Our Town In The 1930s

277 Words2 Pages
Wilder wrote Our Town in the 1930s, a time of widespread economic hardship that led many to expect authors to use their works as instruments of social criticism. Wilder’s story of small town life exists within a genre that often found authors attempting to reveal the corruption beneath the surface of the seeming tranquility of rural life. On one hand, Our Town seems to offer a defiant, overwhelmingly positive portrayal of a fictional New England town around 1900. The children appear well behaved, the parents appear decent and hardworking, and all one must do to find love is ask a neighbor to have an ice-cream soda.On the other hand, however, Wilder does not idealize the town of Grover’s Corners. He actively encourages us to think about the