Thornton Wilder's Our Town

In 1938, Thornton Wilder composed the play “Our Town” in the Modernist style. Prevalent from 1915 to 1946, this style focused on the occurrences of everyday life in order to distract the audience from the larger problems looming in the world. Modernist writings often represented the disillusioned, disjointed feeling in American society between the World Wars. The audience often encountered a lack of expositions, resolutions, or even complete sentences in Modernist works. Modernists also left the interpretation of their literature to the reader. Within the drama, Thornton referenced the hymn “Blest be the Tie that Binds” three times. The lyrics of this hymn align seamlessly with the views of Modernist writers, and therefore the song, with

At this point in “Our Town,” the stage manager had introduced to the main characters of the play, and the mundane nature of the drama had revealed itself. Furthermore, the audience has recognized the prosaic problems present within the play. One line in the hymn says, “Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one.” All of the people who have ever lived want the same general things: to be happy, to achieve goals, and to live without fear. Thornton wanted to show the desires, trepidations, and goals of everyday people, so that the audience could be swept into a peaceful microcosm where the larger, overarching problems of society do not exist. Yet, later in the play, Wilder remarks on how happy the characters are during everyday life and how all people should understand the joys present in every minute of their being. If people are too focused on the future, they will allow life to fly past them far too

The death of a young woman during childbirth was not uncommon during the time that this play was written. Therefore, it would have been a commonplace fear that Thornton Wilder's audience would have had. Ergo, this occurrence fit perfectly into the play’s recurring theme of pondering routine issues. As Emily dealt with the concept of being in the land of the dead, her mourners sang “Blest be the Tie that Binds,” at her burial. “When we asunder part, It gives us inward pain; But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.” This verse deals with the mystery of what exists after death. People’s natural reason tells them that something must exist beyond the grave, but nobody really knows what it is. Therefore, most people are afraid of death, since they fear the unknown. But the passage also tells of people’s hope that through their religion and love, they will be able to obtain consciousness in an eternal life. The closing scene tied the ideas found in the entire play, as well as the hymn, together. Emily realized that living people do not really understand death. Primarily, they do not understand how small and inconsequential their life is in the grand scheme of the universe. Secondly, people do not appreciate every minute that they spend living; they take it for granted and let life pass far too quickly. As Emily transcended to a state above