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I think that once you’ve found a person that you’re very fond of . . . I mean a person who’s fond of you, too, and likes you enough to be interested in your character. . . . Well, I think that’s just as important as college is, and even more so. That’s what I think.

George says these words to Emily while the two sit in Mr. Morgan’s drugstore, drinking ice-cream sodas, during the flashback in Act II. This passage is one of the play’s crucial moments, when the two young people first reveal their romantic feelings toward one another. George’s revelation persuades him to forego agriculture school and stay in Grover’s Corners with Emily instead. Rather than set love aside in order to continue his education, George prefers to focus on what he considers truly important. By prioritizing love above college, George illustrates the human desire for companionship that pervades the play. As the Stage Manager says a little later, our millions of ancestors “set out to live two-by-two also.” Our Town is a play about community as much as it is about individual experience. George and Emily simply exhibit the desire for love that all human beings share. This moment also suggests that college may not be a natural or inevitable stage of human development. Love, however, is natural—at least in the context of Wilder’s view of life as a general movement from birth to death.

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