Realism And Idealism In Thornton Wilder's Our Town

In Act III of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, the audience is told to avoid cynicism, but to balance Realism and Idealism through the actions and words of the characters. When Emily Webb enters the graveyard, she is greeted by the people she knew growing up. Though these people are dead, they still kept their same personality as they did when they lived on Earth. Emily finds herself smiling among those she loved most in her small town that had passed. She talks about her life and how great the farm was to Mrs. Gibbs. Eventually, Emily wants to go back to the day she wanted to marry George Gibbs. Though, the others convince her to choose a less important day in her life because it will be too hard to bare. Emily chooses her twelfth birthday and the Stage

She couldn’t take it anymore. The sadness and the suffering that Emily had gone through was unbearable. She wanted to go back to her grave. One last request was granted before she left. Emily went to say goodbye to the places she loved most: “Good-by, Good-By, world. Good-by Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking… and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths… and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.” (108). Emily regretted ever going back once she got back to the grave. A cynical Simon Stimson greeted Emily back with: “Now you know—That’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.” (109). Though, Mrs. Gibbs rebuffed him saying that is not the whole truth and told Emily to gaze upon the stars. This is Idealism what Mrs. Gibbs mentions. The stars and nature shows what an ideal world would be like in the afterlife. No one has time to waste and to appreciate the world as it is. Humans are not complex enough to understand the beauty: “They don’t understand, do they” (111). Mrs. Gibbs responded to Emily with: “No, dear. They don’t