Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.
The Transience of Human Life
Although Wilder explores the stability of human traditions
and the reassuring steadfastness of the natural environment, the
individual human lives in Our Town are transient,
influenced greatly by the rapid passage of time. The Stage Manager
often notes that time seems to pass quickly for the people in the
play. At one point, having not looked at his watch for a while,
the Stage Manager misjudges the time, which demonstrates that sometimes
even the timekeeper himself falls victim to the passage of time.
In light of the fact that humans are powerless to stem
the advance of time, Wilder ponders whether human beings truly appreciate
the precious nature of a transient life. Act I, which the Stage
Manager entitles “Daily Life,” testifies to the artfulness and value
of routine daily activity. Simple acts such as eating breakfast
and feeding chickens become subjects of dramatic scenes, indicating
the significance Wilder sees in such seemingly mundane events. Wilder
juxtaposes this flurry of everyday activity with the characters’ inattentiveness
to it. The characters are largely unaware of the details of their
lives and tend to accept their circumstances passively. The Gibbs
and Webb families rush through breakfast, and the children rush
off to school, without much attention to one another. They, like
most human beings, maintain the faulty assumption that they have
an indefinite amount of time on Earth. Mrs. Gibbs refrains from
insisting that her husband take her to Paris because she thinks
there will always be time to convince him later.
The dead souls in Act III emphasize this theme of transience,
disapproving of and chastising the living for their “ignorance”
and “blindness.” The dead even view George’s grief and prostration upon
Emily’s grave as a pitiable waste of human time. Instead of grieving
for the dead, they believe, the living should be enjoying the time
they still have on Earth.
The medium of theater perfectly suits Wilder’s intent
to make ordinary lives and actions seem extraordinary, as the perspective
of the dead souls parallels the audience’s perspective. Just as
the dead souls’ distance finally enables them to appreciate the
daily events in Grover’s Corners, so too does the audience’s outsider
perspective render daily events valuable. We have never before witnessed
a Gibbs family breakfast, and when the scene is dramatized on the stage,
we see it as significant. Indeed, every action on the stage becomes
significant, from Howie Newsome’s milk delivery to the town choir
practice.
The Importance of Companionship
Because birth and death seem inevitable, the most important
stage of life is the middle one: the quest for companionship, friendship, and
love. Humans have some degree of control over this aspect of life.
Though they may not be fully aware of their doing so, the residents
of Grover’s Corners constantly take time out of their days to connect
with each other, whether through idle chat with the milkman or small
talk with a neighbor. The most prominent interpersonal relationship
in the play is a romance—the courtship and marriage of George and
Emily—and Wilder suggests that love epitomizes human creativity
and achievement in the face of the inevitable advance of time.
Though romance is prominent in Our Town,
it is merely the most vivid among a wide range of bonds that human
beings are capable of forging. Wilder depicts a number of different
types of relationships, and though some are merely platonic, all
are significant. From the beginning of Act I, the Stage Manager
seeks to establish a relationship with the audience, which forges
a tie between the people onstage and the audience offstage. Within
the action of the play, we witness the milkman and the paperboy
chatting with members of the Gibbs and Webb families as they deliver
their goods. The children walk to and from school in groups or pairs.
Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb, next-door neighbors, meet in their yards
to talk. We glimpse Mr. and Mrs. Webb and Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs in
private conversation. As Mrs. Gibbs articulates, “Tain’t natural
to be lonesome.”
