small town? Is it where everyone knows your name, like the theme song of Cheers, or is it where everyone cares about each other and knows what’s going on in town. Grover’s Corner fits the definition of the classic small town back in the early twentieth century. Our Town by Thornton Wilder shows that this small town is very close in manor and growth to Asheville, North Carolina.

Grover’s Corners as imagined today would have everything in common with Asheville. It would consist of one rather large shopping mall. This is where all the local teenagers spend their free time, even with the lack of money to spend. The fact that some students have ambitions, like Emily, and some really would rather just settle down near their hometown and be a farmer, like George. In truth today Emily with her drive to learn and be at the top of her class would have gotten her a lot farther in life than it did in the play. Emily would have become a surgeon and gone off to school somewhere. She would never be able to leave her hometown, Emily would move back with her husband and settle down and have those babies just like in the play.

Grover’s Corners, which occupied about 3 thousand people at that time, would be about the same today as Asheville as the growth rate is very similar. Asheville is at about 60,000 residents now within the city limits with many more outside in the suburbs. The city is not big enough to be called a big city with urban problems and industrial centers but is big enough to where people notice it. Life here is simple in that we don’t have all of the violence and trouble of big cities. Grover’s Corners was a place where you didn’t have to lock your door at night. There was no evidence of crime and if there was it would be dealt with swiftly, and with a great cause of concern of the neighborhood. Grover’s Corners would eventually come to be like Asheville, where breaking news and the top headlines of here would not even be reported in big cities. A local robbery of a disposable fork manufacturer would be the top headline of the night and we would all thank god we lived in a small town.

So more or less Asheville is a good model of the change that Grovers Corners would encounter with the advancement of and rapidity of growth of life today. Life here is simple and we would like it to stay like that even with the economic growth that it would entail. The one thing that would not be found certain is the lifestyles would be the same as they are today with all the alternative ju ju floating around.