Innovations in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town
When Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town, he violated many of the rules of traditional playwriting. Wilder introduced innovations in characterization, dramatic structure, and stagecraft in this landmark play.
In creating the role of the stage manager, Wilder has created an important character who performs the duties not associated with a traditional stage manager of a play. The Stage Manager is, in reality, is a character in Our Town. This character has many roles in the play. He functions as an onstage director as he is ushering Professor Willard offstage: “This way professor, and thank you again.” (p. 23). He is also a minor character actor. As Mrs. Forrest, the Stage Manager scolds George Gibbs for
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You got no business playing baseball on Main Street.” (p. 28). Throughout Our Town, he acts as a narrator for the play as well: “The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount’in.” (p. 4). Thornton Wilder is constantly reminding the audience this is a play, not real life. The playwright uses the Stage Manager’s job as narrator, to break the fourth wall, and remind the audience the play is a story. Speaking directly to an actor placed in the audience, the Stage Manager says, “Come forward, will you, where we can all hear you” (p. 25). He is addressing the audience, who is watching Our Town, while the play is being performed. Wilder’s Stage Manager is omniscient. He says, “Doc Gibbs died in 1930. The new hospital’s named after him.” (p. 7). He is using his extensive knowledge to inform us of the future. Another one of his godly powers is his omnipotence. He has the ability to manipulate time in order to show us all of the average …show more content…
Wilder breaks the fourth wall, always reminding the audience that they are watching a play. Because the Stage Manager jumps around to different points in time, there is no linear storyline. No plot can form without a linear storyline, and the audience is not given enough information about Simon Stimson for a sub plot to form. There is also no conflict. The Stage Manager tells us all the First Act is about is a day in Grover’s Corners: “The First Act shows a day in our town.” (p. 4). With no conflict, there is no climax or resolution in the following acts. There is a prominent theme woven through the acts. Thornton Wilder uses this play to try and make people think about their place in the world. At the end of Act I, Rebecca tells us about a letter Jane Crofut received from her minister. She says the address written is, “the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God” 9p. 46). The audience begins seeing the roles of the people in their hometown, but not their roles as people of the world. Wilder uses Emily and George’s interest in each other to give the idea of how their relationship may grow and their lives could change. Their roles in society could be affected by their choices made together. The frequency of the fourth wall being broken is an important part of the structure of the play. The Stage Manager speaks
The characters address the audience; the fast movement from scene to scene juxtaposing past and present and prevents us from identifying with particular characters, forcing us to assess their points of view; there are few characters who fail to repel us, as they display truly human complexity and fallibility. That fallibility is usually associated with greed and a ruthless disregard for the needs of others. Emotional needs are rarely acknowledged by those most concerned with taking what they maintain is theirs, and this confusion of feeling and finance contributes to the play's ultimate bleak mood.
Mark Lambeck uses the drama’s setting to relate Intervention to the audience. Specifically, he uses a vague yet understandable modern time. An audience can relate knowing they could experience the same thing on any given day. The location of the play is also a place an audience could easily find themselves. It is vague place that could represent almost anywhere, perhaps in where the audience is. In the current world, one could easily find themselves walking down the street on their cell phone. The characters are constant...
Throughout the piece, we see the use of audience as active participants to amplify the didactic message of the play. In the literature we see many instances where the author uses this cognitive distancing as a way to disrupt the stage illusion and make the audience active members of the play. Forcing the audience into an analytical standpoint as opposed to passively accepting whats happening in their conscious minds. This occurs time and time again in the fourth act of the play. The characters repeatedly break down the fourth wall and engage the audience with open participation. We see this in the quotation from the end of the fourth Act of the play:
Wilder uses devices such as the lack of props and connecting us to the cast to enable us to better relate to the play, thus showing us that these lessons are true in our own lives. He then uses strong shifts in perspective on events in our lives to drive home what is truly important in life. Wilder shows us that while time passes, our lives stay relatively the same. Wilder uses these
Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1897 to Amos Parker Wilder and Isabella Wilder. In 1906, Amos Wilder was appointed American Consul General, and his family moved with him to Hong Kong. Thornton Wilder only lived in Hong Kong for 6 months, moved back to the United States with his mother, and then in 1911 rejoined his father in Shanghai for a year. Wilder attended Oberlin College for two years, moved with his family to New Haven, Connecticut, and entered Yale University. He wrote his first full-length play in 1920, which appeared in the Yale Literary Magazine. After receiving his B.A. at Yale, he traveled and taught French. In 1926, he received his M.A. in French Literature from Princeton. Thornton Wilder effectively illustrates the importance of life’s repetition in Our Town through the cycle of life, George and Emily’s love, and the playing of “Blessed Be the Tie that Binds.”
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town both explore the fulfillment of life. Emily and Willy Loman fail to take advantage of their lives because they have the wrong priorities and do not take the time appreciate what they already have. Willy focuses solely on achieving his dreams of success as a salesman and helping Biff become a great man, resulting in him ignoring his family, declining status in society, and reality, leading to his demise. He never realizes what he has lost by chasing after inconceivable dreams; however, Wilder’s Emily reflects on her life after she dies and begins to understand that her lack of appreciation for the little moments took away from the fullness of her life. Even though Wilder and Miller tell two unique stories, they use similar methods to show their thoughts on living and essentially convey the same message about how dreams can ruin people and how not appreciating the little things takes away from the quality of life.
The characters inhabit their private realities in order to detach themselves from a world that confuses and alienates them. Laura, Amanda, Tom, and Jim prefer to immerse themselves in their narrow view of time rather than embrace the flow of time. Laura remains isolated as she has failed to find love. Amanda judges Laura as she imposes her own narrow expectations on her. Tom believes that he can escape reality and become inseparable from the imaginary worlds of movies. Jim's idealistic view of Laura suggests that he is out of touch with reality. The play demonstrates that the characters desire to escape reality due to their inability to live in the present and embrace the flow of
During the Antebellum Era, slavery was about one-third of the South’s population. The Antebellum Era was the period before the Civil War broke out. The South’s economy was booming which was credited to slavery. Their argument about slavery was that slaves were necessary and important to their economy. It would kill their economy if they got rid of slavery. Slavery was the foundation of their economy. Without any slaves, cotton would not be able to be produce. Nearly 60 % of their exports was cotton. Southerners would also point out that slaves were better working in plantations than working in a northern factory. According to them, the North had bad workplaces and long hours. They insisted that slaves were cared for and helped when they needed it unlike the North. However, slaves were still treated bad in the South. They would resist slavery in a variety of ways. For example, running away was one form of resistance. The most common form of resistance was known as “day-to-day” resistance which were
The similar philosophies of life residing in both Willy Loman and Mr. Webb are present in both plays as they progress. Their strong belief in themselves gives them the ability to influence others by giving them advice. The advice which Mr. Webb provided to George was “start out early by showing who’s boss” (Wilder IIi 58). The confidence to tell a strong willed son-in-law shows his aptitude in his belief. Similarly, Willy was often dictating the actions of people around him. Usually his interferences would be contradictory to what others had in mind such as “No, you finish first” (Miller 1.3). His constant dictations most often cause contradictory with his dictations! At first, Willy referred to Biff as “a lazy bum” (Miller 1.2), but then later called him “such a hard worker” (Miller 1.2). This exhibits Willy’s faith in his ideas, but shows a confusion within those ideas. Mr. Webb also inherits the same weakness that Willy has. Descri...
“The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.”- (Kazantzakis). The play Our Town, written by Thornton Wilder, takes place in the small town of Grover’s Corners. The residents of Grover’s Corners are content with their lives and do not mind the small town they are living in. Emily Webb, a girl living in Grover’s Corners does not think secondly about her life… until it is over. This play can be compared to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where men are kept prisoner until one man is able to escape. Only after escaping the cave, does the man realize how much better the life outside is, and truly understands that his previous life was a prison. Emily's crossing from life to death is a parallel to the the
“If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side...when the glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time...is a very good one.”
Every time the family comes to a confrontation someone retreats to the past and reflects on life as it was back then, not dealing with life as it is for them today. Tom, assuming the macho role of the man of the house, babies and shelters Laura from the outside world. His mother reminds him that he is to feel a responsibility for his sister. He carries this burden throughout the play. His mother knows if it were not for his sisters needs he would have been long gone. Laura must pickup on some of this, she is so sensitive she must sense Toms feeling of being trapped. Tom dreams of going away to learn of the world, Laura is aware of this and she is frightened of what may become of them if he were to leave.
My idea of the theme of the play doesn't differ all that much from Wilder's theme. My idea of the theme only adds to Wilder's theme.
The many themes contained within the play are additional evidence that the play was constructed for a specific group of people who would find it entertaining. The role of cooperation and the formation of co-op’s in the mid-west are two of the central themes to Paper Wheat. In a scene entitled The Report in Act II, the audience listens to a monologue given by Ed Partridge in whi...
I selected this play mainly because I love the way Thornton Wilder chose to break the fourth wall. The fourth wall is the space that separates a performer or performance from an audience. The Skin of Our Teeth doesn’t just break the fourth wall it topples it boldly, with actor’s occasionally breaking character to gripe about the script in a play-within-a-play. Technically The Skin of Our Teeth is a double narrative: the story of the Antrobus family in the play and the story of a theater company putting on the play. I find it fascinating how the actors break the actors' fourth-wall by speaking directly to the audience, as the frustrated stage manager tries to keep the show together. Breaking the fourth wall allows the audiences to feel like they are part of the play and it tunes them more into the show.