How Does Wilder Use Characterization In Our Town

The Wildness of Thorton’s Characterization In his play Our Town, Thornton Wilder focuses on the message that every moment of life is valuable and unique, even in the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Wilder’s characters are now famous, as audiences continue to see George Gibbs and Emily Webb fall in love during high school and get married, only to endure Emily’s pain after she passes away and realizes that living people almost never appreciate life while they live it. But to craft his message, Wilder not only uses characterization, but he also uses dramatic elements, such as his Stage Manager, time shifting, and direct messaging. This essay will illustrate how Wilder combines his use of characterization with other dramatic

Stimson is the choir director of the church, but he is known to be an alcoholic and he also struggles with depression throughout his life. Later in the play Joe Stoddard tells the audience that Simon tragically committed suicide in his attic after years of struggling with alcoholism. Simon says to Emily “Yes, Now you know. Now you know! That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know - That's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness...” (109). Wilder uses the suicidal depressed character Simon Stimstonto expalain that all life is valuable and you never know when someone is at their rock bottom and sometime all someone needs is a person the talk to. He uses this to convey to the audience a greater message that if all someone does is ignore and act blind to the fact that someone needs help that could be all they need. The sadness that Simon goes through, knowing all the time wasted drinking and being depressed brings him almost a sense of anger or irritation. This is another example of how Wilder uses the characterization of Simon Stimston to convey the importance of

As Crowell is having his morning interaction with Doc Gibbs like every other day, the Stage Manager breaks the news to the audience that Joe gets drafted into war and gets killed. Stage Manager tells the audience ,“Want to tell you something about that boy Joe Crowell there. Joe was awful bright-graduated from high school here, head of his class. So he got a scholarship to Massachusetts Tech. Graduated head of his class there, too. It was all wrote up in the Boston paper at the time. Goin' to be a great engineer, Joe was, But the war broke out and he died in France.-All that education for nothing…” (9). Here the Stage Manager lists all of Joe’s accomplishments and makes the audience think how great this kid will turn out to be but in actuality he dies in just a few years. This shows the audience that life is too sweet and valuable not to pay attention too. Wilder uses dramatic irony throughout Joe’s story. He also uses Joe to demonstrate characterization, on how the reader should feel about the character throughout the