| "OUR TOWN"
Author: Thornton Wilder
Interest Level: Upper Grades (9-12)
ATOS Reading Level: 3.9
AR Points: 3.0
Publisher Recommended Age: 18+
Publisher: HarperCollins/Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Book Type: Trade Paperback
Pages: 208
Book Description:
Our Town is a three act play by Thornton Wilder which is, perhaps, the most frequently produced play by an American playwright. The play is set in the fictional community of Grover's Corners, modeled after several New Hampshire towns in the Mount Monadnock region: Jaffrey, Peterborough, Dublin, and others.
The play is set in a 1930's theater. Through the actions of the Stage Manager, the town of Grover's Corners is created for the audience and scenes from its history between the years of 1901 and 1913 play out. Our Town is a story of character development that details the interactions between citizens of an everyday town in the early 20th century through their everyday lives (particularly the lives of George Gibbs, a doctor's son, and Emily Webb, the daughter of a newspaper editor).
Beginning with the routine and tiny necessities of daily life, the audience is exposed to the intimate and habitual life of a real American family. The last two acts gradually represent deeper aspects of life using George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose unspoken mutual affection as children blossoms into love, marriage and death.
Act 2 celebrates the wedding of George and Emily. The characters analyze the need for human companionship while questioning the institution of marriage. The last-minute apprehension Emily and George feel about their marriage represents a universal theme of young people wanting to grow up quickly while still craving childhood's relative certainty and security.
Our Town's strong grasp on its audience lasts through the finale of the play, when the ghost of Emily Webb travels back in time to her 12th birthday. Through this, Wilder conveys the meaning and significance of the little things in life. The theme of daily life and routine is once again brought back into the play.
The author's concept of pursuing life is also brought up with Mrs. Gibbs's desire to visit France. Later in the play she obtains the money necessary to go, but she instead leaves the money to George and his wife; implying that either she, like Emily, did not appreciate life to its fullest, or instead that she came to enjoy the simple pleasures enough that she didn't need France.
The magnitude of small town America, with its slow-moving culture and relaxed atmosphere, is revealed. Because these life lessons are relevant even to today's fast-paced culture, the timelessness of Our Town is underscored.
Wilder, in his 30s, lived in MacDowell Colony in Peterborough in June, 1937, one of many locations where Wilder worked on the play. The third act was drafted entirely in one day during a visit to Zurich in September of 1937 after a long evening walk in the rain with a friend. The eventual product was banned in the Soviet Union in 1947, together with The Skin of Our Teeth, for making family life "too attractive."
First produced and published in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners has become an American classic and is Thornton Wider's most renowned and most frequently performed play.
Book Awards:
- USA: Pulitzer Prize 1938
- USA: Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Revival 1989
- USA: Tony Award, Best Revival 1989
About the Author:
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. His best known work is his play Our Town. Thornton Niven Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and was the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a U.S. diplomat, and Isabella Niven Wilder. All of the Wilder children spent part of their childhood in China due to their father's work.
After serving in the United States Coast Guard during World War I, he attended Oberlin College before earning his B.A. at Yale University in 1920, where he refined his writing skills as a member of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, a literary society. He earned his M.A. in French from Princeton University in 1926.
After graduating, Wilder studied in Rome and then taught French at Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. In 1926 Wilder's first novel The Cabala was published. In 1927, The Bridge of San Luis Rey brought him commercial success and his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928. He resigned from Lawrenceville School in 1928. From 1930 to 1937 he taught at the University of Chicago.
In 1938 he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Our Town and he won the prize again in 1942 for his play The Skin of Our Teeth. World War II saw him rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Force and he received several awards. He went on to be a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii and to teach poetry at Harvard. Wilder's other honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.
Though he considered himself a teacher first and a writer second, he continued to write all his life, receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1957 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. In 1967 he won the National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.
He died in his sleep, December 7, 1975 in Hamden, Connecticut, aged 78, where he had been living with his sister, Isabel, for many years. |
