Our Town Essay, Research Paper

Significance of Life in Our Town

The play Our Town is the story of a small town in New Hampshire called Grover s Corners. This town is just like any other with living, dying, a simple family life, and falling in love. The main theme of this play, though, is that life is not appreciated by most, and we should all learn to love every moment, even the little things. This is shown by many stage manager monologues, the way Emily reacts to going back to her birthday, and Mr. Webb shows that some people do appreciate little things in his response to the Lady in the box.

The first example is Mr. Webb proving that some people might appreciate life, after all. There are people asking him questions about Grover s Corners and what kind of life people have there. One woman asks if there is much culture in Grover s Corners, and his response was:

No ma am, there isn t much culture; but maybe this is the place to tell you that we ve got pleasures of a kind here: we like the sun comin up over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds. We pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change of the seasons; yes everybody knows about them (Wilder 25)

These are all little things that many people overlook or just take for granted.

The next example is when the Stage Manager talks about the time capsule and tells the audience what will be put in it. He mentions things such as the constitution and Shakespeare s plays, but the interesting items he mentions are the local newspaper and a copy of Our Town. Another important point he makes is that ancient cultures mustn t have cared much about daily rituals because all we know about them is what we can gather from the contracts and other artifacts we have found. So the reason for making this time capsule is to prevent people of the future from not knowing anything about us.

The final example is when Emily goes back to her twelfth birthday. She is talking to the Stage Manager and says:

It goes so fast. We don t have time to look at one another . Oh, earth, you re too wonderful for anybody to realize you . Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute? (Wilder 100)

The Stage Manager replies, No . The saints and poets, maybe they do some (Wilder 100). This is pretty straight forward, but what they are saying is that every second of life is precious and needs to be appreciated.

The play Our Town is a wonderful, timeless classic. It may be set in the early 1900 s, but even if it was set today or two-thousand years from now the message would still be the same, appreciate life and live it to the fullest.