"our town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

You could say that Our Town has two settings. One is the town of Grover's Corners. The other is the stage on which the play is being performed. You can't ignore either one.

Grover's Corners has a very specific location. It's not just in New Hampshire, for the Stage Manager also gives you its latitude and longitude. For an imaginary town it has a very exact place on the globe. It has a history as well. Not a history of great men--the Stage Manager says the town never had them--but a geological and anthropological history, taking you hundreds of millions of years into the past.

The Stage Manager also gives you a date for the first act--May 7, 1901. This is the good old days. It was even the good old days in 1938 when Our Town was first performed--the days before the national economy dominated most every part of the country, before World War I transformed the world. But again it is a very specific date, just as it is a very specific location.

At the same time you should note that the play is called Our Town, not A Town. This is where the bare stage comes in. Wilder uses it to make clear that he is really talking about everyone's town, just as he is talking about universal feelings and emotions, about human life in general, rather than about a few specific lives.

Wilder knew that every person who lives encounters birth, love, and death. You know it, too. By stripping the stage of the trappings of naturalism, the realistic scenery and costumes generally found on the stage then (and now), Wilder emphasizes the symbolic nature of the play, its location, and its characters.

"When you emphasize place in the theater," Wilder said, "you drag down and limit and harness time to it." By not having the stage represent any one specific era, the play transcends any particular time and represents all times.

Wilder had some definite notions about the nature of time. One of the major differences between a novel and a play, he pointed out, was that a novel takes place in the past, but a play always takes place in the present. Although it may be 1901 in Grover's Corners, it is also today on the stage whenever the play is being performed.

^^^^^^^^^^OUR TOWN: THEMES

The following are major themes of Our Town.

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVE

Love is mentioned often in Our Town, and it is illustrated many times. The major characters all love one another, and as the play progresses you are given examples of different types of love.

In Act I you see family love and friendship. Parents and children love each other and neighbors love each other, just as ideally they should. In Act II, you see romantic love, culminating in marriage, again as ideally it should. In Act III you see the kind of love that is perhaps hardest to understand, spiritual, selfless love, love that expects no return.

2. THE CONTINUITY OF HUMAN LIFE

Over and over in the play you are reminded of the repetition of the cycle of Life. The play begins with the birth of twins in Polish town and ends with Emily's death in childbirth. Yet she leaves another child behind, a part of her, just as she goes to join her predecessors in the graveyard on the hill.

Notice the Stage Manager's comments throughout the play. He continually refers to things that happen over and over, to the ways people behave, generation after generation. Look at his comments about the wedding in particular. Can you see why he mentions both the ancestors and the future generations?

3. THE BEAUTY OF LIFE

You'll probably find Wilder's enthusiasm for life the most obvious theme in Our Town. He said that the play is "an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life." This theme seems the most important reason for the play's popularity. At the same time, it is responsible for most of the criticism that attacks the play as being overly sentimental.

Is the play a valid celebration of the beauty of life? Does Wilder successfully point out the marvels of everyday existence that are ignored by most people and realized only sometimes by poets and saints? Or is the play a sentimental cop-out? Has Wilder made it easy to talk about the wonders of life by omitting the problem of evil from his play? Keep these questions in mind as you read the play.

4. THE MEANING OF LIFE

Wilder is often considered a religious writer, and Our Town is considered by many to be a religious play. Can you see why? Consider how often churches are mentioned, how often you hear religious hymns being sung. Is this just one of the realistic details put into the play? Probably not. After all, there was probably a general store in a town like this, too, but Wilder doesn't mention one.

We mentioned the interpretation of the Stage Manager as God in The Characters section. You might also look at his speech at the beginning of Act III. "Everybody knows that something is eternal," he says. Wilder may not say what the meaning of life is, but he certainly seems to suggest that there is a meaning.

5. THE UNIVERSAL VS. THE PARTICULAR

Here you have to deal with a question about the nature of reality. In Our Town, Wilder seems to be forcing the reader or the audience to see the characters as representing human nature in general. Do you remember Rebecca's speech about her friend's letter, with the address giving her a place in the universe? Did you notice how often the words "hundreds" and "thousands" and "millions" are used in the play? These details suggest that the characters should be understood as part of a greater reality, as part of human existence, not just as part of Grover's Corners. Can you think of any other devices Wilder uses to give a larger context to the play?

6. THE NATURE OF TIME

Wilder thought of past, present, and future all existing at the same time, though people can only see one moment of it at a particular instant. In Our Town, however, he shows different times existing together. For example, when you walk into the theater, the man who turns out to be the Stage Manager is standing there in the present, but he tells you that it is 1901. Later, he interrupts the wedding preparations to send the characters back to their courtship. You'll want to reflect on the importance of this idea in the play.