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Our Town Analysis

Decent Essays

4. The title of the play Our Town is not just speaking of the small town in the book, but all other towns as well. Its families and events are universal, and can relate to anyone. For example, in the very beginning of the play the Stage Manager introduces the play and its setting. He states, “This play is called ‘Our Town.’ It was written by Thornton Wilder … The name of the town is Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire … Here’s the grocery store and here’s Mr. Morgan’s drugstore … Public School’s over yonder. High School’s still father over. Quarter of nine mornings, noontimes, and three o’clock afternoons, the hull town can hear the yelling and screaming from those schoolyards … Nice town, y’know what I mean?” By describing the different places and people of the town the book makes the town relatable to the …show more content…

In addition, Mr. Webb also helps to describe the town, saying, “Well… I don’t have to tell you that we’re run here by a Board of Selectmen.−All males vote at the age of twenty-one. Women vote indirect. We’re lower middle class: sprinkling of professional men… ten per cent illiterate laborers. Politically, we’re eighty-six per cent Republicans; six per cent Democrats; four per cent Socialists; rest, indifferent. Religiously, we’re eighty-five per cent Protestants; twelve per cent Catholics; rest, indifferent … Very ordinary town, if you ask me.” Mr. Webb explains that the town is pretty much like all the others, with its many different aspects. Like any other town, Grover’s Corners has its range of diversity. Lastly, in the second act the Stage Manager explains, “It’s three years later. It’s 1904 ... And there’s Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb come down to make breakfast, just as though it were an ordinary day. I don’t have to point out to the women in the audience that those ladies they see before them, both of those ladies cooked three meals a day−one of ‘em for twenty years, the other for forty−and no

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