Our Town

Below is one of our free research papers on Our Town. If the term paper below is not exactly what you're looking for, you can search our essay database for other topics.

Our Town

    Our Town, by Thornton Wilder is a play that takes place in a small fictional town of Grover's Corner, New Hampshire; beginning in 1901 and ending in 1913. The play takes the audience through the cycles of life, with the purpose of getting a universal message stating that life shouldn't be taken for granted. Emily Webb, one of the most important characters in the play, is Wilder's character in which he uses to show the audience a universal message that anyone would understand and relate to.

    Emily is a character that is normal enough so that the audience could relate to her; and yet be different in little ways that makes people love and adore her. For example, Emily went through the most common events in a woman's life: marriage, childbirth, and death in the play. These cycles makes her common, thus relatable to the audience. Without going through common events in life, the character would seem distant and likeable to the audience. Similarly, when Emily said that she expects a man to be perfect, it makes her special. Wilder put in that scene because he believed that even though there is a basic image of an average person, to be truly average, the character must have a difference to separate the character from the crowd. If the character doesn't have any differences, then the character would be faceless; impossible for the character to take a major role in the play. Emily is portrayed uniquely in her own way, and yet is still within the boundaries of ever...

Submitted by: digitalessays
Date Submitted: 01-11-08 5:58am
Category: English
Words: 466
Pages: 1.86