Our Town Play Analysis
The Role of Death in “Our Town”-
A Three-Act Play
by Thornton Wilder
Term Paper
INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY STUDIES II
Mag. Dr. phil. Maria-Theresia Holub
SS 2012
Submitted by
Vera Schuster
Table of Contents
1. Introduction page 3
2. The Funeral in Act III page 4, 5, 6
3. The Eternal “Something” page 7
4. Effect on the Audience page 8, 9
5. Conclusion page 9
5. References page 10
Introduction
With “Our Town” Thornton Wilder created a three-act play that …show more content…
“ What is the relation between the countless “unimportant” details of our daily life, on the one hand, and the great perspectives of time, social history and current religious ideas in the other? What is the trivial and what is significant about any one person’s making breakfast, engaging in a domestic quarrel, in a “love scene”, in dying? “ [Häberle,Erwin 1967:55]
Through his play, Wilder tries to teach the audience to seize the moment and enjoy living. There are no guarantees about a certain life span, as for example evidenced by the premature death of Emily Webb.
Emily states throughout the play that the living do not understand the dead, who are removed from the obfuscating details of life, and that the living should continue to do their very best with life while they still have it. The dead appreciate life painfully well, fortunately they are forgetting.
The third act centers on death in juxtaposition to life. It is only after Emily revisits the earth as a spirit that she realizes that humans fail to appreciate the beauty of life. This conclusion, which Emily expresses in her agonized wish to leave her birthday and return to the cemetery, shows us that time is costly, time is important. We tend to appreciate things/events after they took place and are blind to see their importance in the moment they
A Three-Act Play
by Thornton Wilder
Term Paper
INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY STUDIES II
Mag. Dr. phil. Maria-Theresia Holub
SS 2012
Submitted by
Vera Schuster
Table of Contents
1. Introduction page 3
2. The Funeral in Act III page 4, 5, 6
3. The Eternal “Something” page 7
4. Effect on the Audience page 8, 9
5. Conclusion page 9
5. References page 10
Introduction
With “Our Town” Thornton Wilder created a three-act play that …show more content…
“ What is the relation between the countless “unimportant” details of our daily life, on the one hand, and the great perspectives of time, social history and current religious ideas in the other? What is the trivial and what is significant about any one person’s making breakfast, engaging in a domestic quarrel, in a “love scene”, in dying? “ [Häberle,Erwin 1967:55]
Through his play, Wilder tries to teach the audience to seize the moment and enjoy living. There are no guarantees about a certain life span, as for example evidenced by the premature death of Emily Webb.
Emily states throughout the play that the living do not understand the dead, who are removed from the obfuscating details of life, and that the living should continue to do their very best with life while they still have it. The dead appreciate life painfully well, fortunately they are forgetting.
The third act centers on death in juxtaposition to life. It is only after Emily revisits the earth as a spirit that she realizes that humans fail to appreciate the beauty of life. This conclusion, which Emily expresses in her agonized wish to leave her birthday and return to the cemetery, shows us that time is costly, time is important. We tend to appreciate things/events after they took place and are blind to see their importance in the moment they