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[P]eople are meant to go through life two by two. ’Tain’t natural to be lonesome.

Mrs. Gibbs makes this remark in Act II, on the morning of George’s wedding to Emily, as she comments to her husband on the importance of companionship. Mrs. Gibbs’s remark articulates one of the play’s central themes: the sanctity of human interactions. This theme is echoed in the repeated singing of the hymn “Blessed Be the Tie that Binds” and in the fact that the narrative structure focuses on the marriage between George and Emily. In context, Mrs. Gibbs’s statement pertains to marriage and to the natural tendency for romantic love to flourish between two people. However, her comment also applies in a broader sense to the other, nonromantic relationships that receive attention throughout the play. In fact, Wilder may even privilege platonic companionship and general human connections above romance. Mrs. Gibbs implies that marriage is “natural” and that marriage eradicates loneliness.

In reality, however, some married people remain lonely in the play, like Simon Stimson and his wife. Stimson, the lonely drunk who has “seen a peck of trouble,” receives very little active compassion from his fellow townspeople, who never even tell us what his “trouble” is. Without his community’s active compassion and care, he becomes even more cynical and pained. Wilder asserts that all loneliness, including loneliness in marriage, is unnatural, and thus implicitly criticizes Mrs. Gibbs’s small town idealism. In Our Town, Wilder highlights the importance of communication and human connections, literally bringing his audience into contact with his characters by breaking the fourth wall and thereby defying the theatrical convention of separating the actors from the audience.

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