Summary
[P]eople are meant to go through life
two by two. ’Tain’t natural to be lonesome.
See Important Quotations Explained
The Stage Manager watches the audience return from intermission, and
announces that three years have passed. It is now July 7, 1904, just
after commencement at the local high school. The Stage Manager tells
us that the first act was called “Daily Life,” and that this second
act is entitled “Love and Marriage.” He says that a third act will
follow, and that the audience can guess what that act will be about.
We witness another morning scene, much like the first,
except this time it is raining heavily. Howie Newsome delivers milk
and runs into the paperboy—now Si Crowell, the younger brother of
Joe Crowell, Jr.—and Constable Warren. They discuss the impending marriage
of George Gibbs. Si bemoans the fact that George will have to stop
playing baseball. He says George was the “best baseball pitcher
Grover’s Corners ever had.” The Constable and Si continue on their
way, and Howie stops to chat at the Gibbs household, where Mrs.
Gibbs is preparing for the wedding guests she expects to host later
that day. Howie then crosses the yard and talks to Mrs. Webb. Their
conversation reveals to the audience that George has become engaged
to Emily Webb.
Back in the Gibbs’s kitchen, Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs reminisce
about the morning of their own wedding. George comes downstairs
and announces that he is going next door to see Emily. Mrs. Gibbs makes
him put on overshoes because of the rain. George hurries across
the yard, but Mrs. Webb will not let him see Emily because she believes
it is bad luck for the groom to see the bride anytime on the wedding
day prior to the ceremony. Mr. Webb agrees with this superstition,
and Mrs. Webb runs upstairs to make sure Emily does not come down.
Left alone, Mr. Webb and George awkwardly discuss weddings and the
idea of what makes a happy marriage. The Webbs then shoo George
out of the house.
The Stage Manager reappears and interrupts the action
again. He announces that, before proceeding, we need to find out
how George and Emily’s relationship began. We flash back to the
beginning of George and Emily’s courtship, at the end of their junior
year in high school. George and Emily appear onstage. George has
just been elected president of his class, and Emily has been elected
secretary and treasurer. Emily carries a handful of invisible books,
which George offers to carry for her. As they walk home together,
Emily remarks that a change has come over George since he became
a local baseball star. She says he has become “conceited and stuck-up.” Although
hurt, George takes her words to heart. Emily, suddenly mortified
at her own bluntness, apologizes to George and begins to cry.
George tells Emily not to be concerned and invites her
to have an ice-cream soda with him at the local drugstore. The Stage
Manager dons spectacles and assumes the role of the druggist, Mr.
Morgan. Emily and George sit at the counter and talk about the future. George
talks about his tentative plans to go to the State Agriculture School.
Throughout the conversation, however, George weighs the idea of
continuing his formal education against the idea of staying in Grover’s
Corners with Emily, revealing his fondness for her.
The Stage Manager takes off his spectacles and returns
us to the day of the wedding. He waits and watches while stagehands
clear away the chairs and tables and set up rows of pews at center
stage. After announcing that he will now play the role of the clergyman and
that the play is about to get “pretty serious,” the Stage Manager launches
into a short sermon about the divine power that wills the existence
of marriage and procreation and about the importance of marriage
in human history.
