ipl-logo

Our Town Play Analysis

614 Words3 Pages

JOY OLAKANLU Title: Critique of a play “Our Town” The play “Our Town” written by Thornton Wilder produced by the West Port Country Play house opens by introducing the audience to its setting with an opening sound, Grover's Corners, and the narrator of the play who also interacts with the audience. The narrator knows the thoughts and actions of all the characters. Grover's Corners is a small town, still years away from its first automobile. As the narrator notes, most families stay in Grover's Corners forever; It’s a recreation of normal daily activities of a small town that introduced us to the WEBS and GIBBSES who are two main families of the town. The genre is drama with setting of a 1901 to 1913. Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. It’s a play that considered Life and death in an American small town as a subject. Behind Wilder's emphasis on a bare stage is a subtle understanding of how our minds work during a play. We can imagine any small town. Set on the individual mental stage conjured up in each …show more content…

The setting is the barest minimum. There is virtually no plot; consequently no suspense, expectation, or anticipation.Wilder also breaks with traditional concepts of dramatic illusion. In the usual play, the dramatist hopes that the audience will become emotionally involved in imaginary events and will forget the surrounding theater. Wilder makes no effort to convince the audience that the events of the play are real. In fact, he constantly reminds the audience that they are in a theater watching actors perform in a make-believe world. Wilder's purpose is to present, as far as possible, an enactment of a typical day in a small town. Wilder tries to include anecdotal, Norman Rockwell–style activities connected with the humor and traditional elements that accompany a wedding. In this way, he evokes a sense of its importance, even though one wedding does not differ demonstrably from

Show More
Related

In Small Towns, Gossip Moves To The Web And Turns Vicious Summary

1496 Words | 6 Pages

Throughout this piece the author’s frequent use of location descriptors such as “rural,” “town,” “community,” and “neighbor” play a vital role in the construction of this story. The use of these words nineteen times suggests that the author’s story will focus on small towns and the constant flow of gossip within, despite their neighborly feel. In one section of this piece, the author explained that large communities can not keep up with each other’s gossip, while small towns tend to thrive on it. The inclusion of this portion suggests that the author finds gossip and rumors to be a vital part of the small town experience, thus creating a traditional small

Read More

Jacqueline Woodson's When A Southern Town Broke A Heart

669 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever felt safe somewhere, but realized your only protection was ignorance? In Jacqueline Woodson’s When a Southern Town Broke a Heart, she introduces the idea that as you grow and change, so does your meaning of home. Over the course of the story, Woodson matures and grows older, and her ideas about the town she grew up in become different. When she was a nine year old girl, Woodson and her sister returned to their hometown of Greenville, South Carolina by train. During the school year, they lived together in Downtown Brooklyn, and travelled to.

Read More

Bulrusher Play Analysis

1692 Words | 7 Pages

The black box theater is a very intimate setting to begin with, and as I took my seat in the theater, I felt that intimacy. The theater was dark, and the audience was virtually silent before the production began. As I sat waiting for the performance to begin, I took in the lighting, the props, and the set as a whole, and I began to feel as if I were sitting just at the edge of a different time period. The design element that stood out most to me was the lighting of the river because the gobos and the selection of down lights made the river come to life, almost as if it was another character in this production. I was definitely drawn into the world of this play due to the intimacy of the black box theater and the lighting design of the

Read More

The Cradle Will Rock: Play Analysis

1704 Words | 7 Pages

Therefore, the initial directions for each scene in the script for The Cradle Will Rock suggests that Blitzstein is more concerned with the actors ' particular performances than the details of the set, which allows for more interpretive freedom in designing it. The last piece of direction is one of very few moments in the written script that evoke Expressionist alienation. The act of having the actors go through the aisles of the audience is similar to Wilder 's Our Town, when members of the audience are characters in the play interact with the stage manager (Wilder 24-26). In the Ithaca College production of The Cradle Will Rock, the actors often walked through the aisles in

Read More

Compare And Contrast Local Milkman And Howie In Our Town

1068 Words | 5 Pages

Instead Wilder makes an effort to create characters who condemn small town life. By doing so Wilder emphasizes the imperfection that is found among every

Read More

Emotional Complexity In Thornton Wilder's Our Town

336 Words | 2 Pages

In Our Town, Thornton Wilder arranges an empty stage to portray life in Grover’s Corner as a stereotypical American town, and he seeks to enlighten his audience on a more relevant aspect of the seemingly boring village in this way. Wilder puts emphasis in displaying an altogether normal community through the narration of the stage manager and the stage presentation to provide viewers with an understanding of the emotional complexity of a human’s life. For instance, in the beginning of act one, he sets a literal stage as an introduction into the setting of the story: “No curtain. No scenery. The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-light.

Read More

Examples Of Quotes From In Cold Blood Quotes

516 Words | 3 Pages

In describing the land as extensively beautiful and “out there”, Truman Capote is setting an environment of an isolated small town, where not much ever happens. This sets a contradictory theme for the rest of the book, as a small community of neighbors and friends turn on each other after a series of murders take place. In describing the town of Holcomb, Kansas, Capote uses strong imagery to set the tone for the small town as “calm before the storm.” Furthermore, Capote compares the unique grain fields to that of ancient Greek temples, indicating that the story contained in this novel has a larger significance as an inside look of timeless human themes such as murder and hatred and how these have existed for all of humanity.

Read More

Brief Summary Of The Play Our Town

547 Words | 3 Pages

Our Town is a three-act play written by Thornton Wilder which guides the audience through a typical day in Grover’s Corners, a traditional American town in New Hampshire. In Act I, the Stage Manager introduces us to Dr. Gibbs who lives with his wife, his son George, and his daughter Rebecca in an archetypical American family household. They live next to the similar Webb family household where Mr. Webb lives with his wife, his daughter Emily, and his son Wally. In the mornings, both families send their children off to school after breakfast. At night, Emily, George, and Rebecca talk to one another through their windows while the choir sings in the background.

Read More

A Rhetorical Analysis Of In Cold Blood

940 Words | 4 Pages

Capote hints at the change in this neighborhood through foreshadowing, he also emphasizes it through the repetition of the word strange. This town is losing the normality that it had and it isn’t just neighbors becoming strangers to each other but the town becoming a stranger to its occupants. In a time of need where they should be able to lean on each other to heal they will feel as though they can’t trust anyone, a message that Capote works into every bit of the book because he saw how the town didn’t only lose the Clutter family but they lost the trust they had in their town until the case was

Read More

Our Town Movie Vs Play

888 Words | 4 Pages

Our Town is a award winning three act play written by Thornton Wilder. Few years later it was made into a motion picture. In the story, it takes place in Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire. It centers around two families living everyday life in the early 1900’s. Surrounded by the people that live a simple life.

Read More

Brief Summary Of The Play Our Town

777 Words | 4 Pages

The play Our Town is about the people of a small town of Grover's Corners in New Hampshire. This play focuses mainly on two families, the Gibbs and the Webbs. The play portrays teenage years, love and marriage, and death throughout the three acts. Throughout the play, Emily Webb, Mrs. Gibbs, and Joe Crowell suddenly die suddenly when they had their whole lives ahead of them. Wilder conveys that death happens at any time so one should live every day like it will be their last.

Read More

Relationship Of Racism In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

1315 Words | 6 Pages

James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” tells the story of two brothers living in 1950s Harlem. The story depicts the relationship of the brothers as the younger brother, Sonny, battles to overcome a heroin addiction and find a career in jazz. In “Sonny’s Blues”, Baldwin’s shifting portrayal of Harlem mirrors the changing relationship of the two brothers: while both the city and the relationship were originally with dark uncertainty, by the end of the story, the narrator has begun to find peace both within his surroundings and his relationship with his brother. At the beginning of the story, before Sonny returns to Harlem, the narrator never describes his surroundings, only the people in them.

Read More

How Wilder Shows The Importance Of Community In Our Town

507 Words | 3 Pages

Whether it is someone who is just saying "hello" or a person who communicates during the entire play, conversation portrays a large part throughout the novel. Thornton Wilder brings to our attention the importance of community through dialogue by the simple, what seems to be nonexistent, roles in the play. For instance, Joe Crowell Jr., the mailman has what seems to be insignificant conversations with each character he delivers mail to, when overall, the reader begins to have more knowledge about the town and the kind of community that Grover's Corner is. As Joe was talking to Dr. Gibbs, he found out that some twins were born in Polish Town, and in some way or another, the message got to multiple people in no time. In other words, just a few sentences from Joe Crowell to some of the townspeople displays to the reader the importance of community and the diverse ways a community can spread

Read More

A Raisin In The Sun Film Analysis

1601 Words | 7 Pages

While both stage and screen portrayals were highly acclaimed there are some similarities as well as some marked differences in each interpretation. On the surface, the first difference noted between the stage and screen versions are the sets. The stage version describes the setting of the play, the Younger family living room, as a

Read More

The Role Of Eternity In Thornton Wilder's Our Town

460 Words | 2 Pages

By doing so, Thornton Wilder simplifies his play and further develops the Stage Manager’s definition of eternity. The props symbolize the small details of life since their absence does not affect the play, and characters recognize the small details of life after they transition into eternity; therefore, this absence conforms to the Stage Manager’s belief that eternity serves as a bridge between ungrateful and modesty. Audience members observe the missing props in the beginning of the play: “...he stops, setting down his-- imaginary-- black bag, takes off his hat, and rubs his face with fatigue…” (Wilder 24) along with Emily’s realization of smaller details, such as how young her mother is, in Act III, after she passes into eternity. Evidently, the events in the play concur with the Stage Manager’s definition of eternity and the purpose it

Read More

More about Our Town Play Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document