Oedipus Rex, Our Town: The Stairs Of Life

The Stairs of Life In the first act of life, people crawl on all fours. In the second act of love and marriage, they walk on two legs. In the third act of death, people walk with a cane, and eventually meet their untimely demise. Similar to the sphinx’s riddle in Oedipus Rex, Our Town, written by Thornton Wilter, includes these major themes in each scene of the play. The first act includes the theme of small town life where the story takes place in New Hampshire in a small fictional town known as Grover’s Corners. Within this little town, everyone knows one another, and can feel for each other. The second act is mainly about the themes love, and marriage. George Gibbs is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs. He has a great love for Emily Webb, who is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Webb. The two love birds eventually marry, and are very happy with themselves until Act three begins. Act three has the main theme of death, and sadly Emily passes away and joins a group of dead souls in the cemetery. Together, these three acts show the story of a town experiencing life through birth, love, and death. Reading about Grover’s Corners gives an utter feeling of the small town life, and act one is primarily about daily life and birth. In the very beginning of the story Dr. Gibbs delivers twins symbolizing birth, the first stage of …show more content…
Act one focuses on birth and daily life in a small-town. Act two features love and marriage, where George and Emily both fall in love and become loftly wedded. The last scene, act three, is about death, which is displayed when Emily passes away and joins Grover’s Corners other souls in the graveyard. Emily questions peoples’ motives, and asks “ ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? every,every, minute?’ ” (108). The stage manager simply replies with, “ ‘No.’ ” (108). Life is fleeting, and people never appreciate what they have until it is